Oehme, van Sweden & Associates
Wolfgang Oehme
James van Sweden
Van Sweden and his friends and colleagues Suman Sorg and Marilyn Melkonian purchased contiguous property on Maryland’s Eastern Shore upon which Sorg and van Sweden built individual weekend retreat homes (the third site is an undeveloped meadow between the two houses). Sorg, an architect, designed houses for van Sweden and herself, while van Sweden designed their landscapes. Van Sweden sited the homes inland from the bay rather than on the edge, yielding each commanding views across the landscape towards the water.
I met Jim van Sweden in 1987 when we collaborated on the first project I undertook after launching my own architecture practice in Washington, DC. I didn’t know then that this collaboration would last for the next 25 years on commissions from Washington to Nepal and that I would gain a great friend and neighbor in the process.[1]
The Artful Garden and Ornamental Grasses. see resources
[1] “Reflections on James van Sweden by Suman Sorg, FAIA, September 2010,” TCLF.org, last modified October 2, 2010
Petra Barth (German, b. 1964)
Born in Germany, Barth studied fashion design in Milan and worked for many years in the fashion industry before studying photography at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. She is interested in communities and focuses on human, social and environmental issues. Her photography is included in the Archive of Documentary Arts in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University.