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By Alabama Power Foundation
The Auburn University Rural Studio movement started as a brilliant notion by the late Samuel “Sambo” Mockbee and the late D.K. Ruth, with faith and early support from the Alabama Power Foundation. “The truth of the matter is that the foundation pledged a large gift at the beginning and without it we wouldn’t be here today,” said professor and Rural Studio Director Andrew Freear.
What’s ensued over the past 26 years is architectural history and a game-changer for the people of Hale County and the Black Belt. “They took a big chance on us,” Freear said. It’s a chance that changed lives, improved landscapes and landed on pages of journals, papers and awards podiums across the world.
Yet this wasn’t all about the architecture. Mockbee and Ruth did challenge the stuffy, academic do-it-our-way world to take students from drafting tables and blueprints to a real (and needy) world, turning their designs into structures.
