Citizen Architect

In 1993 the late architect and MacArthur "genius" Samuel Mockbee started the Rural Studio, a design/build architecture program, in which students create striking architecture for impoverished communities in rural Alabama.

Guided by never-before-seen interviews with Mockbee, the film shows how a group of students use their creativity, ingenuity and compassion to craft a home for their charismatic client, Jimmie Lee Matthews.

Known within the community as Music Man because of his obsession with soul music, Jimmie Lee maintains a healthy zeal for life, blasting R&B from his vast collection of used stereos and boasting that he "ain't never met a stranger!" These relatively affluent, typically middle class students cross a threshold into Music Man's world to form a strong bond with a role model and friend – someone they likely would not have met had they not left the comfortable university campus for rural western Alabama