Facilitator – Farnham "Mike" Blair
Dates & Times – Tuesdays, Oct. 30-Nov. 16, 10:30am-12:30pm

Location – Blue Hill Public Library, Howard Room 

We all have visited houses that we almost instantly love – and houses that very quickly make us uneasy.  Some of our response comes from a home’s decorations, but most of it comes from the home’s design – our reaction to its uses of space, materials and light.  Learning how to articulate our feelings about house design is not only fun; it also brings us pleasure each time we enter a home that is new to us.  And we will see our own homes in a new way.    In this colloquy, we’ll first establish a critical background through the writings of Le Corbusier, likely the most influential thinker in modern architecture and author of the concept of a house as a “machine for living”, and through the observations of Alain de Botton, who focuses on the psychological and philosophical dimensions of architectural design.  Then, we’ll explore our reaction to the designs of various contemporary Maine houses.As architecture is an art—an area that provokes individual reaction—we’ll each be discovering how to express just what kind of house would appeal to us.

Farnham (Mike) Blair is a retired educator who is the author of five books (two of essays on art, two of poetry, and a memoir of his childhood). He is a graduate of Yale and Georgetown.