My son and I recently enjoyed a fantastic exhibition, Carl Abbott: Architecture for Nature, at the Sarasota Art Museum of the Ringling College of Art+Design. The exhibit features over a dozen Abbott projects exemplifying his “unique climate and site-based perspective on living in harmony with one’s environment.”
Carl Abbott is the last in a line of architects who hails back to the midcentury-modern Sarasota School of Architecture’s heyday. He is one of the most highly awarded architects in the Florida/Caribbean Region and has been designing homes and public buildings in the Sarasota area for more than 50 years.
Abbott’s Bayou Studio on the Whitaker Bayou’s banks is the inspiration for his creativity and his home and studio since the early 1970s. The Bayou Studio functions as an evolving “work in progress” and serves as an experimental and experiential laboratory space where he conceptualizes his projects. The Museum states that “nature is at the heart of Carl Abbott’s creative practice. All of his gestures — however small or grand — exemplify Abbott’s committed ethic and aesthetics, his site-based perspective on living in harmony with one’s environment.
If you have an opportunity to see the exhibit, do so before May 2. You will not be disappointed but inspired. Click here to read more about the Carl Abbott Architecture for Nature installation.