Despite the changes wrought by humankind, the urban setting still has natural, indigenous features that an architect can recognize and honor.
“The sun still comes up in the same place as it always has, and there are always two equinoxes and two solstices,” says award-winning architect Johnpaul Jones. “The natural world still exists all around us.”
Jones will discuss his approach to “indigenous” design in the third and last in a series of lectures to benefit the Housing Resources Board this week, illustrating his talk with the work his firm has done on the Smithsonian National Museum of American Indians on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
“You look at the history of the site, what the memory of the site is,” Jones said. “That site was originally a wetlands, with a creek running through it. We restored an acre of wetlands on the east end, with dragonflies and butterflies, and we’ll put in frogs.
“That will be the main entry, the east entrance. A lot of Indians enter their formal and informal buildings from the east.”
An Oklahoma native of Cherokee-Choctaw heritage, Jones says American Indians (his term) may have dozens of different languages, but are connected through their recognition of four areas of existence – the natural, animal, spiritual and human.
The philosophy underlying his design approach has been to consider those aspects, he said.
“You should address those four areas when you try to solve a problem,” he said.
Not surprisingly, one of Jones’ areas of activity has been in the area of zoos, including Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, which he designed in 1972, and the Tacoma Zoo.
“We were one of the first to put the animals in their natural habitats, where they started acting more naturally,” he said.
Jones grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, graduated from the University of Oregon, then moved to the Seattle area.
He founded Jones and Jones, a 40-person firm located in Pioneer Square, and has lived on Bainbridge for 35 years.
The firm does both building and landscape architecture, with an emphasis on the latter.
Last year, the American Society of Landscape Architects named Jones and Jones its firm of the year for its overall body of work,.
Jones’ highest-profile work on the island has been to design the proposed Japanese-American exclusion memorial at the Taylor Avenue road-end, site of the old Eagledale ferry dock.
Many of Bainbridge’s Japanese-American citizens were put aboard a ferry at that site in 1942, and taken to an internment camp in the California desert.
Much of that work involved listening to those islanders who actually experienced the event, he said.
“We tried to get them to talk, to find out what this means to you,” he said. “We want the visitors who come to the site to feel the emotions they went through, to understand the spirit of the place.”
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Johnpaul Jones will give a lecture on indigenous design at 7:30 p.m. June 5, at the BPA Playhouse. Admission is $15 for adults, $12 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at Eagle Harbor Books, Vern’s Winslow Drugs and Hallmark McBride. Proceeds benefit the Bainbridge Island Housing Resources Board. Reservations and information: 842-1909.
