Preserving In PAINT – Naples Florida Weekly

The structures are old.

The paintings are new.

They’re architect Richard Diedrich’s way of preserving historic properties in Southwest Florida, at least visually.

Watercolors of 18 historic Bonita Springs buildings are at the moment on exhibit at the Visible Arts Center’s Tranovich Gallery (26100 Previous 41 Highway, Bonita Springs) by way of March 30.

By producing these performs, Mr. Diedrich is capturing historical past with watercolor and canvas.

The artwork features households, this sort of as the Leitner Dwelling, the McSwain House and the Haldeman Dwelling churches, these types of as Hope Lutheran Church and Lee Memorial Initial Methodist Church, and motels these types of as the Liles Lodge, the Bonita Springs Resort, and Shangri-La Springs, formerly the Heitman Lodge.

By portray historic buildings in the region, some of them over 100 years outdated, Mr. Diedrich hopes to not only preserve the properties but draw people’s focus to them, to emphasize their worth and splendor.

It’s his very first solo exhibition of his architectural watercolors.

“The detail I respect so substantially about Richard is his methodical interest to detail,” suggests Jack O’Brien, exhibitions director at Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs. “And that’s by the entire system, when he selects a piece of architecture to portray. He has conditions he takes advantage of: what is it contributing to the neighborhood and is it correct for its web page. They are attractive will work and he’s extremely a great deal concerned about accuracy with the depiction of the buildings.”

Mr. Diedrich, whose architectural firm was in Atlanta, (now taken around by his nephew), applied to reside in the historic Brookhaven neighborhood.

“I decided to commemorate the homes there,” he says. “Initially, I just did paintings of the doorways. The residences have been modest. The doorways had all certain architectural element and remedies.”

He began painting on canvas.

“I came across a pad of Fredrix’s canvas and it claimed ‘For any medium,’” he recollects. “So I resolved I’d do watercolor. Canvas is very unique to paint on than paper because the paint sits on top. The canvas is primed. It’s quite distinctive from painting on watercolor paper. You have to paint horizontally.”

He likes the fact that it’s an historic organization.

“Fredrix,” he provides, “which makes art canvas, has been in enterprise due to the fact the 19th century.”

He also likes the way the texture of the canvas is an extra aspect to his photographs.

Mr. Diedrich initially discovered to paint in watercolor when finding out architecture at the College of Illinois, Ubrana Champaign.

“It was aspect of an art faculty, and we ended up taught portray,” he says. “The teacher was Louise Woodroffe, and she was quite demanding of the architects, teaching us how to paint in watercolor. It’s rough.”

But he figured out it nicely more than enough that he’d render his structures in watercolor, and, many years afterwards, make art in the medium and develop two textbooks of that function.

And, he shares, in an fascinating aside, “During the summer time (Louise) would journey with Ringling to paint the circus!”

His e-book, “The Storied Homes of Historic Brookhaven,” that includes his paintings of extra than 90 households, was released in 2017.

Portray Naples

When Mr. Diedrich moved to Naples, he resolved to do the similar detail with the historic Naples architecture.

“I’m an architect,” he says. “Historic architecture contributes to the local community, it makes a group distinct. It really hurts to see the historic residences torn down, and they’re often replaced by out-of-scale McMansions. The significant trouble is, they are out of scale. They just take up as significantly area as they can use.”

For illustration, he suggests, the house following to Palm Cottage, household and museum of the Naples Historic Society, was up for sale. The modern society acquired it for $4.2 million so an out-of-scale constructing couldn’t be made in its position that would dwarf the Palm Cottage, he explains. (Mr. Diedrich is a member of the Naples Historical Modern society.)

Mr. O’Brien, then curator at what was then called Naples Art, noticed Mr. Diedrich’s book of Brookhaven paintings and asked if could do the very same in Naples.

“The identical thing was going on in Naples,” Mr. Diedrich suggests. “Houses were being currently being acquired just for the land and out-of-scale buildings were being developed on them. Jack observed the paintings I’d done and he wanted to do an exhibition of Naples architecture.”

Naples, he explains, does not have a lifestyle of architecture like Sarasota does, with its Sarasota College of Architecture of Mid-Century Modern day, which was headed by Paul Rudolph.

“So 1 of the first issues I did, I interviewed 6 of the best layout-oriented architects in Naples, not only about their award-winning work, but what they assumed was the very best architecture in city. Not necessarily historic, but also up to date. I got a terrific record that way! We imagined it was a good software to level out the superior architecture that was in this article, to stimulate it.”

In March of 2020, lockdown hit, and Mr. Diedrich retained portray, making around a painting a week.

“I’d made this record of structures to see, and it was excellent,” he states. “I could generate, I could do all this on your own. I would consider shots. A person of the issues about portray architecture is, you want to get the finest daylight on the creating.

“Is it best in the morning, or the night? You have to judge how the building seems to be the ideal, in advance of you photograph it.”

He’d push by numerous periods, to get the gentle just proper.

“Photographers, when they choose photos, they can control the gentle,” he says. “With architecture photography, God controls the light-weight. You have to go back, if the photos never show the element, or specifically how a little something functions.”

He would choose the photographs from the street, outlining that as very long as you’re on general public home, you do not need to have to get authorization.

But 1 of the matters good architecture does is integrate the constructing with the landscape. And that brought about a trouble.

“A lot of the houses’ architects referred me to were being so efficiently integrated with the landscape that there was very little architectural to photograph,” he says. “It wasn’t totally concealed, it is just that you couldn’t get the complete character of the constructing, you could not photograph the creating (correctly) from the street.”

He retained portray via the pandemic, and at the close of two a long time had 100 paintings.

He recently revealed a different reserve, “Painting Naples Architecture,” and committed it to Naples architect Andrea Clark Brown, who handed away in June 2022.

Clubhouse grasp

Mr. Diedrich specialised in creating clubhouses for golf classes.

The first a person he designed was for Sailfish Issue on Hutchinson Island, about 55 miles north of West Palm.

“It was in the early ’80s, and golf communities and amenitized communities started to be common,” he claims. Jack Nicklaus created the golf system.

Then he did a person on Hilton Head, in South Carolina.

The third clubhouse he built was Grand Cypress, in close proximity to Orlando. Mr. Nicklaus also created that golfing class.

“I created a relationship with some of the golf program designers,” he suggests, naming Arnold Palmer, Tom Fazio and Mr. Nicklaus.

He worked on hundreds and designed shut to 100 clubhouses in 14 international locations.

For 16 decades, he also taught a class at Harvard through the summertime in how to design and style clubhouses. That led to 3 books. The very first was on leisure facilities and how to structure them.

For this work, he was regarded by the American Institute of Architects in 1990 and named a Fellow, the best honor the AIA bestows. He is only 1 of two Fellows living in Southwest Florida. (The other is architect Joyce Owens in Fort Myers.)

“I was picked as a fellow for increasing the elevation of the architecture of clubhouses,” he suggests. “I took the clubhouse making form as the centre of the local community and took it to one more amount, with instructing, with apply, and with the textbooks.”

Mr. Diedrich’s lush coffee-desk guide, “The 19th Hole: Architecture of the Golfing Clubhouse,” which came out in 2008, has an introduction by Mr. Nicklaus. It can be located on the Online for $500.

Domestically, he’s built properties in planned communities, together with Gray Oaks, Mediterra and Collier’s Reserve in Naples.

He also built shops for Neiman Marcus in Coral Gables, Orlando and Palm Beach on Truly worth, and for Bloomingdales in Boca and Palm Beach front Gardens.

Historic Brookhaven, where by Mr. Dietrich lived for 40 several years, was the 1st group in its space created all over a golf class.

Does he golfing?

“Not genuinely,” he says. “I’m not an avid golfer. I do enjoy some.”

Right now he’s concentrating on painting.

In addition to his architectural watercolors, he also paints abstracts.

“They clearly show man’s propensity to settle in which the h2o meets the land,” he states. “It’s on the water’s edge.”

But he needs his architectural paintings to attract focus to the area’s historic properties, their elegance and their significance.

If folks glance at his paintings, they may well take some time and appear at the real buildings up coming time, somewhat than just strolling or driving past them devoid of observe. They’ll recognize their value and understand why they will need to be preserved.

“I check out to phone people’s notice to them,” Mr. Diedrich states.

“That’s what art does, make people today seem at items in another way.” ¦

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In the KNOW

Richard Diedrich: Architect & Artist
» When: by March 30
» Wherever: Tranovich Gallery at the Visual Arts Centre, 26100 Aged 41 Highway, Bonita Springs
» Price: cost-free
» Info: 239-495-8989 or www.artcenterbonita.org