Silent in the Land

SILENT IN THE LAND is a unique depiction of the major styles and periods of Southern architecture. With photographs by artist Chip Cooper and essays by Harry Knopke and Robert Gamble, the book's visual and written images provide impressionistic comments on the 19th century southern landscape viewed through the prism of time. Featuring 60 houses in more than 150 full, four-color photographs, SILENT IN THE LAND is an artistic and historical guide to houses as diverse as simple dogtrots and elegant Palladian mansions, it captures each house as it resides in its setting, sometimes calling the eye to a small detail that delights because of its idiosyncrasy. Essays accompanying the photographs provide new insights through interviews with descendants, owners, or neighbors of each house, as well as through archival research. The historical context for the artistic treatment is established in the introduction and is completed in the descriptive, black-and-white pictorial appendix. This is a book with an urgent message: there are elegant homes, lovingly maintained, some painstakingly restored; there are wasting structures that face slow disintegration through neglect and indifference. SILENT IN THE LAND bridges both worlds, showing the grandeur of one and fragility of the other. By compelling us to look anew at old, familiar structures it gives a vivid call to action for preserving a proud architectural heritage.

Chip Cooper was born in Savannah, GA and now resides in Tuscaloosa, AL. He is currently the Director of Photography at The University of Alabama as well as being a freelance Photographer.