Architect To Speak On `Making Things Fit’

Architect James Cutler has been called one of the nation’s best “regionalists” - designers who draw inspiration from their immediate surroundings to create structures that somehow belong on a particular site.

But that hasn’t kept Cutler from seeking commissions far afield of his Bainbridge Island headquarters.

The town of Salem, Mass., chose Cutler’s vision for the Witch Trials Tercentenary Memorial from among 242 international entrants. Another client had him design a home on an Ohio dairy farm, where Cutler took cues from nearby outbuildings.

“Making Things Fit” is the theme Cutler, 45, will explore when he visits Spokane next Thursday night. His lecture, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects Spokane Chapter, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. Admission is $7.

Cutler’s most famous commission is the 40,000-square-foot residence he designed (with Peter Bohlin) for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

But he’s more inclined to talk about projects like the two-bedroom retirement home he tucked into a heavily wooded site so that only three trees had to be cut.

Access to the house is across a 127-foot ramp suspended above a lush gully.

“I figure anyone who uses (the ramp) will be forced into intimately experiencing nature,” he told the New York Times recently. “Once they’ve had that, they’ll become dedicated to preserving the forest, too.”

For more information about Cutler’s talk, contact the local AIA office at 747-5498.