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

a house divided

One of the most impressive presentations at a museum that strives to impress (that would be the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL – a multimedia spectacular that puts Disneyland’s robotronic Lincoln to shame) is a brief four minute movie -- an animated timeline, actually -- that plots the progress of the Civil War from the point of Lincoln’s election, through secession, his inauguration, and on to battle.

The Union and Confederacy are represented in blue and red (ya think they could have used blue and grey, but oh no -- had to be blue and red), and as the clock ticks -- with one second equal to one week -- the battlefront oscillates and morphs and serpentines, punctuated with the brief explosions of battles (Shilo, Antietam, Gettysburg), as the body count tallies in the corner (over 1 million before the war is done). Then Sherman marches to the sea and cuts the final gash that seals the surrender of the South.

The movie closes with Lincoln’s assassination.

Edward Tufte would be proud – it’s brilliant information design.

I, frankly, was a wreck.


[Image Credit: The flag graphic above is by Rolyn Barthelman of NYC who created it after the last presidential election.]

wholesomeness and pureness

I know a guy who married a girl from Springfield, Illinois. When I told him I was heading down to Springfield for the weekend he said: “I’m sorry.” And then he recommended the Maid-Rite – home of the famous “loose meat sandwich”.

The Maid Rite is a classic Midwestern success story: The kind of World Famous you’ve never heard of. Here’s the story from the Xeroxed hand-out that they keep behind the counter, right next to the matchbooks that look like they were typeset in 1932:

In the early 1920s, butcher Fred Angell created a special cut and grind of meat, then added selected spices, to create a new ground beef sandwich.

A delivery man, upon tasting the sandwich, remarked that the sandwich was ‘made right’. The name MAID-RITE, adapted to mean “wholesomeness and pureness,” has remained part of the Midwestern landscape ever since.

Making it perhaps the first – and last time -- in our American culture that “loose meat” has been associated with “wholesomeness and pureness”.


A Maid-Rite sandwich is -- as the man who married into Springfield described it to me -- like a sloppy joe without the sloppy -- no sauce, just spices. Dressed up just like a burger, with mustard, onion and pickles. And to add to the novelty, the Maid-Rite also has the distinction of having “one of the first” drive-through windows -- which may well be why it landed itself on the National Register of Historic places.

Whatever the reason, the good news is that because of the designation, the homemade root beer and loose meat of the Maid Rite – franchise-that-failed-to-flower though it may be – isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Which is good news for those of us whom, having done pretty much all there is to do in Springfield, won’t be passing through again anytime soon. (Unless it’s for another fix of Wright’s Dana Thomas House. Details to follow soon.)

Maid Rite Sandwich Shop
118 N. Pasfield Ave.
Springfield, IL

all food-on-a-stick; all weekend long

We’re trying to keep a dinosaur alive that’s probably outlived its purpose.

William M Napoli, a State Senator from South Dakota, commenting on the money that’s funneled into supporting state fairs – and how little of that is actually returned – in yesterday’s New York Times.

Seems like we’re considerably behind the curve on this one: Driving the old Route 66 down to the Springfield this weekend for a State Fair fix (the website of which is worth checking out for the cheese factor alone) and to spend a little quality time with my boy Abe.

I’ll be moblogging all the food-on-a-stick offerings I can scare up – and anything else worth shooting in scenic Southern Illinois. (Woo. Hoo.)

The road show begins Friday night »