Dobson Pipe Organ Builders

The Fire. The Dobson Pipe Organ Builders were displaced from their shops and offices on June 15, 2021, by a devastating fire that completely destroyed their facility. The fire took the building and the components of an organ for Saint James church in Sydney, AU, which was about 1/3 complete. The fire precipitously changed the texture of the town square in the small community of 1,731 people.

Resilience to Rebuild. The leadership of Dobson considered rebuilding the facility in a larger town. Attracting craftspeople to such a small community has challenges, but the existing crew was all rooted in the community and the community was identified with these craftspeople that build beautiful instruments found around the world. John Panning, Dobson's owner, highlighted the importance of retaining their dedicated crew and staying in Lake City, where many employees have deep ties. "You can't really lose your building and lose your crew and still have a company," he said. "So we made the pretty easy decision to stay here." The importance of the community, the community of craftspeople and the texture of the town square were all to be respected.

Not a Metal Building. In rural Iowa a metal building is synonymous with common, often too common. The rural landscape is filled with inferior metal sheds and this site is on the town square. The direction was not a metal building. Avenues were explored to create a unique structure reinforcing the narrative of the craft achieved within, but the budget required a highly economical building, and the narrative would need to fit some standards of building economically. A metal building was considered the budget solution. The building would be metal, but not a shed. It was to be architecture and respect the square. Simplicity was not to be confused with inferior.

Embracing the Obvious. The structure is over 80% shop and storage space. The dominant programmatic requirements were high ceilings and flexible, open space. The program seemed at odds with the site and the intended narrative of craft. Budget was not flexible. The narrative needed to be written with fewer words. The building was to become a haiku. The structure was to be common, the words carefully chosen to give meaning in three lines.

Three Lines, 5-7-5. The architecture of the building is grounded in a common frame placed on a uniform grid. This frame is line #1. It is foremost economical. The large rectilinear plan fits snuggly to the grid of the village. The scale is inherently larger than anything else on the square because most buildings are a century older and come from a time that had a different scale. The mass is quieted with a color not found on the square. It is black. It recedes and remains quiet contrary to its unfamiliar size.

The entry is line #2. The entry marks the corner that the original structure received guests from the community and around the world. It ties the building to the square with the reaching canopy and the material is unique. The wood material of the canopy is akin to the "case" of an organ. It is the focus of much detail in the design and building of an organ. It is unique to each instrument, although much of each organ has similar unseen components.

The final line is the erecting room. It is a volume that does not fit within the common frame. It is the space where the organs are erected prior to shipping. The height needs to match those spaces found in cathedrals. This volume towers above the other components. It represents the pipes of the narrative, and the color is a familiar silver shimmer of tin and lead.

The building is simple. The three lines fit the small town.