CHAMPAIGN — Phillip Kalantzis Cope was inspired to create a book featuring photos of mid-century architecture in Champaign-Urbana after a series of conversations with architect Jeffrey Poss, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Cope said he learned about “important architects that were products of the university, that worked here but also practiced here. And I saw a wonderful story of both an architectural history [and] a community history.”
The book, “Mid-Continent Modern: The Champaign School of Mid-Century Architecture,” features photos by Cope of architecture in Champaign-Urbana from the post-World-War-II era, from college buildings and private homes to public spaces, like churches and courthouses.
A second edition of the book will be released in June. Cope’s work is featured at the Krannert Art Museum exhibit, “Making Place for the Arts at Home.” The museum will host in a panel discussion on Mid-century Modern Architecture Preservation at the Krannert Art Museum. The free event takes place at 10:30 am on Saturday, May 31.
While he doesn’t define himself as an architecture photographer, Cope said he wanted to tell this story with the medium he’s most familiar with. He said this book was fifteen years in the making and highlights how the campus and community are connected.
“What is wonderful is that we always try to find these bridges between the town and the university,” Cope said. “How do research practices, how do creative practices not just live within the walls of the academy or the university, but how do they impact and change the community that we’re in?”
The book focuses on three architects: Jack Baker, John Replinger and A. Richard “Dick” Williams. Cope said he wanted his book to not only tell the story of their works but the stories of those who maintain their work years later.
“And what was fascinating is that there’s a lot of art practices, people who are artists, so these houses, all these spaces also became spaces for performance,” Cope said.
After his first edition sold out last year, he said it “snowballed” into his current Krannert Art Museum exhibit in tandem with professors at the U of I’s School of Architecture.
The exhibit “really fills out some of the themes of what we were talking about, of arts practices, where things happen within the community, and also making sure that we honor the legacy of these histories through the preservation of these buildings,” Cope said.
He said he wants to pay respect to these “legacy artifacts” and express that innovative architecture is not only relegated to big coastal cities but can be created here, in the middle of America.
“It’s to tell the story of a kind of way of thinking about architecture that was within the avant garde of its time, but with a particular local sensibility,” Cope said. “Dick Williams talked about this, it’s not just about mid-century as an aesthetic, but it’s also about how that’s interpreted through a local vernacular.”
Cope said he defines mid-century modernism as an internationalist style of trying to keep a personal sensibility while aspiring to a sense of commonality.
“The modernist overlay, before we even get to architecture, was like a particular approach to the world, coming out of World War II, and seeing the effects of nationalism and protectionism and smallmindedness, as it produced wars and culture battles,” Cope said.
Cope said he believes our community and artistic practices are at the center of creativity, and that he resents the term “flyover state.”
“I’m trying to advocate for a rich photographic community within central Illinois. It’s not because I don’t think it exists and I’m finding it,” Cope said. “ I’m looking to connect and be an advocate of others, too.”
As a Champaign-transplant of ten years, Cope said he is looking to tell the stories of local pioneers in the community.
“Through telling these stories, we can find some of the things that we need within our world, which is: How do we find common spaces? How do we find connection? What are the things that visually unite us?”
CORRECTION: A prior version of this incorrectly story stated that Cope will serve on a panel at the Krannert Art Museum on May 31st.