Local Architecture Featured in World Atlas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - UA architecture professor Marlon Blackwell is putting Fayetteville on the map ­- or rather, in the atlas. His Keenan TowerHouse, visible above the treetops on Old Wire Road, is one of 1,052 buildings from around the world featured in the new Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture, which focuses on work built since 1998. Another building by Blackwell, the Moore HoneyHouse in North Carolina, is also featured in the 812-page, 14.5-pound tome.

"Marlon Blackwell's inclusion in this architectural world tour reinforces his reputation as an emerging international talent," said School of Architecture Dean Jeff Shannon. "We are very fortunate to have him here as a resource for our students."

The two projects demonstrate the range of Blackwell's practice. The TowerHouse is an 80-foot-tall aerie that offers seclusion and spectacular views to owners James and Stacy Keenan, while the Moore HoneyHouse has a more utilitarian function as a carport and honey processing facility that cost less than most people's minivans. The structures have established Blackwell as a name to watch, one of architecture's rising stars. His TowerHouse graced the covers of the February 2001 issue of Architectural Record and the book "Private Towers" (HarperCollins, 2002) and was featured in "House: American Houses for the New Century" (Universe/Rizzoli, 2001). HoneyHouse was one of five designs chosen from 700 international entries for the 2002 ar+d Emerging Architecture award. The project was published in the London-based Architectural Review and was exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects last year.

Although he continues to develop an international presence with lectures across the U.S. and abroad, Blackwell is glad to return home to Northwest Arkansas because it's a place where "you can build well."
"There are people here who support architecture that deals with the present - and when you bring together a client, an architect and a builder with an idea and the courage to see it through, great things happen," Blackwell said recently.

Blackwell has a number of new projects in the works. The Fred and Mary Smith Razorback Golf Center, an austere form punctuated by bands of windows and enriched by dry stacked stone and copper cladding, was completed recently at the Blessings Golf Club in Johnson. A clubhouse at the same facility is currently under construction. The Bob Srygley office building in Johnson, a white ribbed metal and burnished concrete structure that will be completed this summer, is "an open challenge to what a suburban office building can be," Blackwell said with a grin. Blackwell is also working on several residential projects and a visitors' pavilion at Strawberry Fields Audubon Center in Holly Springs, Miss. His firm has been short listed in the national search for the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Nature Center.

The Phaidon Atlas places Blackwell's work within an international context, but a more comprehensive treatment of his career is forthcoming. Princeton Architectural Press is planning to publish a monograph on Blackwell in early 2005.