2021-01-12 - Pleasant Hill Shaker Village

"The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it."

Thomas Merton

On the home stretch of an epic road trip across the south, we stopped at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Kentucky on the last leg home. Shaker furniture had long been familiar to me, and its influence on Modern designers for its rigorous simplicity and sound construction. This however was the first Shaker settlement I'd ever visited. In its current state, Pleasant Hill is only a shadow of its former glory. Many buildings have been lost since the formal dissolution of the community in 1910.

The architecture of the Shakers is simple, but not severe or minimalist. Materials themselves provide decoration and texture, frilly cornices and mouldings were too worldly perhaps for them. Spatial proportions are harmonious and everything was built with care and effort to last. Their sense of economics was to do thing right the first time - a sentiment we all would do well to remember. 

Camera: Samsung A-13
Medium: Digital