LaGrange Style

Magnolia is a traditional neighborhood community designed to reflect the architectural traditions of the Town of LaGrange, Georgia. It is the expression of those neighborhood traditions that connects us to the past and fulfills our human need to root our place in history. Vernacular is the language we use to express those local traditions, and when we refer to architectural vernacular, we mean the indigenous architectural language used to design the physical features of the neighborhoods ranging from homes, churches, recreation buildings and shops to garages, fences and even gates and pillars.

Classical ideals add a more sophisticated discipline to those local architectural traditions by organizing order, scale, principals of proportion and cultural origin. The LaGrange style reflects the integration of both languages; indigenous vernacular and the classical order.

ver•nac•u•lar  n. The standard native language of a country or locality.

Historically, the vernacular process was a widespread culture of general architectural knowledge that told the average person how to build a front door, a back porch, or a sunny garden spot. The vernacular process produced the great majority of buildings ever constructed by man, and did so in almost every case without the need for architects. It met basic human habitation needs such as shelter from a storm or a quiet place to teach the children. It also provided basic human habitation delights such as the glow of embers off the hearth late on a winter evening, or the cooling breezes you feel sitting on the porch of a side yard house in Charleston. Because the vernacular process addressed the issues of commodity, firmness, and delight in a very simple, straightforward, localized manner, the architecture it produced was firmly tied to the climate, topography, materials, culture, and other particulars of its region. In other words, vernacular architecture often looked very different from place to place but was created by a similar process worldwide.

Classical  adj. 1: of or characteristic of a form or system felt to be of first significance before modern times 2: of recognized authority or excellence.

The classical system, in contrast, was generally more sophisticated and dealt with human needs of a higher order. Humans have always had a great need to know who and where they are and to be in harmony with their surroundings. Classical architecture told us who we were by doing things as simple as reflecting the human form in both its vertical arrangement (head, body and feet) and its horizontal arrangement (fixed bilateral symmetry at the face; variable symmetry elsewhere). Classical architecture also told us who and where we were on a higher level by telling the stories both of our culture’s ancient origins and its more recent history. The classical established harmony with our surroundings using basic principles of proportion that had been understood for millennia and that are at the heart of music and many of the proportions of nature. Finally, the classical also told the story of a culture’s aspirations for a brighter future. Classical architecture was always performed by a trained hand due to the refinement of the story that was being told.

Neither the vernacular process nor the classical system worked well in the absence of the other. The classical system was based largely on a slow distillation of vernacular architecture. It took the noblest manifestations of the vernacular and refined them into a highly idealized form. The vernacular, on the other hand, was also informed by the classical. Simple vernacular farmhouses often were arranged to reflect some of the plainer classical patterns. Each fed off the other to create our most beloved places throughout the world and throughout history.

What are the characteristics of Vernacular Design?

  • The process works with a set of patterns held by a culture at large. It requires everyone involved (not just the architects and/or the builders) to act as generalists in the design and construction of their homes. They must know the general framework and the details of enough vernacular patterns to build a competent vernacular house. Once, everyone understood this. Remember the house-raisings or barn-raisings that your parents or grandparents talked about? They usually happened with no professional assistance because everyone knew how to make a welcoming front porch, a garden gate, or a sunny garden spot.
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  • Patterns are passed down from generation to generation. This means that they must be capable of being communicated to the next generation. The patterns must therefore be clear and rational. If so, then they are relatively immune to destruction by a new generation's question of “But why? ...” Communicating the reasons for using the pattern becomes essential.
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  • Patterns are modified in an evolutionary, utilitarian fashion. Old patterns that are no longer needed are simply discarded, like archaic words in a spoken language. Read any example of sixteenth-century English to discover how many words fall from usage over time. New patterns arise to meet new realities, just as the words “bandwidth,” “hypertext,” and “internet” have arisen in recent times. In both cases, explaining the reason for the pattern is crucial by testing both the continued viability of the old patterns and the rationale of the proposed new ones. And in doing so, vernacular architecture becomes the only truly modern architecture because it is constantly updated by the citizens of a place.

    • Because the vernacular will direct the vast majority of construction for the LaGrange Style, it must be eminently repeatable. To be repeatable, it must be able to:

    1. Be easily perceived. If the majority of people are expected to understand and employ the patterns, they simply cannot be difficult to figure out.
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    2. Be easily loved. Things that are easily loved get repeated the most, and are the patterns that make up the Most-Loved Places.
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    3. Be easily executed. Only the most-loved things that can be built easily without highly-skilled labor are really repeatable and capable of forming a tradition.

    The architectural vernacular of the “LaGrange Style” will begin with an existing language and let architecture evolve from there once the patterns become established. If we invent a new style, or language, of architecture that people have never seen, they'll be much less likely to love it.

    Because our current culture is unfamiliar with carrying the wisdom of a living vernacular, it should almost certainly be a very simple language. LaGrange has a great stock of very simple mill houses: vernacular homes that were nonetheless aware of basic classical principles of assembly. They may well be the perfect starting point. As a matter of fact, I cannot imagine a much better place to start than LaGrange. This is a rare opportunity indeed!

    Steve Mouzon
    Place makers