Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raising

A symbol of a classic American way of life, the barn is rich in associations of self-sufficiency and community spirit. Now, its heavily romanticised form has been given a contemporary rethink in a project headed by Erin Besler. The co-founder of interdisciplinary design studio Besler & Sons, Besler is interested in the intersection of art, design and architecture. They have championed the notion of architecture as collaborative across a host of eclectic projects, redrawing architectural parameters across the fields of software, exhibition design, buildings and objects.

Collaborative community participation and flexible design potential unite in this project at Art Omi’s sculpture and architecture park in Ghent, Columbia County, New York. Working with the art centre, Besler heads a project to create a barn frame, rather than a functional barn, through a collaborative process involving the wider community.

The project draws on the tradition of barn raising, where a community comes together to build a barn in a process of shared labour. Most barns in America don’t require architects for the build, responding directly to the environment and agricultural requirements.

By opening the gates, Besler unites the expert with the amateur, and the individual with the collective. ‘Architecture has spent so long shoring up boundaries around it, deciding who's a professional,’ Besler says. ‘That has a lot to do with liability and risk management, but also it is a guarded field and hard to access, both in terms of becoming an architect and of providing architectural services. A lot of what I do tries to bring people in, either to contribute to the project with participant ideas, or to find conceptual ways to include people who might not think they have anything to offer, or who would traditionally not have access.’

Participants have been invited to join a rich and varied programme of social gatherings and creative workshops, from frame building to learning how to use tools and building frames and structures. The events culminate in the weekend of the barn raising, where the outdoor installation of the barn frame will be completed at the end of July. The structure will remain standing for the next two years.

Architectural considerations underpin functional choices. The structure is crafted from local wood, mostly pine and Douglas fir, which is untreated. ‘So many architectural materials are treated and chemically dependent on horrible things like arsenic that try to keep [them] up forever,’ Besler says. ‘Barns can go up and come down relatively quickly, like they are built as kits, or they can be taken apart and reassembled, or moved to different places. Some of that idea is built into this. It doesn't need to stay up forever, and we’re not negatively contributing to the environment in the meantime. You start to ask – what if we started to think about buildings in the same way? There are a lot of cultures that don't require buildings to stand forever, and there's a circular idea or temporality built into them.’

Politically, culturally and socially, the barn holds a key place in American culture. A symbol of self-sufficient living, its emphasis on traditional gender and societal roles can also present more problematic connotations.

‘It does seem in every photo of a barn-raising, the women are dressed in smocks and are cooking food, and the men are building,’ Besler says. ‘This project tries to address that in the series of events around the raising and leading up to it, by inviting members of the community to contribute. There is an educational aspect, and also, more generally, some form of experiential learning. You’re on the site and doing it, and if you can do it yourself, you can pass it on to the next person, and that runs through this project.’ Everyone – children and adults alike – can take on a number of roles, from manual labour to photography.

Working together with Art Omi, Besler had the freedom to bring to life the project that spans art, architecture and design. ‘The location is quite rare, and there aren’t a lot of rural arts institutions that are willing to take something that's typically situated in really functional conversations, like a barn, and turn it into something that's more like a container for ideas,’ they add.

By eschewing the formality typical of such a project's process, Besler is keen to strip away the mystique that surrounds creating. ‘This is something that people can relate to even if they're not engaging in architectural or art discourse,’ they say. ‘Whether it's through the everyday materials that people can find at their local hardware store, or because of the barn itself, which is so common out here in the rural United States, and is something people have their own associations with. The project is about barns, but the barn is a vehicle to push these ideas through. It’s a collision between art and life.’

Erin Besler’s barn raising at Art Omi takes place 26 July 2025. More info at artomi.org

This article is in the August 2025 US Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from 10 July 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today