Internationally recognized Arizona architect Wendell Burnette is set to lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 7, at the Dallas Museum of Art Horchow Auditorium, where he’ll talk about his current and recent projects.
The event is part of the Dallas Architecture Forum’s Frank Welch Memorial Lecture series. A reception and check-in starts at 6:15 p.m. The event is free to Forum members, and general admission tickets will be available at the door.
Burnette’s projects reflect many of the same key values as the late Welch, known by many as the Dean of Texas Architecture: space and light, context and place, organic materials that are carefully crafted, and respect for the environment and landscapes in which we live, according to a Dallas Architecture Forum press release.
“They’re kind of doing a reprise of a talk I gave at the Dallas Architecture Forum, maybe 20 years ago,” Burnette said. “We’ve done many projects in the desert. We’re always focused on work that is resonant with place, that is resonant in the sense of striking the right note and being in harmony with people and places that we have the opportunity to design for. Setting, or context, of the project is very important. We’re very interested in material and craft.”
Burnette is the founding principal at Wendell Burnette Architects. His projects include custom residences, public commissions including the Palo Verde Library/Maryvale Community Center, the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, and the Scottsdale Teen Center, and resorts and spas worldwide including the much-acclaimed Amangiri Resort.
The Body of Work
Burnette laughs at the characterization that his work is “desert-themed”- open-air adobes and simplistic style. He reminds us that Phoenix is in fact a metropolis like Dallas Fort Worth. He will acknowledge, however, that his work is unique.
“Phoenix is the 11th or 13th largest metropolis so it’s very built out,” he explained. “I’m doing a house in Salt Lake City, another metropolis. It’s in a neighborhood and the clients want to do a large embedded courtyard that frames views to the Wasatch [Mountains]. We do really large and small projects. We did a very small, two-phase remodel for a historic house, 70 years old. It was kind of a hack job, and we brought it back to life. It has some of us in it but it’s like you don’t know that it’s really not an original.”
The architect points out that he lives in a beautiful landscape and tries to translate that into his design.
“Every place has its unique qualities,” Burnette said. “What we’re doing is tapping into those unique qualities. It’s about a deep context. I approach a place like an artist or a historian. I look at the poetic qualities of a place, the history of the city. I’m looking at the material culture of the city. I get into the local geology and natural history. The work comes out of a deep reading of the place. I’m not interested in doing what I’ve done before. How that’s possible is approaching every site and every place with fresh eyes. It’s more about a process than a result. It’s about the specificity of a particular project. It’s not about transferring what I’ve done before to another situation. I’m not repeating results. I have a process that I repeat. Architecture should grow out of that diversity.”
Personal Narrative
Burnette said his style comes from his own personal narrative.
“It’s how you look at the world and how you experience the world,” he said. “I get into the specificity of a project but that’s combined with my personal way of looking at things.”
Burnette got serious about architecture at age 13, finished his high school diploma, and went to The School of Architecture, founded by Frank Lloyd Wright, in Paradise Valley, Ariz. He likes his buildings to connect people back to nature, he said.
“Today, more than ever, that connection to birdsong and breezes and changing seasons – connecting a place specifically to landscape and climate and how it’s comfortable to live there – is important,” Burnette said. “Architecture is about people, enriching people’s lives. It’s like a good meal or good food. There’s something nourishing about architecture. I’m not into doing work that is ubiquitous. I’m trying to tap into something that already exists but one didn’t realize what’s there. I’m very passionate about my work being simultaneously functional and aspirational.”
Burnette added that he loves Dallas and is looking forward to visiting the city.
“I’ve been going to Dallas Fort Worth for a long time, back when Dallas was playing catch-up to Fort Worth. Dallas finally woke up,” he said. “There’s a very similar competition between Cologne and Dusseldorf, Germany. I would love to do a project [in Dallas].”
