Sunday, 12 March 2006 | Elif Sungur
Barns of Western Pennsylvania
Despite rampant suburban sprawl in Western Pennsylvania, twenty-nine of the thirty-three counties in this half of the state are classified as rural, and agriculture remains a leading industry. Barns are thus an important component of this region's landscape, as well as extremely evocative icons in the popular mind. This exhibition traces the development of barns in the region from the late 18th century to the present through an exploration of their forms, functions, technological evolution, and role as barometers of change in the agrarian economy.
The Heinz Architectural Center's first exhibition to focus on a single vernacular building type, Barns of Western Pennsylvania: Vernacular to Spectacular presents a wide variety of objects to reveal the complexity of a deceptively straightforward building form. Models, photographs, barn-building tools, examples of barn decoration, replicas of the intricate joinery that account for the remarkable stability of barns, farm journals, and architectural pattern books are among the artifacts that document barns' evolution from simple log structures to the large, often stately edifices that continue to be significant landmarks on the rural scene. The exhibition also demonstrates the ways in which this everyday building type recently has been adapted and transformed for non-agricultural uses, thus linking tradition to the contemporary.
The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust. General support for museum programs is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Heinz Endowments.
The exhibition will take place until May 28, 2006.
For further information, please visit http://www.cmoa.org/exhibitions/exhibit.asp
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