OFFICIAL32 What does the professor imply about Irwin’s nineteenth-century biographers?

[00:00.00]NARRATOR: Listen to part of a lecture in an architectural history class.[00:07.02]MALE PROFESSOR: So last week we started our unit on residential architecture in the United States. [00:13.20]So today we'll be surveying a number of architects who made contributions to residential architecture in the 19th century.
[00:19.77]Now, it's worth noting that people who designed homes at that time probably had to deal with a certain amount of discouragement. [00:27.39]Since there were other architects who thought it was more respectable to design the kind of buildings and maybe other structures that were less...less utilitarian in their function. [00:37.51]In fact, an article from an 1876 issue of a journal called The American Architect and Building News stated that—and this is a quote—they stated that "the planning of houses isn't architecture at all..."!
[00:52.06]So keep that journal article in mind as we look at the work of an architect named Harriet Morrison Irwin.[00:59.11]Harriet Morrison Irwin was from the South, born in North Carolina in 1828. [01:05.14]At the time, there weren't many architects from the southern United States. [01:09.21]And as you might imagine, very few of them were women. [01:12.26]So Irwin was really a pretty exceptional case. [01:16.41]And she wasn't even formally trained as an architect. [01:19.48]Her educational background was in literature. Yes, Vicky?[01:23.56]FEMALE STUDENT: So she just had, like, a natural gift for architecture?[01:28.59]MALE PROFESSOR: Yes. She was actually a writer for several years. [01:31.78]But she did have a penchant for math and engineering, so... she read a lot about it on her own. [01:36.67]Um, especially the architectural essays written by the British critic, John Ruskin. [01:42.20] And John Ruskin believed...what?[01:45.12]FEMALE STUDENT: Um, that buildings should have a lot of access to the outdoors, to nature.[01:50.40]Ruskin said that being close to nature was great for people's mental and physical health.[01:55.73]MALE PROFESSOR: Right! So that was an influence. [01:58.88]Now, Harriet Irwin's contribution to architecture was relatively minor but still quite interesting and unique. [02:06.62]She designed a house with a hexagonal shape. Josh?[02:11.27]MALE STUDENT: A house with six sides... [02:13.46]Instead of the standard, you know, four-sided home?[02:16.39]MALE PROFESSOR: Yeah. The rooms inside the house were also hexagonal, six-sided.[02:21.86]So one important thing was that the rooms were arranged around a chimney in the center of the house, which could provide heat for the whole house through flues, uh, small air passageways into each room, as opposed to having a fireplace in every room, which would require more cleaning and make the air inside the house dirtier.[02:40.85]The house's shape also allowed for more windows. [02:44.38]Each room had a large wall that could fit a couple of big windows, giving every room a nice view of the outdoors.
[02:50.51]FEMALE STUDENT: Plus there would be good airflow through the house.[02:53.56]MALE PROFESSOR: Yes. In warm weather when you can open all the windows. [02:56.59]Good. The doors to the house as well...um, the house didn't have a "main entrance" or any hallways.[03:03.28]So, there could be a couple of entry doors in different places, which like the windows, provided ready access to the outdoors.[03:10.37]So, what other advantages might there be to hexagonal rooms? [03:14.45]OK. Think about cleaning. [03:17.59]What part of a room is usually the hardest to clean, [03:20.36]like, to sweep with a broom?[03:21.83]MALE STUDENT: Oh... the corners! Because in square or rectangular rooms, the corners are at ninety-degree angles. [03:28.67]It's hard to reach all the dust that gathers in the corners. [03:31.46]But if Irwin's rooms were closer to a circle than a square, it would be easier to reach all the dust and dirt with a broom. Right?[03:39.95]MALE PROFESSOR: Exactly. Now...um, biographers who wrote about Irwin in the 19th century, I feel, sort of downplayed the ingenuity of her design. [03:49.47]But I think if she had designed this house today, the same biographers would praise her for coming up with a floor plan that emphasized function, efficient function of a house, as well as a design that's creative and unique.
[04:02.73]In any cases, three houses were built in Irwin's time that used her hexagonal design. [04:08.11]And in 1869, when she was 41, Irwin became the first woman in the United States to receive a patent for an architectural design. [04:17.93]And that speaks volumes if you ask me.