Hello and welcome to Mid Century Modern Tennessee, a blog about, well, mid century modern architecture in Tennessee!
A little about us: we’re two casual architectural historians who have a deep passion for uncovering and documenting the history around Tennessee’s modernist architectural past. Our goal is to make y’all (yes, we say y’all) love the stories and structures as much as we do.
Why? Well, our world is woefully short on chronological continuity, the beauty that comes from being connected with our past. After all, the historic things in our world have stories to tell and lessons to teach us. So, it is our goal to bring together people who want to know those stories, people who want to learn those lessons.
For us, however, these stories and lessons are told through its structures. If we can build a community of caretakers, we can preserve Tennessee’s modernist architecture, letting current and future generations hear the stories, learn the lessons, and, ultimately, enjoy their life because of the history that these structures speak to.
Architecture is a reflection of the attitude of the community – a physical manifestation of what we think is the good life. It can be a vehicle to enhance man’s dignity. If it doesn’t do that, it is a failure.
Francis P. Gassner
Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.
Louis Kahn
The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Life is architecture, and architecture is the mirror of life.
I.M. Pei
We would love to hear from you!