The Alchemy of Architecture

The Alchemy of Architecture: Memoirs and Insights from Ken Tate is celebrated architect Ken Tate’s creative memoir about his life in houses. Beginning with his days growing up in Columbus Mississippi where he was surrounded by beautiful Greek Revival houses, the book journeys through Ken’s upbringing as a creative adolescent to his early days at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he started his collegiate architectural career. 

There Ken struggled to keep up with the hard-edged modernism that was being taught in school and longed to design beautiful buildings with soul. Thus, his quest began leading him to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama where he found what he was looking for in two professors, Jim Jones and Lewis Lanter, who began mentoring him. That tutelage led him to write his thesis Architecture in Search of a Soul. Following graduation from Auburn, Ken journeyed to work for the eccentric talent Bruce Goff in Texas and afterwards for Sambo Mockbee in Jackson, Mississippi. 

He established his own firm, Ken Tate Architect, in 1984 in Jackson, Mississippi which began a lifelong career for designing houses in an alchemical way where truth, beauty and an inner essence was distilled into them. Full of rich detail and texture, the book follows Ken’s 35-year career of soul from Jackson to New Orleans and onto Palm Beach where the firm has opened their second office.

Covering his approach to design, how architecture relates to cinema and photography, advice, reflections and even epiphanies, the book is a must read for any fan of the profession. Features many black and white photos taken over Ken’s life and career.