Review: Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of Rural Studio by Sam Wainwright Douglas

Abstract

Sam Wainwright Douglas, director. Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of Rural Studio . Big Beard Films, Austin, Texas, 2010, DVD, 57 mins., $15.00 (home use), $100 (institutional use), http://citizenarchitectfilm.com/ It may seem odd that Citizen Architect follows the design and construction of a Hale County, Alabama, home during 2002 to explore the life and work of Samuel Mockbee, who passed away in 2001 (Figure 1). But this chronology underscores the untimeliness of Mockbee’s death and his continued influence on Rural Studio, a program he cofounded at Alabama’s Auburn University in 1993, which brings architecture students to design and build in a part of the state where one in four people live in poverty. Although Citizen Architect is not the first documentary about Rural Studio, the filmmakers, who include Mockbee’s son-in-law, Sam Wainwright Douglas (director/producer), his daughter Sara Ann Mockbee (producer), and his student Jay Sanders (producer), step away from previous celebration of Mockbee’s social impact in Alabama to create a conversation about architectural pedagogy and ethics.1 In a 1999 interview with Douglas, Mockbee encourages those who criticized or questioned him to “come on down and see. Nobody leaves here without a smile on their face.” Citizen Architect may not be as convincing as a visit to Hale County, but it captures some of Mockbee and Rural Studio’s persuasive appeal, using film to stage a sort of open-ended trip with evocative images and sounds, as well as interviews with …