Hodges
SUNLIGHT IS filtering through the wooden blinds one floor up at Hallin Bank, where we wait in the late afternoon while Susan Hodges settles the 10-year-old bundle of energy which is her son.
While we wait, we flip through the pages of glossy magazines which tell the story of Jamaica's most romantic architect, a label Hodges will shudder to see, but which we think is true.
We say romance, not in the sense of anything feminine, but in the sense of Hodges' love of history, the environment and tradition which is reflected in her work.
Susan Hodges is the architect who created Golden Eye Village cottages in St. Mary, Strawberry Hill Resort, in St. Andrew, redesigned Country Country in Negril and lately oversaw the design and construction of Island Village commercial centre in Ocho Rios.
Island Village is a marvellous concept showcasing the traditional and the new combined. The recently completed entertainment complex includes a cinema, reggae museum, amphitheatre, shops and restaurants.
Hodges has done a lot, working with her architect partner Oneil Johnson and design/artistic collaborators Dawn Francis, architect Peter Francis and engineer Stephen Hodges.
Today, in the manicured wildness of her garden, fronting her home located off Lady Musgrave Road, her dimpled smile flashes as she speaks, snatching a few moments from her busy schedule to reflect on her work in the last two decades.
Her schedule is "madness", she says.., "On Monday I had a meeting with the project managers of Island Jamaica (to which she is contracted full-time), about a resort project at Oracabessa. We have been working on it for years, but now we are about to move into the final phase of drawing and construction. On Tuesday, I met all day with a specialist in spas for the same project. Today, it has been a lot of little things..."
Hodges, now aged 43, is also mother of two children who she has to get to school in the mornings: 16-year-old Samora, to St. Andrew High and 10-year-old Rico to St. Hugh's Prep. She is also working on projects for their schools. At St. Andrew, she is helping to rebuild the canteen.
Preservation of Devon House
In Kingston where she is also on the board of the Heritage Architect Revision board, she is involved in the preservation of Devon House. "One of my main interests is trying to preserve history," the architect tells us.
The architect, who is the founder and immediate past chairman of the International Commission on Monuments and Sites is also a member of the steering committee of the Caribbean School of architecture's project to inventory Jamaica's historic buildings.
She received the Jamaica Institute of Architect's award for the best use of timer, the Governor-General's award for architecture for her own home, the Hallin Bank Housing project and the Silver Musgrave medal for service to arts and architecture by the Institute of Jamaica.
In 1997, she also received the Governor-General's award for architecture for Strawberry Hill.
Although Island Jamaica, Chris Blackwell's company, frequently takes her to the North Coast, she still finds time to get involved in projects like Devon House.
Architecture, especially in its traditional form, is in her blood. Hodges' father was an architect who worked as a town planner. She recalls, "I decided at age 10 that I would be one too." With laughter she adds, "I guess all my life I have been wanting to do this.
"As kids, we made little model houses. We built houses for little dogs and cats, we also created landscapes."
Her daughter, Samora, looks as if she may be going off to design school as well. Hodges does not want her to feel she has to follow in her mother's footsteps, but surprisingly, Samora has expressed interests. Maybe it's in her genes, "who knows?" she smiles.
When Hodges finally graduated from architecture school in the United Kingdom 1976, and when she returned to Jamaica in 1981, her first coup was to secure a job with the Urban Development Corporation where one could really go to town on reforming the landscape, and rescue structures in need of repair. Of particular satisfaction was a committee formed for the preservation of Spanish Town.
Task force on Spanish Town
The young architect was particularly interested, in the 1980s, in historic buildings and the preservation of towns. Hodges also did research looking at traditional building techniques, partly in the hope of completing a book on traditional Jamaican architecture, started by her father and left incomplete when he died.
The book is still incomplete, but she has published articles on traditional building techniques and others in the Jamaica Journal on thatch and earth and lime. Another on fretwork is still pending.
Her interest in traditional structures has little to do with the romantic feel or even their aesthetics. Hodges is intrigued primarily in technology and design. "People are not any smarter, we just have more materials to work with. In the old days, there were technical solutions of keeping homes very cool, letting the breeze in etc. These solutions still work very well," she tells Outlook.
Are her designs old-fashioned?
"A lot of people love it (my designs) although some prefer concrete buildings," Hodges answers with typical understatement.
There is a good reason why she is interested in heritage. "In Jamaica I think we as a people need to know more about ourselves, our past and appreciate the skills we used to have.
"In the past, there were master builders, stonemasons, great carpenters, we should appreciate their handiwork and preserve it."
She also believes that "If we become interested in our past, visitors will follow suit."
Her own home, Tammin Hall, for which she won the Governor-Generals Award is reflective of this reverence for the past.
It cost a fair amount to put on a new roof, to take out the termite wood, but it was far, far less than building a new house would have cost. Seven new apartments have been created in the old style and the original home is being lovingly reconstructed.
"I am not a romantic," the architect protests. "People point it out to me, but that is not what I have in mind. I think of what I do as terribly practical. As form following function. I look at practical things like the need to have breeze... but I think I may, at the same time, be affected by the aesthetics," she admits.
Admire carpentry
For her, there is an appreciation volume, of the human scale of some of these old buildings which are transformed to new ones, a horror of history erased. There is also the sheer admiration of the skill of the master craftsmen of the past. "I particularly admire carpentry. We have some really good carpenters." Hodges has high praises for the team which is needed to make all her dreams come true: "I do a lot of work with Dawn Scott, who has a wonderful colour sense. We appreciate the same types of buildings. Fretwork, paving, tiling, she designs all these things..."
She says expansively, "One thing I always enjoy is teamwork. I am fairly open to ideas. I don't think that is always appreciated by others. They speak of a Hodges Project, but there is a team involved."
She has found a sort of magical synchronicity among her current team. At Strawberry Hill, her team did not include a contractor. "We just employed a supervisor, workmen and carpenters and did the work ourselves. It was a very direct relationship between myself as the designer and the construction crew. Strawberry Hill, in retrospect, was a joy," she remembers.
Hodges said that she would like to do more in heritage preservation and interpretation with places like Titchfield Hill and Black River. Even in Oracabessa, where the current Island project is going forward, she has her eyes on several older buildings in the town.
In fact, the Chris Blackwell project the resort and commercial development in Oracabessa is designed as an extension to the town itself. Hodges has already connected with the Oracabessa Foundation on several projects for the schools, library, in training and the playground. "I would really like to see something happen in heritage," she said.
Nearer to home, she is working on a pet scheme for the "Golden Triangle" in residential St. Andrew.
She hopes that when Lady Musgrave Road is widened it will become more than a dual carriageway. "I want it to be like Pall Mall in London. It should have trees, solid paving, benches, lights ... make it a place that we could lock off and have a cultural event. It would be grand."
As the sun sets, her eyes reflect the waning light. Hodges is dreaming. This how it has always begun.
