This project presents a collection of nine allegorical buildings that investigate memory and mortality through the lens of architecture. Situated on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and based on architectural typologies such as dwelling, chapel, lighthouse, and memorial, each of the speculative buildings constitute a chapter that contributes towards a greater narrative. Through drawings, models, objects, and full-scale constructions, the publication investigates how memories—both recent and distant, conscious and unconscious—can become a source for architecture. Hutchison’s time as a 2017 Fellow at the American Academy in Rome was critical to the development of the project, as seen by the geometric influences of the Colosseum, aqueducts, and Roman tombs. The publication will be complimented by an exhibition of the work at Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City entitled Casas de la Memoria, to include ceramic sculptures of the memory houses created in collaboration with the Guadalajara-based ceramic workshop Ceramica Suro.

Robert Hutchison is a practitioner, researcher, and educator whose interests and practice overlap the fields of architecture, installation, and photography. Hutchison received BS degrees in Structural Engineering and Architectural Engineering from Drexel University in 1990, and a MArch degree from the University of Washington in 1996. From 2001 to 2013 he was a partner in the Seattle-based architectural firm Hutchison & Maul Architecture. Since 2013 Hutchison has been principal of the architecture studio Robert Hutchison Architecture. Hutchison is an affiliate associate professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, where he teaches architectural design studios at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Honors and awards include the 2009 Emerging Voices awarded by the Architectural League of NY, the 2010 Creative Artists Fellowship awarded by the Japan-US Friendship Commission & National Endowment for the Arts, and the 2016–17 Rome Prize in Architecture awarded by the American Academy in Rome.