A Few Things I Would Like to Ask Frank Lloyd Wright

homeowner/madgirl http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120511/LIVING/305110021
http://interactive.wxxi.org/boyntonhouse

A recent FLW restoration project here in my town, Rochester NY. Just being completed now.

acharles Interesting premise for an article, but I think I would have left off the questions that were critical of one's height / clothing choices, were rhetorical, etc.

As an interested layman, I love FLW - I would love to see a professional architect highlight his genius by pointing out his most mysterious choices (like the question about indirect entrances). Kind of like hearing Clapton talk about Hendrix...

xenasmom The "how short are you?" question was right on! When I took friends to see Falling Water, one of them (at 5'10" and wee bit claustrophobic) said the low ceilings in some of the bedrooms made her feel like she was in a cave. She was not comfortable in those rooms. If she had been one of FLW's clients, I wonder if he would have adjusted the design to accommodate her sensibilities?

ra5dd5 I am under the impression the FLW tended to brow beat clients into what he wanted and the short ceiling were his Napoleonic response to being "vertically challenged" - PC for short. As for his pushing the structural properties of material, I think he was more on the bleeding edge rather than the leading edge. Pioneers strave, settlers thrive.

C.W.Pottery Architects aren't known for their sense of humor. Seems both Frank and Coffee have something in common?

melsewell Mason City, Iowa has just finished a fabulous multi million dollar renovation on the only FLW designed hotel. Mason City is a charming little town and the hotel is stunning! Well worth a visit.

houseArt I love the article. As the daughter of an architect, and therefore twisted for life, obsesses with design, I've wondered some of the same things. This gave me a chuckle. Thanks for asking, including the height and clothes issues. My Dad has some of those same issues with his houses, cave-like front door, etc. I design "small houses", mailboxes to be exact, and house numbers and letters. I've scoured photos FLW buildings, with the question," WHERE DOES THE MAILMAN DELIVER THE MAIL?", and, "WHERE ARE THE ADDRESS NUMBERS?". I'll still be looking!
www.houseart.net for my mailboxes and numbers.

Dressing the Home Frank Lloyd Wright is not one of my personal favorites. One word says it all - cantilever. Maybe that's another reason why Louis Sullivan ("form follows function") fired him?

princicrib I lived in a FLW house growing up in central Illinois. Roofs leaked. Doorways are low but once you enter the rooms the ceilings soar. He was a little dude. The feelings evoked when living in a masterpiece are almost indescribable. Other than to say you felt in awe, and at the same time 'at home.' very cool.

Becky Harris You always make me laugh! I remember Richard Guy Wilson showing us a great slide of the mushrooms with a bunch of concrete piled on top of them but I can't find the image online. It always made me wonder if it was a real test. Seems like roof technology took awhile to catch up w/ his penchant for flat roofs. I wonder if he was a fire sign - water always seemed to get him in trouble!

Thomas Brock @melsewell - as a fun fact, there was actually at least one other FLW hotel, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. It survived a huge earthquake and bombings during World War 2, but was eventually torn down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Hotel,_Tokyo

Southern Enterprises, Inc. The reason he created short ceilings in spaces was that he wanted them only used as passageways, not social areas. If you've been to any of his homes, you'll see he wanted to move people through these short small areas into larger open spaces. Gathering places. He was quite the social butterfly and enjoyed his parties in the larger (taller) rooms of his homes.

njnigh I would ask him what was he thinking when he designed The House on The Rock. I could have designed something better after a few bottles of wine. While FLW has created some memorable pieces- particularly given the time period- he is one of the most overrated architects and I cannot stand how he is treated like a god in academia. When you have Eisenman, Van de Rohe, and Corbusier.. among others - why is anyone talking about FLW?

willwiegman Although I live in a town with a Historical District, we let two out-of-towners buy an old riverfront FLW designed house and tear it down so quickly no one even noticed for a week. To top it all off the house was the only residence of Richard Powell for 41 years, a Seventh generation Philadelphian,(1908-1999) who was a very talented American writer and novelist. Prior to retiring to Florida in 1958 to write full time, he studied history at Princeton, was a reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, served in the Army during WWII, and worked for many years in advertising and public relations. I lived on the same street for a year in 1960.
Somehow they managed in tearing down the house to destroy an element of two facets of American history.

Conservatory Craftsmen This made me smile this morning! Yes the Darwin Martin house in Buffalo recently underwent a major renovation and even boosts a Conservatory! The history on the original build is interesting. It appears that Martin opened his arms and checkbook to Wright and FLW took full advantage.

roxanns1 Agreed.....all art should be viewed by motorcycle.

thewineabe Thank you for my morning laugh!! Your articles are great! Spot on with the questions...and, well...everything!

penpeeps He might have been good at his job, but he was a jerk who treated his family like crap.

elleblue Great photos and comments. It really forces you to stop and think!

bkmstr thanks again Houzz, I read several books about Frank Lloyd Wright he was a legend in his own time, not only his houses,but his women too!

gryphonisle I remember walking through the period rooms of the Met, each one elegant and stiff, none of them half as over the top as a movie palace, and each remote both in history, and to the modern eye. Then, I rounded the corner and came to the FL Wright room, salvaged from a house an idiot couple had demolished. I gasped with delight. It too was "old" but it was immediately accessible, its furniture and design was just as accessible as the old european rooms were remote, it was just as elegant, but warm. And I noticed as I walked around in it, other first timers did the same thing I did when they encountered it: They gasped or uttered some word of pleasant surprise.

Then again, there is the beach house pictured above---finally finished; a cheap knock off of Falling Water and looking as much out of place as Falling Water is integral to its setting. Or the Marin Civic Center---splashy and eye catching from a distance, but so dated inside it's not even attractive. Words like dingy come to mind. Wright was a master, a genius, but he was also a human and with the extensive oeuvre he had, he was bound to lay a few eggs and produce a few turkeys, and nothing is quite the turkey as a Frank Lloyd Wright turkey. Still, most of his stuff, whether it leaks or not, stands among the best of Architecture world wide. Sort of like Alfa Romeo or Jaguar----they may not always get you where you're going, but when they are working, they're not just cars, they're not mere transportation, they're an Experience, and it's too bad that, like Wright's houses, too few get the experience.

woolylam I don't think Frank Lloyd Wright designed the "House on the Rock" - google it.

homelove This was such fun to read! as it happens, I was in Chicago last weekend and dragged my husband through tours of a couple of FLW properties. I too studied him in school and continue to be inspired by him, also more as I get older or maybe it's because I gain experience(?). I learned a few things at the Robie house, where I had a particularly enthusiastic tour guide (Martin, if you're headed there anytime soon)... FLW was 5'5", but wore lifts and lied that he was 5'8" (which explained a lot of his behavior to me) and designed the hidden entries to force people to "experience" the architecture- not my personal preference, especially since I can imagine being a first time guest trying to navigate the Chicago winter, dressed for a dinner party, but nice to know. I admire the way you find humor in what can be a stuffy business and always love your articles but this one had perfect timing for me!

Fine Art & Portraits by Laurel My question would be, did anyone actually sit in the hard, straight chairs and benches he designed, or were they just for photo shoots? Trust your first impression.

Susan Smith I like a lot of his style with wood and stained glass, but still struggle with the kind of person he was. Can't respect someone who thought so little of his family and just walked away and as a previous poster said, he was treated like a god.

PaintColorHelp.com Dallas Why are we still talking about Frank Lloyd Wright? Because most people are still interested in him. It is more intriguing than ever to see spaces that were designed specifically for the people who would use them, instead of just making the largest structure at the greatest profit possible.

archlurker "organic and warm, yet thoroughly contemporary."

Interesting jujitsu twist there. I assume that you indicate "contemporary" as having a living quality, a presence in this ready moment, and that this heart is not expected to be found in "organic" design...but that's the wool of Modernism still over your eyes a little, my friend. The very essence of organic design speaks to the instant of creative being in the here and now -- and never anything less.

Sabrina Silvernale Well, as a baby girl I live across the tracks, both literally and figuratively, from a FLW designed museum or civic center or some public building in Dallas, TX during its construction. I used to cross over to check on its progress and was thrilled with the low, long curves, both simple and mysterious, like me. I have been thrilled with architecture ever since. That alone attests to to his talent, in my opinion. No longer a baby girl, I still dream of buildings, wallpaper and such. Am I weird?

alitafish At a friend's opening the church staff took me on a tour of The Community Cristian Church in Kansas City. That was another "again with the water" buildings. It was built on a spring and the cool spring water was meant to emerge at the top of the building and spiral down the stairwell cooling the building on the way down inexpensively.

sefac I believe that one should look at the indirect entries in a different light. In centuries prior the homes of the wealthy were often protected by very substantial physical barriers. Easy to accomplish in rural areas, much less so in urban or suburban. As why the necessity? In the history of the United States we have witnessed full blown banking panics in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931 & 1933. And interestingly one confined to Chicago only in 1932. Along with incipient banking panics in 1884 and 1890. So there was a history of banking panics and social unrest, along with racial riots, during Wright's formative years. This fact was not lost on both the old and new money of the new industrial era.

jeanpzach Comments about Frank Lloyd Wright's clothing are stupid. Today, in this tattoo-crazed, pierced, pink-haired world...I really see no problem with Frank Lloyd Wright wearing a cape. Like many artists, (Gauguin, Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollack, Hemingway to name a few),Wright had a gift, but was tormented by his personal life. Culturally, our modern world has changed drastically, Many of Wright's innovative designs have been copied. Some ideas were impractical and improved upon by new building materials. But Frank Lloyd Wright contribution to today's architecture should be appreciated and acknowledged.

janet4784 That last slide - did you go to the link and see the pics? What an ugly monstrosity. While I like the general lines and organic feel of FLW, I find his homes dark and uncomfortable. Really, would you want to put your feet up and watch a movie in one of those dark, hard-edged things? We built our home with a prairie feel, but much lighter and brighter. Would he have felt insulted? I don't care. He's dead. We're happy.

Carolyn Zone9alady I would certainly agree he was the greatest architect in the last 100 years, though from what I've read, his personality left a bit to be desired. If he was still alive and I was fortunate enough to have him build a home for me....then I guess I could stand his arrogance for awhile.

Ann Smitt Harrison Ford or Rutger Hauer - Since Hauer was scantly clad in Blade Runner and about to die, leaving little time to create, he's out for FLW. Harrison on the other hand wore a trench coat a necessity with all the rain, somewhat like a cape for the opera/vampire-set, and he was an organic thinker, therefore he's the winner of the FLW mantle. Independent judge, not the opinions of any architects of reknown.

rbleck The way FLW designed entrances had to do with public vs. private realms. The home was seen as a private place (things were different pre reality tv;-). Therefore the hidden entrance was a device to be a barrier to the public zone of the street. The rear of the houses were quite open to the rear private gardens. The short spaces at the entry were another transitional device. Time and movement through the building were a key element of the design. Circuitous and compress space would explode to the large gathering spaces. Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL is one of the best examples.

hvnlysins I've seen many of his exteriors pictured online & I don't really like any of them. However the few photos of interiors I've seen were wonderful. I didn't care for his "separate" items chairs, lamps, fixtures... but the built-ins are amazing! I love the sofa with storage, his huge wall units & buffets. "A place for everything & everything in it's place." I'd love to have a house like that.

margaeg This featured article certainly stirred the pot of emotions! Do we really like everything about a person or thing? Very interesting reading! Good job on Frank Lloyd Wright, Jody Brown.

liveoriginal I adore Frank and love your questions, what a mind he had :)

ej610 I've never understood the concept of Fallingwater. Shouldn't you see the waterfall FROM the house instead of the backyard? It seems like it became famous for being odd. That's why nobody copied it.