Current Venue:
Available for Rent

Yard of the Month is a fascinating stroll through North Carolina's landscape for all, not just the avid gardening enthusiast. This unusual exhibition examines the design of the domestic yard and garden as it has evolved in North Carolina history.

Curator Susan Goodmon's extensive research is presented by focusing on twelve sites. These sites trace yard and garden design chronologically from the earliest 17th century Native American landscapes to suburban development in Hickory. Along the route, other sites such as the Biltmore Estate in Asheville and Oliver Nestus Freeman's yard in Wilson are examined.

Current Venue:
Bankers House
319 N. Lafayette Street
Shelby, NC
704-482-3531

This exhibition is a powerful remembrance of architecture forever lost to North Carolina through demolition, natural disaster, social and economic change, or simple neglect.

Included in this exhibit are twenty-two thematic panels, which contain reproduc-tions primarily from vintage postcards, but also period, and contemporary photo-graphs and drawings which provide the history of each building's fate.

Current Venue:
Bankers House
319 N. Lafayette Street
Shelby, NC
704-482-3531

Decorative interior painting constitutes a significant chapter in North Carolina's rich architectural heritage. Approximately 500 buildings in the state contain surviving examples of this charming art form, from the late eighteenth century through the twentieth century. Many popular contemporary ornamental techniques are based on these original designs.

Grand Illusions, curated by architectural historian Laura Phillips of Winston-Salem, takes the viewer on a fascinating journey through North Carolina 's decora-tive tradition.

Current Venue:
Available for Rent

This exhibition examines the work of a most influential architect in America prior to the Civil War.

One of the first non-Europeans commissioned to design major buildings in this country and one of the principal founders of the American Institute of Architects, Alexander Jackson Davis was equally adept in the Greek Revival, Roman Revival, Italianate, Gothic, Egyptian, Elizabethan and Oriental styles. In collaboration with A.J. Downing, Davis invented the American Bracketed style and adapted the revolutionary ideas of the Picturesque Aesthetic for American houses. Davis, who approached architecture as an artist, called himself and "architectural composer."

A Romantic Architect in Antebellum North Carolina, curated by national and regional scholars, reviews Davis' extensive, but largely unstudied North Carolina work. Although based in New York, Davis became acquainted with Fayetteville native Robert Donaldson and Governor John Motley Morehead of Greensboro.

Current Venue:
Bellamy Mansion Museum
503 Market Street
Wilmington, NC 28402
910-251-3700

This exhibition reveals the extraordinary buildings constructed by enslaved and free black artisans and builders during the pre-Civil War era. Although these men were usually uneducated, their skill in woodcarving, brick masonry and ironwork has given North Carolina some of its most treasured landmarks.