Stillness and Light

The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architecture

Henry Plummer

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780253007780
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

Shaker buildings have long been admired for their simplicity of design and sturdy craftsmanship, with form always following function. Over the years, their distinctive physical characteristics have invited as much study as imitation. Their clean, unadorned lines have been said to reflect core Shaker beliefs such as honesty, integrity, purity, and perfection. In this book, Henry Plummer focuses on the use of natural light in Shaker architecture, noting that Shaker builders manipulated light not only for practical reasons of illumination but also to sculpt a deliberately spiritual, visual presence within their space. Stillness and Light celebrates this subtly beautiful aspect of Shaker innovation and construction, captured in more than 100 stunning photographs.

1

SIMPLICITY ~ PRISTINE LIGHT

White-Painted Woodwork Meetinghouse (1820) Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

MONOTONE MASS

The radical simplification produced by a single exterior color, characteristic of Shaker architecture, serves to unite each form, while accentuating the play of light over a surface, enveloping the whole in a subdued atmosphere. These monochromatic effects, free of either visual friction or excitement, range from the absolute purity of a white meetinghouse, to the monotone crust of stone or brick around a dwelling, or continuous coat of yellow paint on a workshop.

White Limestone Façade First West Family Dwelling (1811–12) Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Yellow-Painted Volume Brethren's Shop (1810) Hancock, Massachusetts

PURE WHITE CAVITY

A spotless surface of smooth plaster and white paint serves to purify Shaker space. This image of perfection reveals the slightest sign of dirt, is devoid, one might even say absolved, of darkness, and is inherently ethereal, reduced to nothing but sheer light.

Front Entry Hall Center Family Dwelling House (1824–34) Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Ministry Hall Meetinghouse Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Central Hall Center Family Dwelling House Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Ministry Dining Room Center Family Dwelling House (Ministry Addition 1845) Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

FRAMED WHITENESS

In part to avoid smudgy finger marks and keep white surfaces entirely clean, and thereby virtuous, Shakers stained or painted the bordering elements touched by people—banisters and drawer pulls, doors and floorboards, peg rails and trim. These darker points and edgings have the further benefit of perceptually heightening the purity of whiteness left unblemished. By having its chaste glow framed and thrown into relief, the white ground is emancipated from the wall, and its whites made even whiter by contrast.

Left. Hallway Ceiling Center Family Dwelling House Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Entrance Hall Ministry Shop (1839, remodeled 1875) Sabbathday Lake, Maine

Attached Outhouse Ministry Shop Sabbathday Lake, Maine

Wood Knobs and Drawer Pulls Ministry Shop Sabbathday Lake, Maine

BETWEEN WOOD & PLASTER

A harmonious blending of heaven and earth was achieved by a Shaker palette reduced, often, to two very simple materials—white plaster above, and plain woodwork below—so that dwelling occurred in-between, linked to both of these realms. The wood of a floor normally extends up into peg rails, and a partial sheathing of walls, elaborated at times into long banks of built-in cabinets and drawers stretching to the ceiling, whose continuous relief is brought alive by raking light from corner windows.

Built-in Cupboards in Sisters' Waiting Room Church Family Dwelling House (1830–31) Hancock, Massachusetts

Wood-Lined Alcove Spin Shop (1795, remodeled 1816) Canterbury, New Hampshire

Meetingroom Church Family Dwelling House Hancock, Massachusetts

Storage Wall in Sisters' Attic Church Family Dwelling House (1793, remodeled 1837) Canterbury, New Hampshire

WOODEN CAVERN

In several rare but beautiful cases, soft wood lines an entire Shaker room, wrapping around every surface and over the ceiling to produce an impression of being inside the wood. In such a monolithic volume, the whole space fills with a warm tawny atmosphere. The ambience is golden, and faintly celest...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Shaker Light ~ Building a State of Grace
• 1: Simplicity ~ Pristine Light
• 2: Order ~ Focused Light
• 3: Luminosity ~ Inner Light
• 4: Equality ~ Shared Light
• 5: Time ~ Cyclic Light
• Bibliography