Frank Lloyd Wright

Woo hoo!

A waterfall at your house. What more can you ask for??

Unfortunately, Frank Lloyd Wright was apparently a total bastard: for example, the building of this house actually totally destroyed the very area that the family wanted to be near when they commissioned him to build it--he built over their waterfall and picnic spot and kind of went, "Oh sucks to be you!" when they pointed it out.

(OK Crosspost with Sarah, that's hysterical)

http://www2.merton.ox.ac.uk/~rejs/nyc2002/guggenheim.jpg

But interior shots of that house are pretty awesome too.

http://www.herbstours.com/Images/RobieHouse.jpg

OVER. RATED.

The useage of concrete was unusual in Falling Water too, though again contributed muchly to the FUCKING COLDNESS of that joint.

Total dud.

And yes, the permanent furniture thing...like I said, he really had no interest in architecture as actual space that people use, and the more known he became the less he was willing to compromise on this.

http://cards.corporateecards.com/cards/598565439/large/4001020131525285.jpg

I really hate the Guggenheim though, despite it having my favorite painting!

I studied at the FLW Home and Studio when I was younger. There were certain nooks that seemed nonfuctional but in general the house seemed to be a magnificent and eminently practical design. Unfortunately it was built so peculiarly that it was very hard to retrofit it with air conditioning units, and if I recall parts of the house simply couldn't be air conditioned except by window units.

i've been in the Pasadena house, it was cold and bare, but a marvel of austere stonecutting. you're better off just seeing the pictures :-)

wrongest thing Ally ever posted

(haha if it's the architecture as useable space bit then his interpretation of good useable space is a bit wanked up)

Although I've always read that his guiding principle was functionality, it'd be hard to find a builder of homes that didn't say this. And certain of his designs, like the straight-backed chairs, are functional but way uncomfortable.

That said the homes I've visited--mostly in Oak Park, Illinois--are breathtakingly gorgeous outside and inside.

gabbneb you should go if you can, it's really not that far away. Amateurist is OTM about the statement versus the reality--everything he did was functional but very little of it was actually comfortable or enjoyable in a manner one would traditionally deem a home useable/comfortable/enjoyable! I did always figure he was just saying "Fuck you" to his show home clients.

They're all beautiful to look at.

I like his Oak Park Prairie style and L.A. block style houses, but that Northern California civic building (I can't think of the city now) is pretty ugly, and both of his Taliesin houses seem kind of awkward.

cf gehry and bilboa
c/c dia:marfa,beacon.

The issues with Falling Water are not necessarily Wright's fault: his original design for the concrete involved a hollowing technique that would've kept the concrete from buckling, theoretically at least (note: I am not any kind of engineer so I don't know if this actually would've worked). The builders did not trust his design and filled up the hollows with concrete to make solid slabs, making it buckle under its own weight...That's lazy contractors, not bad architecture

You should all read Brendan Gill's biography - it's really fun.

And his letters are so bitchy and hilarious - I like when he goes on and on about the "Nazi" international style. It's hard to not like the guy after reading them.

You could tell from looking at the house that it was once very impressive, and very "modern" compared to the more "prairie" houses in Oak Park, but to be honest, its condition was beyond appalling - like looking at a corpse. I don't see how they could have restored it - it was really a big hunk of rot. It was only worth visiting for the total horror of its deterioration.

I dunno - seems misguided to expend so much energy trying to save a house when there is so much poverty in Gary. It wasn't that important a house - I don't see how they can really save it when it's barely recognizable.

http://www.artinstituteshop.org/content/images/49460.jpg

http://www.wrightlightscreens.com/

I love a lot of FLW, but Samuel Mockbee is my God.

Well, Fuck you, Mr. Neutra! I got money, whaddya you got? Nothin'! 'Cause you're dead! Bwahahahaha!

No, I didn't say it was endangered in the sense that you specify. I didn't specify the sense in which I was using the word, which is not limited to that meaning.

The article does not say that it's "just old and needs repair." The article says clearly that the heavy rains in LA have caused, and have the potential to cause further, rock slides on the hill on which the house is located. There were age-related repairs ongoing prior to the rains, but the rains have caused additional needed repairs, or the need for much more immediacy with respect to certain repairs. While this does not mean that the main part of the house will fall down the hill - though its safety was sufficiently in question last week before the rains let up that people were not allowed inside - it does mean that another part of the compound - for instance, the Wright-designed exterior retaining wall and pool - is still threatened. And there may be more rain.

...for three days. It's in Willoughby, OH, and you can rent it. Those are pics of our stay there.

Verdicts:

very comfortable as far as temperature/atmosphere (this was February in northeast Ohio) -- the radiant heat design is BRILLIANT, especially when coupled with a modest fire in the fireplace.

this house was built (very unusually) for an extremely tall man - 6'9", so the usual lowceiling-to-highceiling FLLW thing was turned 90 degrees into lots of narrow-to-wideopen spaces, which is fortunate since I'm over 6' tall, and most Wright houses feel vertically cramped to me. Still, the staircase was so narrow it just fit my shoulders, which is a little unnecessary in my opinion.

much of the furniture was built in, but built out of the cherry trees that grow on the property -- milled by the owner himself -- so it was REALLY beautiful. lots of closet/storage space, to, for the pack rats. There's be no place for my many thousands of records if I lived there permanently, though. Hmm.

the board-and-batten wall interior wall construction SUCKS as far as noise between rooms. My major beef with the house.

IT WAS INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL. I can't overstate that.

Oh yeah, and Wright designed it without an oven. What the FUCK?

http://www.sidesways.com/fllw/images/hollyhock-2.jpg
http://www.easterwood.org/gallery/albums/hollyhock/hollyhock_1_4_1L.jpg
http://www.hollyhockhouse.net/hhimages/krmusicnorth.jpg
http://you-are-here.com/architect/hollyhock6.jpg
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/wrightholly/intlr5.jpg
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/flw/hollyhock07.jpg
http://www.kocharchitect.com/img10.gif
http://www.gibson-design.com/images/forum/forum-BIATO-holly-b.JPG
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/flw/hollyhock04.jpg
http://you-are-here.com/architect/hollyhock7.jpg
http://www.sevenseven.com/bransford/hollyhock/images/hollyhock_house3.jpg

I hate people

OTOH, all of those yuppie prison colonies are going to start looking like shit in twenty years.

OTM! Why is cinder block the building material of choice for all new buildings in my neighborhood? I mean, I know why... but there should be some point where no matter how cheap the building materials are, they're deemed too ugly to use.

The skylights were particularly affecting. I almost burst into tears when the tour entered the final room of the tour, the circular library. Luckily I am British, and nobody else in the tour party ever suspected that I wasn't made entirely of stone.

My girlfriend has a FLW based house on her street too in East Lansing, and its pretty bomb. It looks small from the outside, but ends up being pretty damn comfortable and roomy inside.

Don't hate just because someone doesn't know how to use forms to make it look interesting. Aerated concrete block is the STUFFS, let me tell you now.

BTW, what is it with Americans and wood frame construction? I'm an American, and I can barely figure it out.

went to his house in Oak Park today, it salvaged another brutally hot day.

Architect David Romero is constructing unbuilt FLW buildings as 3D renders. The results are pretty good: http://www.hookedonthepast.com

(currently intrigued by the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective)

I posted a couple of months ago about a Philip Johnson biography I read. Interesting dynamic between him and Wright. They seemed to hate each other but understood how the other could be useful so kept up an arm's-length relationship. At first Johnson needed Wright (definitely), later on the reverse (less so).

I live a mile from his home and studio, AMA.

What's that? The first question is, is there indeed a big ginkgo tree out front that often smells like dog shit? Why, yes, funny you should ask, there is! It's historic and can't be cut down.

Well I live under an hour from Taliesen and only recently learned about the axe murdering and fire:
https://www.history.com/news/the-massacre-at-frank-lloyd-wrights-love-cottage

Some nice photos here of Price Tower, his only skyscraper:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/price-tower

Love those interior shots. His chairs are mostly uncomfortable as fuck, but I love the thought he put into interiors, even when he was a cranky bastard about the proper use of "his" buildings.

Is it challopsy to say that I don't really like his late-career round building phase?

Friends of ours stayed at a Wright house just outside of Cleveland and had a little Christmas party while they were there. Really beautiful interior.

https://www.penfieldhouse.com/