Biography
Having been among the first towns burned during the Civil War, Winton’s architectural legacy was long extinct - it’s history punctuated by a few scattered war monuments. The houses that defined the edges of Main Street were cozy and practical, but seemed little more than footnotes to passersby on the road from Virginia to Ahoskie and beyond. I never even saw a mail carrier as the majority of the residents received their mail at the local post office. In fact it wasn’t that long ago through requirements mandated by the 911 emergency system that the houses on Main Street were even required to have numbers on them. Our house was the two-story house across from the elementary school. To the rest of the world this had virtually no meaning. The post office box, I came to learn, was a figurative extension of our home. When it was empty, one was left with deep yearning. When it was full of scouting catalogues and Christmas cards, good news or otherwise, there was a sense that the narrow box was a portal connecting our rural community with the rest of the world. In fact, the post office was as much an institution to me as the public library. From the post office box to the tobacco barns where I worked as a kid and from the family church to the local high school; from my dormitory to the home in which I now reside, it is increasingly clear to me the degree to which the structure of my life has been defined by architecture. Like the small post office box, the buildings along the ubiquitous road home to what is now known as 408 Main Street contain memories and dreams. Architecture is inseparable from our collective being. In 1989, I was accepted to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte college of Architecture. An award winning student designer and honor’s graduate, I earned enormous respect for creativity and elegance. The seminal thesis of my academic and professional career may be described thus: Between
simple and extraordinary ideas are valuable visions of monumental resonance. The layers of discourse in any design
endeavor require a degree of deconstruction to understand the nature of
things under consideration. From here, we achieve a blank canvas
adaptable to a place through personal aesthetics, local context, economy,
etc. In the debate of traditional versus modern, it is my belief that
these terms are not mutually exclusive. It is my belief that there are
two faces of “modern.” Throughout history, “modern” has been an element
of local context. Beyond the clichés of streamlined geometry, glass
curtain walls and exposed steel, there is a requirement that a building
embody a certain value system. Modern is a qualitative statement, which
is to say that a building is fundamentally “modern” if it is uniquely suited
to its task and is bound in the Vitruvian mantra of commodity, firmness and
delight. This is the foundation of my practice. Whether its an
office building, a restaurant or a home, if a building is conceived with a
“modern” value system, then it
will be timeless in its own rite, regardless of whether it is dressed as contemporary
or traditional, whimsical or strictly utilitarian. I strive to work
within the context of individual aesthetic aspirations while providing a
fundamentally unique project experience.
Resume
| Gordon Hall | NC Registered Architect |
LEED AP Education
UNC-Charlotte,
Charlotte, NC
Degrees: Bachelor
of Arts: Architecture (Minor in Anthropology) - 1989-1993 Bachelor of Architecture - 1995-1996 Precast
Concrete Manufacturing Exposaic
Industries 1993-1995 Notable
Project Experience: Charlotte
Convention Center, Charlotte, NC
Ericsson
Stadium (formerly), Home of the Carolina Panthers Design-Build Project Manager
Levine
Properties, 1996-1997
Notable
Project Experience: Various
Tenants in The McAlpines Business Center and Greylyn
Business Park, both in Charlotte, NC Architecture
ADW Architects – 1997-2002
Notable
Project Experience: Bethlehem Works
Reuse Plan
Regal
Cinemas (various locations nationally) Consolidated
Theatres, Durham, NC First
United Methodist Church Christian Life Center, Hickory, NC Calvary Baptist
Church Expansion Plan, Charlotte, NC
Mountain
View Urgent Care, Clover, SC Michael Moorefield Architects – 2002-2009
Notable
Project Experience: Brotherton
Residence, Bald Head Island, NC
Tsavalas
Residence, Bald Head Island, NC Rodgers
Residence, Figure Eight Island, NC Addison
Residence, Landfall, Wilmington, NC Gordon Hall,
Architect – Current
Notable
Project Experience Hall
Residence, Wilmington, NC Accolades:
Published
in Wilmington Magazine Published
in Cape Fear’s Going Green Featured
on 2008 CFGBA Sustainable Building Tour Contractor:
Gordon Hall Brunswick
Harbour Continuing Care Retirement Community Plan Brunswick Harbour Ministries – Brunswick County, NC
*Pictured
above: Sailing on the Cape Fear River on the Sailboat Hadiah
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Growing up in rural
Winton, North Carolina provided few distractions for creative impulses.
I never missed an opportunity to whittle a stick, sketch the family dog or
dissect a defunct power tool in hopes of more glorious inventions. The
modest home that I grew up in was the product of my father’s labor, and the
random bricks and wood left strewn about, above ground and below, became the
building blocks of a fledgling designer with craftsman pedigree.
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