Is it possible to read a house like a book, gleaning meaning and insight from its architecture and personality? Does the way that we site and build our homes speak to cultural and social values? Benton County Historical Society is pleased to host an Oregon Chautauqua program from the Oregon Council for the Humanities at which Diana Coogle will discuss how the ways we create our home spaces may reveal more than just aesthetic choices in "Reading Houses: What Architecture Tells Us about Ourselves." This free, public program will take place on Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 12:00pm at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library (645 Monroe, Corvallis, OR 97330). Bring your brown bag lunch!

Coogle, who built her own cabin with a handsaw and hammer, explores these questions through built homes and those imagined in the worlds of art and literature. Her illustrations include homes that embody their builder's philosophy, from the scientific innovations of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello to Frank Lloyd Wright's precept that, "a house should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other." Literary excerpts from Kenneth Graham, James Joyce, and Emily Bronte add to the picture, as do examples from Oregon communities that reflect social values and perspectives. Audiences will gain a new appreciation for reading their own homes in this multi-disciplinary program.

Selected Resources for Oregon Chautauqua
Reading Houses: What Architecture Tells Us about Ourselves

Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, et al. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford , 1977.

Alexander, Christopher. The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford, 1979.

Beiswanger, Hatch, Stanton, and Stein, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2002.

Dalzell, Robert E. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell. George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford, 1998.

De Botton, Alain. The Architecture of Happiness. New York: Pantheon, 2006.

Gallagher, Winifred. House Thinking: A Room by Room Look at How We Live. New York: Harper, 2006.

Glassie, Henry. Folk Housing in Middle Virginia. Knoxville. University of Tennessee, 1975.

Larsson, Carl. A Home. Lone Thygesen-Blecher, tr. New York: Putnam, 1974.

McLaughlin, Jack. Jefferson and Monticello, Biography of a Builder. New York: Holt, 1988.

Marcus, Clare Cooper. House as Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. Berkeley, CA: Conari, 1995.

Rybczyski, Witold. Home: A Short History of an Idea. New York: Penquin, 1987.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden (numerous editions available).

Zingman-Leith, Elan and Susan, The Secret Life of the Victorian House. Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1993.

Diana Coogle: Biography

Literature has been a lifelong passion for author, teacher, radio commentator, theater director, and community volunteer Diana Coogle. An avid reader, Coogle has pursued her study of literature and literary themes in her education at Vanderbilt and Cambridge University, where she was a Marshall Scholar, and in Aix-en-Provence, France. From 1998 - 2001, she was a guest lecturer at Göteborgs Universitet in Göteborg, Sweden. There her love for literature found a new channel as she considered and grew to appreciate the diverse landscapes of Sweden.

Diana, who lives on a remote mountainside, is a regular commentator on Jefferson Public Radio. Her first book, Fire From the Dragon's Tongue: Essays About Living with Nature in the Siskiyou Mountains, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Awards. She is a frequent public speaker in organizations ranging from libraries to high schools and the National Forest Service to the Unitarian Fellowship.

Diana's program is made possible by funding from the Oregon Council for the Humanities (OCH), an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities that is dedicated to the belief that knowledge and ideas are fundamental to the health of our communities. More information about OCH's programs and publications, which include Oregon Chautauqua, Humanity in Perspective, and Oregon Humanities magazine, can be found at www.oregonhum.org.