Timeless Materials

detail of the doors at Notre Dame

A little flashback to our trip this summer to France — we couldn’t help but spend time marveling at the architecture and its materials.  So much of Western design culture is based on the foundations of French architecture and design.  The timeless, classic materials of limestone and white oak were everywhere.  When you are in France, as someone with an American (aka European) education at least, it feels like you really are at the center of the cultural world.

alleyway door in Cordes-sur-Ciel

Why do we think of those materials as “classic” and “timeless”?  Old buildings are built out of limestone in France because that was and is the workable stone underfoot.  The doors are made of white oak because those were and are the dense hardwood trees which grow nearby. 

parquet oak floors at a farmhouse in Castre

Returning home it felt even more like we lived on the very edge of the planet, on the far rim of a far continent.  We rather like that feeling.  What would it mean to be “classic” and “timeless” in our “far” country?  To build in a way that is as native to California as French architecture is to France?  What would it mean to take those classic materials as lessons about how to build with what you have, rather than shipping limestone and white oak halfway around the world to finish out a bathroom?

We think it would mean using the earth underfoot and the building materials that grow nearby.  Redwood, Douglas Fir, California Black Oak, clay and sand, and perhaps some rice straw from the Sacramento Valley…

Roman baths at the Musee de Cluny in Paris