probably bionic

The gist of the discourse was that, if you wanted people to remember you and your work, you had to have a simple descriptive word or phrase that people could easily remember and associate that word with both you and your work; the hook, as they say in the advertising business.

Then he said, "For that purpose, I chose the word organic. If I were doing it today, I would choose a different word, probably bionic. One of you boys can use that."

Architect John Geiger, recounting a conversation with Frank Lloyd Wright that occurred in 1953, during his apprenticeship at Taliesin »

rectilinear frame of reference

Guggenheim - n. 1
Originally uploaded by Isco72

The basic concept of curvilinear slope for presentation of painting and sculpture indicates a callous disregard for the fundamental rectilinear frame of reference necessary for the adequate visual contemplation of works of art.

From an open letter in 1956 to Mr. James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, signed by visual artists -- among them Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell -- in protest of the construction of the Guggenheim Museum designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Republished in the Spring 2010 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.

Update: They went ahead and built it anyway.

I wish I were Isabel.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Isabel Roberts house, River Forest, Illinois, 1907. Plan. Built late in the Chicago period, when Wright had found freedom of expression.

This may be my favorite Wright.

Graycliff

It’s like birdwatching -- but with buildings.

So said Mr. Hoo when he emailed me some links re Frank Lloyd Wright in and around Buffalo, NY last week when I was just a few scant hours away in Warren, PA. He suggested that, as long as I was in the neighborhood, I should take an extra day to see a few -- including the tremendous Martin complex right in the city, and Graycliff, also built for the Martins and a brief drive outside the city limits on the shores of Lake Erie.

But my schedule didn’t have any give in it, so I made my plans to return home right after the last of the meetings wrapped up, do what I had to do to ship off some more work, speak to a gathered assembly of creative types in Chicago, and then daytrip into Manhattan the following day.

And then, unforeseen, the last of the meetings canceled, and I was left with *just* enough time to stop by Graycliff on my way to the airport in Buffalo (and perhaps enough time to squeeze in the Martin House in the city, if only it weren’t closed on Tuesdays...).

I squeaked in for the 2 o’clock tour as the docent was corralling the only other folks to materialize -- a couple from Sweden who had taken in the Martin house the day before. Our docent was two unsteady years into her volunteer stint, and delivered the story line like someone who didn’t entirely believe the fiction: “Frank Lloyd Wright carried the octagon through the negative spaces of the facade. (Can you see it? I’ve never been able to see it.)” She was a stern task master, insisting on stopping at the predefined spots on the tour and reviewing her mental notes before we moved on, all three of us eager to get under the eaves.

But we did all right. And we got to see the summer place that Wright built for the Martins sometime in the late ‘20s, which was open and wide and penetrated by clear glass panes throughout -- something that Isabelle Martin insisted upon, given her failing eyesight. (No colored art glass in evidence.)

The central living area opened on both sides to the drive and to the lake shore, the doors and windows alternating in balanced syncopation (the door on the left confronted a window on the right, and vice versa) to minimize strong drafts through the core of the house while still encouraging cooling breezes. It felt very much like the receiving area of Unity Temple, although where that is a place in between the primary spaces (the Sanctuary and the Meeting Hall) this was a place where living took place, rooted in the most impressive Frank Lloyd Hearth I’ve seen to date.

The hearth was flush to the floor and as tall as a standing man -- if that man were Frank Lloyd Wright -- and it was populated, on the day I was there, with thick logs tented together like a traditional campfire. Ablaze I imagine it would light and warm the entire room.

There were echoes of the Heurtley House here -- a screened stairway that led to a long promenade hallway, opening into rooms that overlooked the lake. Settled, refined, surprisingly without ostentation. A place to remove the working world mask and be still awhile.

Something I could use a little more of right now -- if only I didn't have to get back to work.

pattern language

Frank Lloyd Wright's mark, expressed on the placard
outside his Oak Park studio and again, later, in the
sconces at the Robie House (1909) in Hyde Park.

A square enclosing a circle intersected by a cross.

Posting by cameraphone.

heurtley (so good)

Let’s get the recriminations out of the way: I didn’t bring my camera.

Not the big heavy tricked out every which way with all kinds of lenses Nikon; not the little Leica point-and-shoot whose battery went dry on me a couple of days ago that I haven’t recharged.

A situation which would have been perfectly acceptable if, when visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1902 Arthur B. Heurtley House, things had proceeded according to the protocol generally observed when visiting a Wright, namely: No pictures of interior spaces. Along with: Do not stray off the shabby grey carpet runners. Don’t touch anything, and for the love of God, no food. No drink.

It became clear that all bets were off when Mr. H poured the wine.

Shortly after that he said “sure: I don’t mind if you take pictures.”

Mr. H, whose name is a matter of public record as the new owner of the Heurtley House, welcomed fifteen of us from class (the one with a name too silly to be repeated here) into the home he shares with his family in Oak Park this evening simply because, as far as I could tell, he’s just a nice guy, and was kind enough to return a phone call from a fellow in our class who works with a guy who knows a guy who used to play football with Mr. H.

So there you are.

He’s also deeply in love with the home he lives in, and deeply respectful of the architect who built it. All solid qualifications for this fan girl.



All I can give you are a few lousy cameraphone shots, and the abiding impression that the entire home -- from the music room on the ground floor that now houses a pool table and a Wii, to the upper story with its grand dining room and library and reconstructed inglenook -- glowed like an ember, radiating heat without ever scorching.

Birch wood was everywhere and may have contributed to the glow; as probably did the sight lines that flowed without effort or obstruction the entire span of the floor plan. The interior colors have been restored to their original warm earthy tones and plastered in concert with a fine sand (trucked up from Southern Illinois and sifted to ensure conformance with the original); which probably also contributed to the steady radiant heat that that place emits.

The owners who came before spent a fortune on the restoration of the home -- there’s a documentary available online which I’ve never seen but will certainly watch now.

There were many details that made me giddy, but the one that captivated me was the tiny sink in the butler’s pantry with two irregular basins -- the left hand basin was a perfect square; the right hand basin was a rectangle that spanned the same width as the square and shared the same baseline. Snugged over the rectilinear sink was the faucet and fixtures. All original to the 1902 structure, and subtly expressing the simple geometric motif that ran through the entire house, complemented further by the appearance of a Sullivanesque arch over the main doorway and in the library hearth.

The position and proportion of the dining room suggests the Robie house and the restored veranda off the library (once boxed in by previous owners -- now opened wide to receive the breezes and allow for living) was everything a summer afternoon might ask for.

Apologies for the fractured write up -- I’m tired enough that I probably should have waited until the morning when I was fresh, but I wanted to capture the heat before the fire faded away.

cup of coffee by the fire

Last interior page of a facsimile of the 1933 Taliesin Fellowship Brochure written and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The brochure is an application for residence in the apprentice program at Taliesin where:

Each is required to pay a fixed fee according to the terms stated on the application blank herewith. In addition they will be required to do their share of work in the upkeep and care of the grounds and buildings and the productive activities of the farm for the participating in practical work in the studios and shops and in the production of art objects and exemplars for industry and building, or for exhibition and perhaps sale.

In the course of the 18 page brochure FLW also rises up on his soapbox:

Taliesin is concerned with the impotence that is the consequence of the gamble in education, believing young America over-educated and under-cultued: Sex over emphasized, present sex social differentiations absurd or obscene.

And waxes poetic:

The being that is unconcerned with seeming has found in our life little soil in which to grow.

I was flipping through the brochure last night in preparation for (don't laugh) Architecture Fantasy Camp (I wish they called it something else) this weekend at the Frank Lloyd Wright Studio in Oak Park.

We get to draw on those pretty drafting tables.

frank was here

I wasn’t happy with the shots I took of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Community Christian Church in Kansas City back in October, mostly because they turned out true -- they captured the fake ferns that adorn the pure geometry that Wright limned for the preacher’s pulpit, the framed church fathers hanging on the rough aggregate concrete walls, the severe angles of the balcony that were difficult to maneuver.

I believe this little Church, which its compressed lower corridors and vast open sanctuary, is one that Wright only ever saw on paper, and I wonder if he would have been happy with its rough execution; with the clutter along its passageways.

The space felt like a grand old house forgotten: As if a rich childless couple had commissioned it and lived quietly within its rooms, making small gestures and speaking in hushed voices, until they passed on and their home was subdivided into a multiplicity of rental units, teaming with the chaos of lives lived and babies birthed and children playing, their shouts echoing off the walls.

Good things, all -- but curiously out of context in this place where they should have been entirely at home.

persimmons, piano hinges & parallelograms

Decided to go ahead and reactivate a post that I created back in July (as part of the Mighty Mo Road Show) and then quickly relegated to draft form. At the time I thought it was a cop out, and too shallow a treatment of the Frank Lloyd Wright house that we visited outside of St. Louis. Maybe it is. It's simply a letter that I wrote to my grandmother around that time, knowing how much she loves Wright's lines, and knowing how much it reminds her of my Bompa and his love of Wright's architecture.

I never did get around to doing it right, but something about persimmon season made me think about that place again and regret that I didn't at least mention it here. The Kraus House is available by appointment only and I suspect it deserves more attention than it gets. It's a gem, nestled in a persimmon grove, strung together with piano hinges and framed out in a series parallelograms.

The true marvels reside inside. The interior retains all of Wright's original furnishings -- down even to the bedspreads -- much like the Dana Thomas house but on a smaller scale. (And DON'T get me started about the gal from Southern California who compulsively flipped over and started fingering the bedspread, to our collective horror, as if she were in a J.C. Penney's showroom and deliberating whether she might buy it. The docent showed remarkable restraint in telling her "PLEASE. you mustn't. do. that.")

But of course they won't allow photographs of the interior. So here's a brief Flickr slideshow of the exterior of the home »

And here's a link to the original post: Kraus Haus »

The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park
120 North Ballas Road
Kirkwood, Missouri 63122
To schedule a tour call 314-822-8359

kraus haus

17 July 2007

Dear Grama,
Had a lovely weekend and I thought of you all the while – I so wish you could have been there. Even more: I wish you and Bompa could have both been with us. We made the drive down to St. Louis, Missouri – which is about four and a half hours from Chicago – to see the home of Mr. and Mrs. Russell Kraus.

The Krauses commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design their home in the 1950s, and he delivered blueprints for a lovely little house, perfectly appointed, designed down to the light fixtures and furnishings. All for $3,500. (Quite a bit back then, I suppose.)

The dominant wood that runs through the home is Redwater Tide Cypress (very hard to get after the second World War, apparently), the prevailing motif is the parallelogram (Wright was fond, as you know, of incorporating a theme into his homes – even the bed in the Master Bedroom of the Kraus home is in the shape of a parallelogram) and the home is set in a grove of lovely, slim persimmon trees.



The touch that I think Bompa would have especially enjoyed was the way the cabinet doors – all of them – were hinged with piano hinges that ran all the way from the top to the bottom of the doors. A good thing, too, because as it turns out the radiant heat, installed under the floors in the home, would have warped the heavy-duty plywood cabinet doors if they hadn’t been fully supported in the way that the piano hinges made possible.



The home is owned by the county who received it as a gift from the private organization that purchased it from Mr. Kraus about half a dozen years ago. (Mrs. Kraus died some time ago, but Mr. Kraus is still alive and well.) The non-profit looks after the house now and opens it only for privately arranged appointments – they were kind enough to accommodate us when we called.

Wish you could have been there. I’ve enclosed some picture postcards – I hope you enjoy them.

I love you, Grama. Thinking of you and holding you close in my heart.

Your granddaughter.

The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park
120 North Ballas Road
Kirkwood, Missouri 63122
To schedule a tour call 314-822-8359

taliesin west

Unlike the gem box that is Mies’ Farnsworth House -- where visitors are asked to remove their shoes and don surgical booties before they cross the threshold – Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West is roughshod and frayed from all the foot traffic that shuffles through, leans on the walls, and sits on the furniture.

It’s either that traffic or the fine layer of Arizona desert dust that covers everything and acts like a sort of sandpaper that has left it looking tattered and tired – or maybe it's a combination of the two. But it’s certainly this same quality that makes it feel like the older, tired, worn at the seams college professor – the one that you’re just a little bit afraid to approach because he’s so well known in his field – only to find that he’s perfectly accessible once you work up the courage to ask him a question.

Any question will do: because the story he tells on the way to the answer is the reason that you came.

The requisite Flickr slideshow from last weekend’s visit to Taliesin West »

front row center

Inside the theatre at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.

building on history

One last remark about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dana-Thomas house, and then I’ll let it rest.

In addition to everything else that is going on in that house, Wright framed the cornices and baseline of the home with poured concrete finishes that strongly emulate the lines of Yucatec Maya pyramids. It’s all in the angle – and that angle is all Yucatec – you don’t see these same lines at the Mayan sites in the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala, but they’re all over the place in the Yucatan.

It was exciting to see that line (and mind-bending to see it teamed up with Pagoda-like pedimental details, but that’s another story) -- particularly once we got into the belly of the beast and discovered all those layers and platforms. Sixteen layers worth; overlapping, intersecting, all flowing seamlessly one to the next.

It’s known that Wright traveled in the Yucatan, although to my shame I don’t know the dates of his time there, but I suspect it was early, because the monstrosity that is the Nathan G. Moore house in Oak Park, built originally in 1905, has some styling Puuc-like roofcombs going on (god I hate that house). Just down the street the sweet little Laura Gale house also reflects the simple stucco-ed surfaces of the Mayan pyramid (I like her much better).

I had the good luck to travel to the Yucatan with an architect who apprenticed with Wright at Taliesin. I asked him about the influence of Mayan architecture on Wright and he (the architect’s name was Bob) said only: “It was profound.” Then he went off to sketch. He spent that whole trip sketching.

What I don’t know is what was known about the Maya when Wright traveled there – but here’s what’s known now, and what, so excitingly, seemed to be conveyed in the design of the Dana-Thomas house: the Maya built their new pyramids on top of their old pyramids, and did so reverently. See Rosalila at Copan for more on that reverence.

If you wander among these ruins you’re confronted by a crazy, delightful confluence of lines and steps that merge together to create new forms – new construction on old, building ever upward. Evidence, everywhere, of the Ancestors who had gone before – figures who are very important in the mythology and the daily lives of the Maya people, even today.

The Dana-Thomas house conveys something of the same thing, and the reason I got such a charge out of this idea was because the home itself was built on the foundations of a Victorian home that Sarah Lawrence Dana’s father had built there before for his family.

Most of the evidence of the original house was gone, with an important exception: In the heart of the home, surrounded by Wright’s stunningly appointed Prairie-style furnishings and details, Wright preserved the heart of the original home – with the original hearth still in place.

This is the only room in the house that is furnished in the Victorian-style. Stylized butterflies dot the hearth stone – Wright took that motif and extended it in his art glass throughout the house – a rare example of a crawling critter in his art glass designs (the Prairie Sumac is present here too, and that’s more Wright’s usual style – alluding to green, growing things).

For me, the deal was sealed on this little story that I was telling myself when I turned, and looked, and saw the portraits on the wall, just as the docent explained that “these are Sarah’s parents.”

The Ancestors.

compression and release

dana-thomas entryway
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Unity Temple is the only building that’s ever made me cry.

It caught me by surprise -- but I suspect Frank Lloyd Wright knew exactly what he was doing when he designed it. He forces anyone who wishes to enter the sanctuary to first descend into a cloistered walkway (which runs in a tight, squared embrace, around the whole of the worship space – you could lap it in 2 or 3 minutes, easy) and then forces them again to ascend – single file -- into the sanctuary.

It’s that ascent up the steep narrow walkway, into a gorgeous angular space that is three stories high and shockingly intimate; that brought tears to my eyes.

Any FLW fan will tell you how he did it: with compression and release.

Wright was the master of lowering the lid – bringing the space in snug and tight around his occupants -- and then lifting it again into a soaring space that is both theatrical and habitable – to create a frame around domestic life.

I had a chance to see the Dana-Thomas house over the weekend and was reminded of Wright’s flair for the dramatic all over again. Built on 16 different levels, the house frames out multiple stages, platforms, barrel ceilings and performance spaces – all which live organically with myriad intimate nooks and conversation spaces. The massive home was built to be theatrical from day one: Sarah Lawrence Dana-Thomas, daughter of one of the richest men in Springfield (a mason and friend of Lincoln with government contracts) commissioned it after the death of her second husband (there would be one more before she was done) to entertain. She also opened her checkbook wide to Wright.

What more could a drama queen like FLW want?

Not much, it would seem. I have no shots of the interior to share – interior shots aren’t allowed, and the gift shop, for some unknown reason (but almost certainly because someone else owns the copyright) doesn’t sell a color catalog of the house (only one in black and white) – so please pardon my sputtering as I try to explain what happens there.

Through a beautiful accident of history when an attempt was made to auction the contents of the home in 1941 – all of which Wright designed and assigned to their appointed place – no one wanted them. As a result 90% of the furnishings and finishes remain intact. And – in one of those stories that docents love to tell – the State of Illinois (which owns the house now, having bought it back from a publishing company that had used it as offices for many years) re-acquired one lovely Wright designed stained-glass lamp that had gone missing at auction not too many years ago – for $750,000.

When it was built almost 100 years ago the entire house, with all of its furnishings, cost about $60,000. (To be fair: that’s equal to $4.5 million today.) (Interesting to compare what a dollar will buy you -- Mies’ Farnsworth House cost about the same sum, and was built about half a century later.)

The upshot is that the visitor has a chance to experience Wright at his most organic – surrounded not only by the striking modernity of his framed walls – but by the intimacy and elegance and harmony of his furnishings. The long, lean lines of oak; the jewel box details of art glass; and always the progression from stage to stage – up steps to the next level, tight little stairways and passageways which open into great big gorgeous barrel vaulted ceilings.

One of my favorite details was in the lower level – below ground, but it would be too pedestrian to call it a basement – Wright constructed a duck-pin bowling lane, framed by warm stucco walls under an arched ceiling. We encountered it on the tail-end of the tour – I thought for certain, after all our walking, that it was tucked into the back corner of the house – but it turned out to be tucked away right under the front door.

The Dana-Thomas House is unlike anything I’ve experienced before in a building. When folks talk about Wright’s desire to control the contents of the home – down to the dress of the woman of the house – the story is cited (generally with laughter) as an example of his overweening desire to control his clients.

But the space that he created with the Dana-Thomas house is not controlling – it doesn’t force conformity – it creates a stage for people to do what people do. To come together – in conversation and shared meals and experiences – in close, intimate compressions – that evolve into larger, theatrical expressions – whether in the performance spaces (Carl Sandburg read there; John Philip Sousa played there) or in the bedrooms (unfortunately the docent provided no details – but isn’t that where the best human dramas wind up?). And isn't it through human intercourse (conversational and otherwise) that we undergo transformation?

The Dana-Thomas House is a sociologist’s dream.

I have a little bit more to say but I’ll save it for later. In the meanwhile, here’s a slideshow of the home’s exterior »

Regrets that I can’t show you the real workings of the interior – you’re gonna have to roadtrip to Springfield to see it for yourself.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Dana-Thomas House
301 East Lawrence Avenue
Springfield, Illinois 62703

whole lot of pilgrims

arthur heurtley house, oak park
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

“That’s a whole lot of pilgrims.”

Thomas A. Heinz AIA speaking at the Printers Row Book Fair about the fact that 3 Million people visit Frank Lloyd Wright structures every year.

One of the best parts about hearing Thomas Heinz speak about his new book, the Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide, at the book fair over the weekend was the way he shared his research notes about the people who lived in these houses.

The field guide is notable because it organizes all of the existing domestic and international FLW structures geographically, and with GPS codes (along with street addresses) so that they’re easy to find. He also annotates them with relevant notes so you can decide whether you want to bother finding them.

Each house is named after its original owner, of course, and includes notes about the history of its commission and, where relevant, its evolution. Here’s an example from the Roland Reisley House in Pleasantville, NY (GPS N 41 07.418 // W 73 44.695, if you’re wondering):

The clients were a physicist who married a psychologist in 1950, both only children. When they were looking for a place to start a family, they took a look at this cooperative and liked it.

On 26 October 1950 they sent a five-page letter to Mr. Wright outlining their needs and the $20,000 budget. Wright suggested a meeting, and the Reisleys drove to Taliesin. They got the preliminary drawings in February 1951 but Wright noted the budget now at $30,000, to their surprise.

Wright, then 84, visited Usonia and spent time with them on their site. Excavation began on September 1951, and they moved in in June 1952 although it was a bit unfinished. In the mid-1950s an addition was planned and occupied by early 1957, in time for the birth of the Reisleys’ third child.

The fact that Heinz manages to maintain this kind of historical annotation for what appears to approach over 500 listings is a pretty impressive accomplishment in itself.

The story that he told that stuck with me had to do with the Cheneys, the couple who FLW built a house for in Oak Park, IL during the early part of the 20th Century -- before he ran off with Mrs. Cheney in 1909.

The entry in the field guide is fairly dispassionate, simply noting that the house was built, that Mamah Cheney left with Wright for Europe in 1909, and that Mr. Cheney remarried and continued to live in the house until 1926 when he relocated to St. Louis for business.

But Heinz spent some time noodling at these events during the interview on Sunday, wondering: how could Cheney bear to live in that house – its every detail built and designed by Wright -- after his wife left him for the man? And to continue to live there after horror was added to heartbreak when Cheney’s children were murdered, along with his ex-wife, when a domestic servant went postal at Taliesin in 1914?

Heinz had several theories about what might have made it bearable for Cheney, all of them keying into the children who were born or adopted into that house, and the presence of Mamah’s sister Lizzie, who came to stay with them as a Nanny -- and may well have had a child while she was there. (I’ll let you put the pieces together.)

But the anecdote that stopped me in my tracks was learning how in 1914, when Wright received news of Mamah’s death while he was working on a project in Chicago, he got on the first train back to Taliesin -- with Mr. Cheney. Cheney's children had been killed, after all, and he had boarded the same train on his way to collect their remains.

The two men, the story goes, shared a quiet, civil conversation. What they might have said to each other, on a day when the bottom had fallen out of their worlds -- how the two adversaries would have shared, or simply remarked upon their grief, on that slow ride to Wisconsin -- really has me wondering.


p.s. Watch for Heinz on PBS in the coming months – he’s just wrapping up the posthumous construction of a FLW house on Lake Mahopac north of NYC, and PBS showed up with a film crew to capture some of the fun.

bad feng shui

Mrs. Cheney
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

And of course we've all heard the story: Frank Lloyd Wright's dear Mrs. Cheney was killed along with her children at Taliesin, their beloved home in Spring Green, Wisconsin, one day when he was away.

A couple who worked for the family locked the doors while they were dining, doused the perimeter with gasoline, and set them all ablaze. Wright was devastated by the loss and, as I understand it, insisted on burying Mamah Cheney alone, on his own -- or nearly so.

It's hard to imagine the imperious Wright digging the grave with his own hands -- but maybe he did. To see her simple stone huddled against this elder tree made me believe in the possibility that a man not much given to manual labor might put his shoulder to the blade in an effort to quiet the rage and the ache.

what a man does

signature tile
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

What a Man Does
That He Has

Inscribed over the doorway of the Apprentices' Studio at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin in Spring Green, WI