The inviting geniality of a front porch
A recent survey of young Americans showed 85% say their generation spends too much time online. Another poll last year found 60% of all U.S. adults say the nation’s top problem is the inability of Democrats and Republicans to work together. So just where can people go to meet face-to-face, perhaps to work out differences, even enjoy each other’s company?
One answer may lie in a special exhibit running May 10 to Nov. 23 in Venice, Italy.
The exhibit, called “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity,” is the United States’ entry at the 19th International Architecture Biennale. The entries, 54 works in all, showcase interpretations of the front porch in American life. The idea is to “really help people understand what the value of being together is,” Susan Chin, an organizer of the U.S. Pavilion at what is known as one of the world’s largest exhibitions, told The New York Times.
And nothing speaks to neighborliness more than the welcoming covered space at the front of a house that is both public and private, indoors and out. With a few rockers or a swinging chair, the porch is an invitation for dialogue. Such spaces (which can include the urban stoop) are “a way for people to slow down and reflect, together,” Ms. Chin told the website Designboom.
In recent decades, the number of new houses designed with a front porch has increased after a long decline. That signals a yearning for local connection. In addition, dozens of communities now hold annual festivals during which musicians play from people’s porches. The first such Porchfest began in 2007 in Ithaca, New York, and has since spread across the country as well as to Canada and Australia.
In mid-19th-century America, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the ability of people to solve problems by forming new associations: “If it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate,” he wrote.
The front porch, an architectural feature brought to America by enslaved people from Africa, is today on the front line of restoring the art of listening. Or as Peter MacKeith, another organizer of the U.S. exhibit put it, the porch is a space “generous in spirit, grounded in place, and open to the world.”
