Located near Charleston in South Carolina, the Inn at Middleton Place was built in 1987 by architects W.G. Clark and Charles Menefee, and celebrated its 25th anniversary last month. Hailed for its modern design and connection to its environment, lead architect W.G. Clark approached the design in a manner that he felt complemented the surrounding historic Charleston architecture, and more importantly, in a way that ensured the buildings could blend into the natural landscape. As few trees as possible were removed or disturbed during construction, and over the years, fig vines have grown to cover many of the Inn's exterior walls. This oneness with its surroundings means that, for its 55 guest rooms, the Inn manages to maintain an essence more akin to that of a woodland cabin, than of intrusive commercial tourist lodgings.

 

In a 1991 essay titled Replacement, Clark wrote that all building should be atonement for the disturbance of the land. "At the necessary juncture of culture and place, architecture seeks not only the minimal ruin of landscape, but something more difficult: a replacement of what was lost with something that atones for that loss. In the best architecture, this replacement is through an intensification of the place, where it emerges no worse for human intervention, where culture's shaping of the place to specific use results in a heightening of the beauty of the landscape. In these places we seem worthy of existence."

http://www.wgclark-architects.com/index.html

Photographer - Tom Crane

Source - W.G. Clark

Jack Smylie