Architect Jerry Sparkman of Sweet Sparkman Architects will present a lecture titled “Private Lives + Public Stories: Architecture as Visual Storytelling” as part of the Sarasota Architectural
Jerry Sparkman, left, and John Bryant of Sweet Sparkman Architects. Staff photo / Harold Bubil.
Foundation’s lecture series.
The event will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Herald-Tribune’s Community Room, 1741 Main St., Sarasota.
Admission is $10 for SAF and AIA members and $15 for nonmembers. Students are admitted free with identification. Buy tickets online at SarasotaArchitecturalFoundation.org.
The SAF describes architects as being like archaeologists, “looking for a clue into the way people live and experience their surroundings. They want to use space, light, material and form to tell a story...a story of private life, or a story about community endeavors, expressing what inspires us.”
The architect will tell stories about clients, their families and the lifestyles that inspired their homes’ designs. Sparkman also will reveal the inspiration for the public design work of the new Siesta Beach buildings, fire stations and Sarasota County Beach Pavilions.
Sweet Sparkman has won numerous design awards from the American Institute of Architects’ local and state chapters. The firm also exhibited in the prestigious Venice Biennale for Architecture in Italy in 2012.
Even though it is rooted in both terms, Sparkman’s work defies being labeled as modernist or contemporary.
“I hope so,” said Sparkman, whose business partner is architect Todd Sweet. “If we achieve that, I am happy. Todd and I ... hope to be a practice that generates work that you cannot say what it is. It is very appealing to get to a work that is its own thing.”
