Folk Pottery Museum

 

Located in Sautee-Nacoochee, Georgia and housing a world class collection of southern folk pottery, the museum is a contemporary version of southern vernacular design. It pulls no punches. The gabled structure is a straightforward response to purpose: protecting and presenting a collection of folk pottery. The museum uses materials honestly and allows climate and sun angles to dictate form.

 

Architectural explorations of vernacular design are not new to Robert M. Cain. He has spent years refining an approach to design that incorporates the direct and often elegant solutions he sees in vernacular structures. It’s difficult for him to drive through rural areas and not admire the buildings he sees and wonder about their builders and conditions that contributed to their form. He can still draw the plans of both of his grandfathers’ southern piedmont farms and fondly remember the details of each structure. He loves to imagine these farms as woodland sites and try to see them through his grandfathers’ eyes as they considered how they would handle the land, locate and build the structures and create a farm capable of supporting their families.

 

 

"Your role as architect went beyond just designing a functional building in which to house the pottery collection....you captured the essence of the site and the vision of what making a piece of pottery is all about -- which is much more than most people realize."    - Dean and Kay Swanson, benefactors