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SkyRoom

The Journey of Brian And Marilyn Mackay-Lyons at Shobac, a Seaside Village on the Edge of Architectural and Utopian Possibility

By (author) Larry Gaudet

£25.95

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  • Brian MacKay Lyons is renowned internationally as one of the world’s best architects, known mainly for a huge body of residential work in Nova Scotia, Canada
  • The book steps outside the language of formal architectural discourse – although sensitive to it – and into the creative terrain of the “nonfiction novel” – designed to speak to both the architectural expert and the layperson interested in the built environment
  • As a book that crosses boundaries – featuring elements of fiction – the story welcomes the non-expert into an exploration of many issues the book deals with
Full Description

As you crest the ridge, the green valley below and the ocean beyond come into view. This is Shobac, a seaside village featuring an ensemble of buildings that, at first glance, looks like a monumental work of Land Art. What is this place? A fishing village from the future? A monastery teleported here from another planet? A utopian colony with a message for the world? Shobac is recognised internationally as the masterwork of famed Canadian architect Brian Mackay-Lyons. In partnership with his wife Marilyn Mackay-Lyons and their family, he has built a unique community over the granite ruins of a historic settlement on the fogbound coast of Nova Scotia, an area identified on Champlain’s first map of North America from 1604. Among the structures at Shobac are homes, barns, studios, cottages, fishing shacks, a boathouse, even a schoolhouse, all designed in Mackay-Lyons’s compelling architectural language that fuses contemporary Modernism with Nova Scotia building traditions. It’s a sublime accomplishment that feels equally part of the past and the future, a living manifesto that expresses how landscape, climate, culture and architecture can ideally come together in elevating the human experience.

About the Author

Larry Gaudet has published six books, including two non-fiction bestsellers for Random House and several works of fiction. Praised as an “heir to McLuhan” Gaudet is known for inventive satires of transnational corporate culture. His scriptwriting includes projects with Universal Cable, NBC and various Los Angeles producers. His corporate work over 25+ years spans branding, venture financing, speechwriting, investor relations and marketing. He has been a partner in a contemporary art gallery. He has received Canada’s highest journalism awards and recognition from branding juries internationally. His community work includes providing strategic counsel to Doctors Without Borders (MSF Geneva), the Kingsburg Coastal Conservancy, an art education and therapy institute in Hangzhou, China, and the Art Canada Institute based in Toronto.

Look Inside
Specifications
Publisher
ORO Editions
ISBN
9781954081208
Published
23rd Mar 2022
Binding
Paperback / softback
Territory
World excluding USA, Canada, Australasia & Asia (except Japan; China non-exclusive)
Size
178 mm x 228 mm
Pages
240 Pages
Illustrations
65 color
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