‘Original Green’ author to speak in Charlotte

Mouzon, an architect and author, is founder of the New Urban Guild in Miami, “a group of architects, designers and other New Urbanists dedicated to the study and design of true traditional buildings and places native to, and inspired by, the regions in which they are built.”

One of the things I find interesting about Mouzon’s writing is that, to my mind, he’s an illustration of how New Urbanism can’t be so easily pigeonholed as “liberal” or “conservative.” He writes in his blog, for instance, that Original Green is what we had “before the Thermostat Age,” when “the places we made and the buildings we built had no choice but to be green.”

I’m not sure if trying to return to the building and living styles of old can be considered anything other than conservative, but as I wrote in “Is sustainability for Commies?” there’s a school of thought that anyone who mentions protecting the environment or conserving energy must be a Marxist who’ll rip people from their cars and subdivision houses and force-march them into Pruitt-Igoe-style high-rises. Note the Gaston County commissioners’ action late last month: “County leaders identify ‘insidious’ threat of Agenda 21.”

In an unfortunate architectural convergence, the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, the Charlotte Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the Mint Museum of Art have planned another architectural lecture for the same night: Craig Dykers of the firm Snøhetta will give a lecture about his firm’s work. It’s at the UNC Charlotte Center City Building. A reception is at 5 p.m., and the lecture at 6 p.m. Both are free and open to the public, but require registration here.