AU's Rural Studio is subject of PBS documentary

Contributed Auburn Villager Students take pride in the 'Rose Lee House' constructed by them during the second semester of 2008.

The late, legendary architect Samuel Mockbee and Auburn University's Rural Studio for aspiring architects are the subject of a documentary film by producer and director Sam Wainwright Douglas that PBS will air nationwide at 9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 23.

East Alabama residents can view the film, "Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio," in the auditorium of Auburn's Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.

A 7 p.m. reception and an 8 p.m. panel discussion will precede the 9 p.m. showing of the film.

The free public event is a collaboration of the museum and Auburn University College of Architecture, Design, and Construction.

In 1993, Mockbee and AU architecture professor D.K. Ruth founded the Rural Studio design-build education program for AU architecture students. Mockbee conceived the idea as he drove back and forth to Auburn from his home in Mississippi, traversing Alabama's impoverished Black Belt. During the long drive, he pondered what he could do to help the residents.

Mockbee directed the unusual studio until his death in 2001. The Rural Studio became not only a teaching laboratory for AU architecture students, but a means to improve the living conditions in rural Alabama using inexpensive, innovative materials--like tires and hay bales--and students' labor and ideas.

Mockbee's leadership of the program and his pioneering drive to create innovative architecture earned worldwide acclaim for the Rural Studio and a national Genius Grant for himself from the MacArthur Foundation.

"'Citizen Architect' provides a thoughtful and insightful look at how Auburn students and faculty literally transform the lives of citizens who live and work in Alabama's remote Black Belt," said Dan Bennett, dean of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction.

"The film poignantly demonstrates the role that architecture can play in lifting the spirits of some of the most economically disadvantaged citizens, and how the lives of the students are equally transformed."

Douglas describes his documentary as being guided by frank, passionate interviews with Mockbee. The film also shows how a group of students use their creativity, ingenuity and compassion to craft a home for their client, Jimmie Lee Matthews, known to locals as Music Man because of his zeal for old R&B and Soul records.

Douglas says the film reveals that the Rural Studio is about more than architecture and building. It provides students with an experience that forever inspires them to consider how they can use their skills to better their communities.

Interviews with Mockbee's peers and scenes with those he's influenced infuse the film with a larger discussion of architecture's role in issues of poverty, class, race, education, social change and citizenship.

Douglas has been working in documentary film and television since his graduation from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1998. He has produced and directed several award-winning feature length documentaries and has taught film and video editing in the department of radio, television and film at the University of Texas.

He recently edited "Along Came Kinky: Texas Jewboy for Governor," a film due out next year on musician, writer and raconteur Kinky Friedman and his independent run for governor of Texas in 2006.

Douglas is the son-in-law of the late Samuel Mockbee.

For additional background information and to learn more about how the film was made, go to the "Citizen Architect" Web site at www.citizenarchitectfilm.com/.

For information about the Rural Studio, go to www.ruralstudio.org (www.ruralstudio.org/) and for the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, go to www.cadc.auburn.edu/.