PHOTO BY PETER AARON FOR ESTO

Academy of American Poets is a project that hMa completed in 2000.  Poets and poetry mean a great deal to us as architects.  hMa considers architectural space-making as poetry that is made in solid form. 

hMa started the design process for this project with a poem:  SUR cen SURE -  a poem by Marcel Duchamp.  We started the project with this poem, and taking Duchamp’s method of using found objects and random selection as a means of designed the space for the Academy of American Poets.

 "SUR cen SURE" A POEM BY MARCEL DUCHAMP; MODEL PHOTO

hMa’s final design was a ‘musical arrangement’ of book shelves and cases that define the edge of offices, and a library and performance space for poetry readings.  hMa attempted to create an architectural alphabet of spatial poetry for the Poets, and a new center for poetry reading.

The Academy of American Poets was constructed from book walls:  walls of windows; walls of books;  a wall of simultaneity.

PHOTO BY PETER AARON FOR ESTO

Click here to see more of the Academy of American Poets on hanrahanMeyers.com.