MacNelly Cohen Architects P.C.

Since Bruce MacNelly and Linda Cohen started their practice on Martha's Vineyard in 1983, their primary focus has been on residential work in and around their island base, including projects in Rhode Island and Connecticut. In addition to his role as principal in MacNelly Cohen Architects, Bruce MacNelly has had an extensive academic career, teaching architectural design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University; the Rhode Island School of Design; Wentworth Institute of Technology; the University of Pennsylvania; and Princeton, Temple, and Louisiana Tech Universities. We believe that the practice of architecture is primarily the art of making places, not of making objects; and that intelligently made these places can inspire us to live within them with joy and a sense of well-being. Among our tools in this work are inspiration and analysis, poetry and technology, space and material. Like any other art, architecture is about spirit as much as substance, and a work of architecture can be understood both as a freestanding object and as part of a larger order of things, dependent for its life on its culture, its site, its program, and above all its inhabitants. The rich historical fabric of the island of Martha's Vineyard, where we work and live, provides us with many contexts within which to build, from Greek Revival to Shingle Style to simple farmhouse. It is our intent to refer lovingly to these precedents, while allowing a sense of modernity to pervade our work as well. We believe that the resulting dialogue between the present and the past contributes to the richness and resonance of the places we make. The diverse nature of the work represented by the photographs and drawings here is therefore a reflection of the differences found from project to project in site, in program, and especially in the concerns and desires of each client. At the same time, we hope that the images will also reveal a common set of qualities which we seek to bring to our buildings - volumetric clarity, a celebration of light, a connection to the landscape, and an expression of character through building.