Town Centers
Often taken for granted in America, small towns are great places to be. Many of them were built out before society was centered around the automobile. As such, they often feature walkable street grids that lead to a town center. These town centers are often anchored by courthouses, statues and small parks. The surrounding buildings were built on a human scale, with large windowed store fronts. It’s fun to imagine what these areas were like when they were originally built. Being that there were no big box stores or drive-thrus, it’s easy to picture bustling environments that encouraged community participation.
In these town centers, buildings were built one by one, instead of the massive planned developments we see today. As such, each building was forced to adapt to its surrounding environment, often leaving hidden gems to be discovered. By inspecting the materials and designs used, it’s possible to get an idea of when a town experienced its growth. An example of this is neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s-1950s and can still be seen in places such as Mansfield, OH.
Extraordinary Ordinary
As humans, we are hard wired to seek out novelty. Stuff that is new is exciting and we often find travel to be one of our most rewarding experiences because of this. If we take a step back though, as photography encourages us to do, a whole new world of novelty appears. Small towns are an appealing place to start as their size often leads us to assume that we’ve already discovered everything there is to discover. To counter this, a good exercise is to pick out the most mundane places you can find and focus on finding things to question. If you can’t find ten questions to ask yourself about anything in particular, you’re not trying hard enough. Ask yourself about the shapes, the sizes, the colors, the season, the use, and all the things that must have come together to make that particular place a reality. The point is not to necessary answer the questions but to be appreciative of the size and complexity of the world. It might even lead you down a new path of passion, learning or understanding. Sometimes the most ordinary of things can be the most extraordinary.
Stripped Down
If you like to use your imagination, details can be wondrous. A few clues and you might be fleshing out the character of an individual or the personality of a place. Having just a few details can leave you inspired with a few blanks to fill in. The story you create is ultimately a reflection of who you are. Small towns are great for this if you enjoy nostalgia – thoughts of simpler times and such. Sure, our imagination is probably not that accurate and we humans have a tendency to see the grass as always greener, but embracing this can be be a good thing in moderate doses. Who doesn’t want to escape reality from time to time? Pictures can be perfect for this as you are the narrator instead of being dictated to, as is often the case in the modern world.
A Place Called Home
There are some sayings that don’t make much sense anymore like “don’t hang up the phone” or “like a broken record” but one that is unfortunately still accurate is “they don’t make them like they use to.” When you have to scale things up you have to cut corners if you want to keep up with demand. In many ways, that aptly describes the world we now live in; in 1920 there were just over 120 million people in the United State and by 2020 that figure had risen to 331 million. With that kind of increase, in such a short time frame, it’s no surprise that the materials used by previous generations (i.e. hardwoods) were not sustainable resources and that design became simpler to trades people could complete more in less time.
Nevertheless, the aesthetics of our surroundings have a much larger impact on our well being than we are often aware of. We can feel authentic designs and materials, and tell when something has required great skill to build. It inspires and motivates us to do and be better. It may not be possible to get back to the craftsmanship of the past but we should aspire to a future where more value is placed on aesthetics and urban design (perhaps with better use of a plethora of new materials modern society has introduced). Small towns provide us inspiration for the future as many contain houses and immediately elicit a warm sense of home.
Court Houses
If you want to be the center of attention you will want to be a court house. In not in the most central location of a town they are often one of the most elegant looking buildings.