Ghost: The Architecture

Foundation at Shobac that predates Champlain's trip to the new world in 1604

Typical Shed Architecture near Shobac

Fishing village at Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia

MacKay-Lyons' Studio at Shobac, part of Ghost 8, at Sunset

The Tower, called Simeon, built in 2004 during Ghost 6

View From Above of Shobac and the Atlantic Ocean; Note the 4 cottages or cabins

Close up of the Cottages Built during Ghost 7 in 2005

The Four Cottages. We stayed in the second from the left cabin

The Barn Built during Ghost 9. The Viewing Structure can be seen in the Distance

Structure Near the Messenger House II Built during Ghost 10

Viewing Structure Also Built During Ghost 10

Inside of the Viewing Structure

Path, built of Local Stone, to the Boat House

Shobac and The LaHave Estuary Beyond From the Viewing Structure

The first drawing of the New World that cartographer Sameul de Champlain drew in 1604 included a few European houses at the mouth of the LaHave River. One of the houses was on the site overlooking the LaHave Estuary where the Ghost workshops took place from 1994 to 2010. The foundation of that house remains to this day at Shobac. It was probably originally the home of a fisherman from Brittany or Normandy who settled there in the sixteenth century.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the French settlers lived peacefully with the aboriginal Mi'kmaq in villages where they traded, fished, forested and trapped for a living. The Acadian Expulsion in the 18th century was followed by the resettlement of the village by the German and Swiss immigrants. They used the existing foundations to build their homes in the 1750's. Their descendants remained there on the site which is now Shobac until the 1940's when they were abandoned. Every settlement at Shobac is built on the previous site reusing the stones and foundations.

The architect Brian MacKay-Lyons used the ancient foundation as a starting point for his series of Ghost hands-on design-build projects. The settlers of the region were fisherman and farmers and the same craftsman used the naturally available wood to build both the boats and the buildings. "A grasp of the of the vernacular characteristics of the native building culture leads to an understanding of current building styles. Why do the buildings of the Ghost workshop blend so well with the existing landscape? It is because Brian MacKay-Lyons has precisely observed the vocabulary of the surrounding buildings, such as lighthouses, barns, farmhouses and shipyards, as well as the shapes and construction of boats. His thorough analysis of these typologies is taken into account when designing in his practice, always skillfully blending the building into the environment. The result is an architecture that is bound to the landscape in the best sense of the vernacular." (Karl Habermann, Ghost, Building an Architectural Vision, 2008.)