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Spirit of Place: Students go global |
We asked Travis Price more questions about his Spirit of Place projects, and this is what we learned:
About the floating house the students built in the Amazon: The house is part of an ecological research and resort village up river with canopy walks, sub-aqua septic systems, photovoltaic systems, and modernist indigenous architecture. It is occupied by visiting researchers and eco-tourists. It’s an amazing place with eco-activists running around with CIA and replete with smugglers and drug runners up river. Google Iquitos if you can.
Click here to see images of the students’ work in Nepal, Amazon, British Columbia and Ireland.
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About how he finds the sites for the projects: The sites are generally privately owned. Most times it’s a private owner. Many of the projects are also on the edge of government involvement, especially in Ireland where art is high on the agenda for particular government leaders.
Most of the projects come to me years in advance through a vast network I have at National Geographic, architects, and world clients. For instance, this year we are building the National Monument for the 250th anniversary of James Hoban (an architect of the White House) in Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland (a three-part project: 1. in Desart – birth spot, 2. Callan – the nearest township, 3. Washington, D.C., near the White House).
In 2009, our project will be a new Chuwa Temple deep into the Eastern Plateau of Chungpa, Tibet. We'll be working with monks, local villagers, and repatriates, all with Chinese applause and approvals.
About his adventures: There are so many, many amazing tales for each and every project, like being fire bombed by Maoists in Nepal, having Shamans and royalty worship at our site when finished and then dining with the Crown Prince three days before he kills all the royal family. Or swimming with piranhas in the Amazon by day and dining on them at night with live grubs. Or, building on the spot where River Dance was spawned in County Mayo, Ireland. Or paying off the Mafia in Pantelleria for designing the shrine of Venus where Odysseus lay with Circe. Or tricking the bureaucrats at Machu Picchu to drink at the opening party of the Star Gazing Temple to sign permits after it was built, while watching repressed Incans arrive to have their first non-Catholic all Quechwa wedding at the site. Or …
So much I am writing my second major commissioned book right now, Spirit of Place: Architectural Expeditions into the Ethno-Sphere, to be published by Palace Press. I anticipate it will be published by the end of 2009. There is a mini-chapter about it in my current book, The Archaeology of Tomorrow, which is available here.
Cultures and Sacred Space, in addition to being a full graduate studio and concentration, is now a two-year graduate program at Catholic University’s Department of Planning and Architecture. I am the director of the concentration.
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