Tombstones

Christina and I paid a visit to Marshall Brown at the MacDowell Colony in Petersborough, NH last month.  Marshall was 2/3rds of the way through an eight-week fellowship where he was holed up in the cottage called “The Shop” cranking out large-scale sketch models for a air-rights parcel hovering over a Chicago interchange. The site was originally the centerpiece of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 plan for Chicago and the proposed location for a monumental (think Albert Speer) civic center.

Marshall’s design methodology – based on military “scenario-planning” – was super-interesting.  We were equally captivated by the line-up of wood “tombstones” listing all of the past residents of Marshall’s studio-cottage.

-Tim