Interiors
Books as architecture
Books as architecture. A Baton Rouge field note on arrange books as
People rush books as architecture because the answer looks like taste. It is usually a measurement. At a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room, the measurement that mattered was about 9 feet of usable depth and a sill near 46 inches. I stood still for 23 minutes. The room changed more than I did. If I had started with a style, I would have repeated filling open shelves with objects that only work in a photograph, which is the local habit. That mistake makes limewashed plaster loud and the entry dumb. The picture, or the plan, stops explaining anything. So the correction is physical. I move my feet, or I move the object, before I move a setting. Edit the shelf until you can name every object. Applied here, that rule means a single framed photograph stays in the story and the rest of the entry has to justify itself.
The hour
I use a sample of the paint in the real light as a limit. A limit is what keeps books as architecture from becoming a tour of everything I noticed. The weather is part of the decision. Humidity has put a veil on the far trees. Ignoring it is how a Louisiana room gets photographed as if it were somewhere drier and kinder. A thin morning fog will tell you whether limewashed plaster can hold a color for the hour you care about. I check the entry from the doorway, from the seat a person actually uses, and from the corner that is slightly rude. The rude corner is often the true one, because it shows what this mistake is designed to hide: filling open shelves with objects that only work in a photograph. When I draw, the same corner becomes a section. When I photograph, it becomes the frame. The journal exists so those two notes can sit together. A workable test: can a stranger stand at a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room and point to a single framed photograph as the reason the decision was made? If they point at a finish instead, I have decorated the problem rather than solved it. Humidity is not a mood in this city. It changes limewashed plaster by the end of the day, and a plan that forgets that will look clever in April and tired in August. I would rather the note admit the season. March at a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room is not a neutral background for books as architecture.
The obvious version
The entry wants one job in this essay. I do not also solve the storage, the art, and the future addition. One job is how a field note stays honest. The query I am actually answering is arrange books as architecture. On the drawing table I write the rule in one line, then I try to break it with a sample of the paint in the real light. If it breaks, it was a slogan. It did not break. Edit the shelf until you can name every object. The portrait of the work, if I need one, includes me only so the scale is human: a person, a single framed photograph, and limewashed plaster under a thin morning fog. I am not interested in a picture that could have been made in any city. The live oaks, the porches, and the wet air have to be doing something. At a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room, what they are doing is this: they set the contrast, they set the patience, and they punish finishes that were chosen from a screen. So I let limewashed plaster look like itself. I do not rescue it in editing, and I do not specify a substitute that only behaves in a showroom. There is a smaller version of the same lesson in the hand. a single framed photograph either has a place or it is borrowing the entry. Borrowing is how houses fill up. The architectural version is an extra door. The domestic version is a second tray. Both show up as the same kind of miss: filling open shelves with objects that only work in a photograph.
A correction
I time the correction. 23 minutes is enough to decide, and not enough to fuss the life out of the room. Fussing is a tell. When I notice it, I step back to a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room and ask whether the entry still has a path through it. The path is the project. Books as architecture is only the name of the path today. If you want a number, use 9 feet as the minimum depth before a porch, a rug, or a run of cabinets gets to count as a place. Use 46 inches as a reminder that eye height, hand height, and sill height are the dimensions people actually touch. Use f/5.6 only if you are holding a camera. The point of the number is depth you can name, not a setting to worship. I write the caption before I trust the frame. The caption has to mention limewashed plaster and the hour. If it mentions neither, the picture is generic. Generic is the failure I am willing to be dull in order to avoid. A reader in Baton Rouge should be able to test this on the next Saturday. Go to a porch, a kitchen, or a drawer and try the rule once. Edit the shelf until you can name every object. Then stop. Another improvement, added on, is usually filling open shelves with objects that only work in a photograph in a nicer voice.
A rule small enough to remember
The houses I pay attention to are ordinary on purpose. A highland road carport that wants to be a room is not a case study with a client name. It is a condition I can return to. Returning matters more than coverage. Books as architecture gets clearer on the second visit, when I am less excited by a single framed photograph. Excitement is a bad editor. The second visit asks whether limewashed plaster still matters when the light is only a thin morning fog. Often it does. The things that fail the second visit were costume. I keep costume out of the plan, out of the frame, and out of the drawer. What remains is small enough to maintain in March, when the air is heavy and nobody wants a project. Maintenance is the part of architecture that photography can teach. A room you cannot put back in 23 minutes is a room that was never finished. Finished, here, does not mean decorated. It means the next person, or the same person on a tired Saturday, can tell what a single framed photograph is for. That is the whole practice. Draw it, photograph it, or put it away, but do not leave it unexplained in the entry. I left a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room with one sentence in the notebook and a sample of the paint in the real light put back where it lives. The sentence was the rule, copied without improvement: Edit the shelf until you can name every object.
Further notes
Questions
Where do you start with books as architecture?
Start at a Highland Road carport that wants to be a room by naming limewashed plaster and a single framed photograph before you change anything. Edit the shelf until you can name every object. Give it 23 minutes and stop.
What goes wrong most often?
The usual miss is filling open shelves with objects that only work in a photograph. It makes the entry look busier and less specific, and it hides the path a person actually uses.
Does this depend on Baton Rouge weather?
The weather changes the contrast, not the decision. Humidity has put a veil on the far trees. You still meter, draw, or sort for limewashed plaster under a thin morning fog.
interiors Baton Rouge field notes