I have been looking forward to this for a while and it was not a disappointment! Lloyd Kahn is in the back of many self-builders’ cerebral toolboxes for his seminal works as Editor in Chief of Shelter Publications, California. His 1973 book ‘Shelter‘ is an incredibly detailed catalogue of building techniques through the ages, illustrated with the personal stories and evocative photos of small houses and cabins collected on his travels throughout the USA and Canada as well as Ireland and the UK. It sits alongside my copy of Christopher Alexander’s ‘Pattern Language’ at the core of my own inspirational library, so it was a real thrill to hear Himself speak of his life publishing, building, surfing and skateboarding. Yes skateboarding! - in fact he only stopped skateboarding this year when he broke his arm…and let me just point out he is 81 - what a cool dude!!!
We started the evening with at a reception at the Kirkcaldy Galleries to see the exhibition ‘Shelters’ curated by Bobby Niven from the Bothy Project and instigated by Fife Contemporary Art & Craft. This fascinating touring exhibition features what turns out to be small selection of the vast body of work collected by Lloyd over the decades.
We then moved on to the Adam Smith Theatre for the main event of the night - Lloyd’s talk. It started with a thought-provoking introduction from Bernard Planterose about Lloyd, Self-Building, small Houses and the recent excellent progress of Reforesting Scotland’s Thousand Huts campaign. Bobby Niven then spoke in glowing terms about Lloyds impact on his own work before introducing Lloyd who spoke for over an hour with a superb selection of slides, anecdotes and pithy truisms.
It’s no wonder Lloyd is a legend…from his involvement in the Whole Earth Catalog - the American counter-culture’s magazine and eco-product catalogue published by Stewart Brand, Lloyd started building timber frame structures then turned to geodesic domes when these were the coolest thing in California and beyond! He subsequently wrote 2 bestselling books about domes but then when he realised that they really didn’t work, characteristically withdrew them from publication and went back to timber framing! As he said “admitting I was wrong was a major step forward in my life”.
We finished up with an enthusiastic Q and A and then after hearty applause wandered away into the gloaming of Kirkcaldy War Memorial Gardens with twinkling fairy lights in the blossom heavy cherry trees and more than just a sense that we had witnessed something truly special - an ongoing celebration of Lloyd Kahn’s fifty years being inspired by building with wood and natural materials and the complex art of creating simple shelter whilst inspiring generations of self builders to be creative themselves.
Lloyd Kahn talk