Beloved Children’s Author Gives Advice to Parents of Budding Architects
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The author of Urban Animals and Building Stories will lead a hands-on activity at the Museum on Sunday, November 13. Isabel Hill will guide participants in creating their own books inspired by the buildings in the Museum’s neighborhood. National Building Museum Online sat down with Isabel to discuss her work and her advice for the parents of budding architects.
National Building Museum Online (NBM
Online): As an urban planner and architectural historian, what motivated you to
create books for young children?
Isabel Hill: Quite honestly, I was inspired to write my first children's
book, Urban Animals, by my own
daughter, Anna. When Anna was younger we used to take walks in Brooklyn where
we live and I would always point out architectural details. One day, as we were
wandering around our own neighborhood, I stopped to point out an interesting
floral detail on a building and Anna interrupted me saying, "Mama, there
is a dog on that building!" So my wonderfully-observant 5-year old
daughter gave me the idea to create books for young children about
architecture.
NBM Online: What was the inspiration
behind your latest book, Building Stories?
Isabel Hill: For many years I worked
as an urban planner in an old industrial neighborhood in New York. I walked by
a building with spectacular, yellow, terra-cotta pencils on the outside and
just had to find out why they were there. I researched the building and
discovered that it was the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory, famous for making
those yellow, Number Two pencils that were used for generations all across
America. Fast forward to two years ago: as I began to brainstorm about a second
children’s book on architecture, the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company Building
came to mind and inspired the book.
NBM Online: In Building Stories you look at the details of a building as being the characters, plot,
and setting of a story. Have you always thought of buildings in this way?
Isabel Hill: No, this was a new
concept for me but I think it works extremely well. Buildings do have stories
and, when you think about it, what goes on inside can be mysterious as well as
educational. Sometimes a building can have many plots and characters depending
on what goes on inside and who is involved with the building.
NBM Online: What advice do you have
for the young readers who enjoy your books?
Isabel Hill: I am so excited about
these books and want them to be the catalyst for walking around one’s own
neighborhood and observing all the interesting architecture that surrounds us. My
advice would be to go out, walk the streets, take the books as your guides, but
find your own architectural treasures. Photograph them, draw them, write about
them, and share what you find with other children and adults.
NBM Online: What advice do you have
for parents of budding architects?
Isabel Hill: I think it’s great for
parents to read the books out loud, to help their children tackle some of the
harder words, and to ask their children what they see in the books that relates
to what they see in their own neighborhoods.
NBM Online: As an architectural
photographer, what is your favorite city to photograph?
Isabel Hill: I must admit I love the
city I now call home—New York—because it is so vast and has so many different
kinds of buildings, architectural styles, and fantastic details. But
Washington, D.C. is the place I used to call home, and I have a huge affection
for the beautiful choreography of scale, material, and ornament that
characterizes that city. Many years ago I worked in the Pension Building, now
the National Building Museum’s home, for a part of the National Park Service
that documents historic, industrial sites throughout the country. I loved
working in this incredibly beautiful building where the architecture was alive
with meaning and power! The National Building Museum, with its descriptive
ornamental frieze, is actually a perfect place to start “reading a building.”
