Can architecture transform lives? Can it transform us? These questions lay the foundation for Structure and Ornament, a solo exhibition of work by Seattle-based artist Leo Saul Berk, on view at Frye Art Museum. Presented in a meandering array of multimedia sculpture, site-specific installation, and video with sound, Berk’s ongoing series is a reflection on his childhood home in Aurora, Illinois—a site formative to his personal and artistic growth.

Leo Saul Berk. Structure and Ornament, 2014; plywood and acrylic; 120 x 213 x 59 in. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Mark Woods.

In the winter of 1980, seven-year-old Berk and his family moved into the Ford House, created by visionary midwestern architect Bruce Goff. Designed in 1947, the house is characterized by its massive central dome, flanked by two semicircular bedroom wings. Today, it stands as an unapologetic icon of midcentury modernist design influenced by organic architecture and neo-futurist promise. Steel Quonset ribs, painted a Golden Gate orange, conjoin a curved coal and glass wall to define the exterior of the home. Inside, Navy surplus ropes, herringbone wood inlay, and glass domes from World War II fighter jets come together in a resplendent array of material texture. Like many of his contemporaries, Goff’s architectural style celebrates the traditions of handcraft alongside the ideals of technology and industry. The Ford House is the product of its age—a tangible expression of imagination and architectural experiment. The structure ignited Berk throughout his childhood, and thirty-five years later, it continues to confound and inspire.

Like a beacon, the Ford House drew Berk home. In 2011, the artist returned to Aurora and was brought to tears when its current owner led him through the familiar sights and smells of the rooms he was once so intimately attached to. Drawing upon his personal memory as well as the architectural history of the house, Berk was led to develop a body of work that would become Structure and Ornament. A selection of sculptures in the exhibition are Berk’s realizations of decorative ambitions for the Ford that never came to be. Specular Reflections (2015), a set of large floating marbles in the museum’s reflecting pool, and Wind Jangle (2015), a suspended ornamental screen of aluminum chimes, are both site-specific installations that hearken to the embellishments of a midcentury corporate campus, rather than a domestic home (think of Eero Saarinen’s GM Tech Center with decorative metalwork by Harry Bertoia). Perfectly situated in the entrance of the Frye Art Museum, these works establish a distinctly retro spirit—the disintegration of past into present—that dissipates throughout the show.

Leo Saul Berk. Specular Reflections, 2015; 45 glass spheres, black pond dye; 12 x 900 x 180 in., 60 x 60 in. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Mark Woods.

Berk translates his personal history using the material and formal vernacular established by Goff, creating a flawless amalgamation of concept and craft. Heat Signature (2013) is a hand-woven Tibetan wool rug, emblazoned with a pattern based on the heat signature of the Ford House’s radiant heat system. In the piece’s description, Berk shares a moving memory of spending nights on the floor, curled up in a sleeping bag to eke warmth from its underlying coils: “It is like embracing the house by hugging the floor.” Heat Signature is incandescent—a cozy island in the center of a dimly lit gallery. On an adjacent wall projects Carousel (2011), a video documenting the sights and sounds that Berk would have experienced when drifting off to sleep. With images of the house’s central dome and notes from an antiquated piano, museum visitors will want to invite themselves into this installation to loll in the warm quiet of the gallery as Berk once did.

Leo Saul Berk. Heat Signature, 2012; Tibetan wool; 120 x 108 in. Courtesy of private collection. Photo: Mark Woods.

Astrodome (2011) is another video work that collapses personal memory into present context. The piece depicts a solar system of calcium deposits, orbiting in a tub of water, before ejecting down the drain in a hypnotic, conical swirl. Looking down at the illuminated galaxy of floating particulates, it is impossible not to consider the connections between large and small, and the capacity to draw out meaning from the mundane. How do the spaces we inhabit play a role in shaping us as individuals, holding sway over our ideas and memories, as well as our bodily movements and interactions? Can architecture liberate us from inherited constraints, serving as a catalyst for speculation rather than a contained machine for living in?

Leo Saul Berk. Astrodome, 2011; single-channel HD video; 5:06. Courtesy of the Artist.

The sculpture that shares its title with the exhibition, Structure and Ornament (2014), is an apt signature for Berk’s project as a whole. The piece is composed of a fan of plywood spires interwoven with orange acrylic bands radiating skyward from the floor. More ephemeral than material, the intent of the piece is to capture the feeling of light streaming through the central oculus of the Ford House.

The emotional affect of home exists beyond the physicality of sagging couch cushions and faded photographs. Every structure is a repository of impressions—distinctive patterns of light, sound, and smell—that can serve as wellsprings of comfort and inspiration. Nostalgia can stymie or it can challenge. Structure and Ornament is the work of an artist in dialogue with his past—engaging and reimagining the specter of home, in order to connect deeply with his present.

Leo Saul Berk: Structure and Ornament is on view at Frye Art Museum in Seattle through September 6, 2015.

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