Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 6)

As much as I'd like to continue this series on the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, it's time to turn the page and start another chapter.

I'll wrap it up with a very cool "Taliesin Timeline" designed by former Taliesin apprentice Val M. Cox. This piece was conceived by Susan Lockhart, a senior apprentice who grew up in a Wright designed usonian house, spent a considerable portion of her adult life at Taliesin, and contributed mightily over many decades to the cause of organic architecture, and Gerald Morosco, apprentice, former CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and a wonderful architect in his own right practicing in Pittsburgh, PA.


The credit page reads:

For the first time in the community's history, a presentation to acknowledge all who have lived and/or worked at Taliesin. As a result, information included in this installation now stands as a permanent record of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, available for access and enrichment for generations to come.

This timeline documents the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects by year and the individuals involved in various aspects of work and life at Taliesin over the past eight decades. A wealth of creative talent passed through this organic Mecca including Fay Jones, John Lautner, Kevin Lynch, and Paolo Soleri sending organic ripples throughout the world. If you look closely enough, you might even find the writer of this blog in the decade of the 2000's.

Click on the links below to view the timeline decade by decade. Explore the richness of this country's organic architecture (modern-day translation: "green architecture") with this extraordinary Taliesin Timeline.

Timeline Credits

1930's

1940's

1950's

1960's

1970's

1980's

1990's

2000's

Entire Timeline

Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 5)

The Price Tower gave me my first proper introduction to practical - and magical - geometry. Although this structure is not one I'd call "pretty," it is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever witnessed. It simply comes alive.

When I visited the newly remodeled Price Tower Arts Center a couple of years ago, I couldn't get enough of it. While my wife and her high school classmate (and amazing PTAC exhibition curator) Scott Perkins chatted over drinks in the 15th floor Copper Bar, I spent a couple of hours scaling the building several times on the 30/60/120 degree exterior stairwell. It was visceral! I could touch the pressed patina-green copper exterior. And the views! Wow - Bartlesville! Other than the aliveness of it all, I hardly noticed the cold swirling January winds.

I've also linked a couple of posts to what I call Price Tower's "Baby Daddy." Frank Lloyd Wright designed a progenitor of the Price Tower in the 1920's for St. Marks in the Bowery in New York. The proposed design would have manifested a series of apartment towers around the church as income producers. Alas, they were never constructed. But as a trial run for Mr. Wrights skyscraper opus, they proved immensely valuable.

In addition to the Art Center, the newly renovated tower offers hotel accommodations. This is a can't miss for Wright fans. Plan a trip to the Inn at Price Tower for an experience you won't soon forget.

Enjoy.

Price Tower (part 1)
Price Tower (part 2) details
St. Marks in the Bowery (part 1)
St. Marks in the Bowery (part 2)

Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 4)

I've wanted to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Greek Orthodox Church for a long, long time, and last summer I finally made the trek to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin for a walk-around. In most photographs - to me - it looks more like a painting of building than an actual building. Design and built in the mid-1950's, Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church was one of a spate of church commissions that came to Mr. Wright on the heels of his highly acclaimed and widely published Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin. This phase of Frank Lloyd Wright's career - when he was in his 80's - proved to be his most prolific.

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church


The Guggenheim Museum occupied much of Mr. Wright's later years. Providentially, Solomon Guggenheim's assistant (and modern art enthusiast) Hilla Rebay suggested to her art-collecting boss that he hire Frank Lloyd Wright to design a museum for his collection after a book literally feel on her head opening to Wright's photograph. That was the mid-40's; Frank Lloyd Wright would work on the design in fits and starts for the next decade and a half. Turns out, Hilla Rebay was the critical ingredient in bringing this design into reality. She was the reason Solomon Guggenheim collected modern art, and she continually rekindled Guggenheim's on-again off-again attitude about whether or not to build the museum. A few pics:

New York Guggenheim Museum

And, for kicks, here are a few photos of the Riverview Terrace Restaurant perched over the Wisconsin River right around the corner from Taliesin. It was one of the last burst of designs he shook out of his sleeve shortly before he died in the spring of 1959.

Riverview Terrace Restaurant (part 1)
Riverview Terrace Restaurant (part 2)

Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 3)

Frank Lloyd Wright's largest collection of buildings is in, of all places, south Florida. Credit visionary president Dr. Ludd Spivey who, while the country was still mired in the Great Depression, contacted Mr. Wright "concerning plans for great education temple in Florida."

Thirteen built structures in all, including a connecting esplanade, the Florida Southern campus stands as a testament to the principles of organic architecture Mr. Wright articulated.

Special Note: When viewing Frank Lloyd Wright's work, try putting yourself in the environment where the building was constructed. One of the basic principles of organic architecture is that it belongs where it is on the earth and nowhere else. That's why Mr. Wright's Arizona buildings look and feel different from his Chicago buildings that have a distinctively different character than his Florida buildings and so on. One cannot separate the design solution from the context. Specifically, in this series, imagine that you're in humid 95 degree heat with the bright sun beating down. Now, doesn't the esplanade make sense?

Enjoy.

Florida Southern Campus (part 1)
Florida Southern Campus (part 2)
Florida Southern Campus (part 3)
Florida Southern Campus (part 4)
Florida Southern Campus (part 5)
Florida Southern Campus (part 6)
Florida Southern Campus (part 7)

Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 2)

One of my favorite Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings is the Society Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin.

The drawing above is a sketch I did while sitting on the church lawn sometime in 2001. Follow the links for a two-part photo essay.

Unitarian Meeting House (part 1)
Unitarian Meeting House (part 2)

And as a bonus, click here to see Frank Lloyd Wright's only built gas station in Cloquet, Minnesota. This building sprang out of Mr. Wright's ideas for Broadacre City.

Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 1)

Yesterday, on Frank Lloyd Wright's 143rd birthday, I sent out a reprise of my original post on the man I introduce as "America's first green Architect." Of course, as Mr. Wright admitted (at least on one occasion in the Mike Wallace interview), some phrases are thrown out there for calculated effect. Of course, before the industrial revolution, everyone practiced green design and construction - out of necessity. Build without taking the climate and landforms into consideration and you were doomed with Darwinian consequences.

This week I'll be posting links to photo essays of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. Why not start out with Mr. Wright's Wisconsin home - Taliesin.

Taliesin (part 1)

Taliesin (part 2)

Romeo and Juliet Windmill (act 1)

Romeo and Juliet Windmill (act 2)

Romeo and Juliet Windmill (act 3)

Pinecote Paviltion (part 3)

Pinecote Pavilion (part 2)

More Pinecote Pavilion...

Pinecote Pavilion (part 1)

I recently revisited Pinecote Pavilion - designed by Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Fay Jones - located at the Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi. The Arboretum and Pavilion are well worth a visit. More photos tomorrow.

Wright's Greek Orthodox Church, part 2

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church

Frank Lloyd Wright designed several churches over the course of his lifetime. While still in his teens, he supervised the construction of the Lloyd Jones family chapel designed by a Chicago architect of some renown - J. L. Silsbee. Wright would go on to apprentice in Silsbee's office for a year before landing a job with Adler and Sullivan.

Mr. Wright would often tout is credentials for designing churches as 'not belonging to any of them.' When asked about his religion, he explained "I put a capital "N" on Nature and I call that my religion."

Fast forward to the mid 1950's and here you have his Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin - a suburb of Milwaukee.

I stopped by to take some photos on my last trip to Milwaukee. More photos tomorrow. Holds up pretty well, I'd say. What do you think?

Price Postscript - The Angel in the Details

You've heard the expression "the Devil is in the details." Well, there may be some truth to that, but upon close examination, there are angels to be found there as well.



A prime example - the pressed copper frieze weaving in and out of the building, both inside and out. What a choice example of ornament that is integral to the building. The articulation becomes one with the building, where the part is a representation of the whole. Variations on the theme keep the motif fresh.



(Contrast this approach with ornament "applied" to the surface like cake decoration.)



Below, yours truly along with my wife Dr. Victoria Johnson and Price Tower Arts Center curator Scott Perkins on a cold winter day in Bartlesville.

Wow, Bartlesville...

More Baby Daddy

Price Tower photo: Joe Price
St. Marks images: Frank Lloyd Wright et alii


Though not an exact replica, the genetic code is intact.

On the left, the constructed Price Tower. On the right, the design for St. Marks.

Check out this St. Marks Tower plan drawing that was revised and noted by Mr. Wright in 1952 as instructions for the layout of the Price Tower plan.

Compare this composite sketch with the plans of the Price Tower and St. Marks Tower shown in the previous two posts.

Price Tower's Baby Daddy

perspective image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
plan image: Francis Ching



Frank Lloyd Wright started working in earnest on a rotated plan skyscraper in the late 1920's when he proposed a series of towers for St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie in New York.

Rector William Norman Guthrie, who had hired Wright to design a home (unbuilt) for him in 1908 when he was teaching at the University of the South, was quite the client. Known for being an extremely unorthodox and flamboyant member of the Episcopal clergy, Guthrie saw an opportunity to return "beauty" to the church.

He once wrote Wright "to do anything at St. Marks meant to be an ecclesiastical outlaw."

The towers, intended to be erected for the purpose of generating income for the parish, were to be eighteen stories high springing out of a lush, park-like setting at ground level.

Notice the similarity of the St. Mark's plan to the Price Tower plan (in the previous post) composed a quarter of a century later.

Sadly, the St. Mark's project stopped when contractor's cost estimates came in - as Guthrie put it - as "terrible factual revelations."

Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower

Plan image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

When was a teenager, the only arts-related offerings at my high school were mechanical drawing and architectural drawing - so I took them both.

Mechanical drawing was pretty dry. I loved drawing isometrics, though, and the holy grail of mechanical drafting at that time - the screw jack - was a challenging and fun exercise for this eager student, and in retrospect, quite the organic form.

Architectural drawing was another story. My love for architecture truly began when I discovered three Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the textbook: Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax office building and tower, and this fine jewel of a building - the Price Tower.

I remember being mesmerized by the geometry of the plan. The dynamic marriage of the square with 30/60 degree geometries blew my mind (and still does).

I had the opportunity to visit the newly renovated Price Tower a couple of years ago, and I was not disappointed. The two-story apartments (with lower level living area and sleeping mezzanine above) contrast magically with adjacent office flats. And the exterior 30 degree concrete stair puts you right out there in the wind with all of the cool exterior forms and materials.
















It's well worth a trip to Bartlesville, Oklahoma to experience this treasure. Stay at the Inn at Price Tower and take in the Price Tower Art Center -curated eloquently by Scott Perkins - for interesting exhibitions directly or obliquely related to organic architecture.

Notes on Creativity

quick thumbnail sketch of FLlW by James Polk








Creativity emulates, it never imitates. ---Frank Lloyd Wright

Creativity is the real magic of our universe. It is the shape of our courage and the force of our souls. Creativity is the matrimonial language of form and space, consummated in the physical and spiritual expressions of humanity.
---Adriana Diaz

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
---Arthur Koestler

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
---Buckminster Fuller

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
---Erich Fromm

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
---Virginia Woolf

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
---Pablo Picasso

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
---Albert Einstein

Creativity is what happened before someone points to an object of beauty and says, "I've made up my mind, I want one exactly like that," never after.
---James Polk

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unitarian Meeting House

Last year I posted a series of photos of the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison.

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/organic-architecture-in-wisconsin.html
http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-organic-architecture-frank-lloyd.html

In my ambitious space clearing project of the past few days, I found this decade-old drawing in one of my old sketchbooks.

Besides being one of my favorite FLlW buildings, the Meeting House turned out to be one of the most copied (almost always badly) of Mr. Wright's compositions. (He called his buildings "symphonies in stone.") Look at the prow; think of how many churches you've seen with an extended ridge at on the front, some with stained glass in some configuration, some with a solid front.

Frank Lloyd Wright preached the gospel of organic architecture. I've asked many apprentices who studied under America's great Architect about the meaning of organic architecture and, as with Mr. Wright's writing, the answer is almost always different.

"The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole."

"Emulate, but never imitate Nature (Frank Lloyd Wright always capitalized the word)."

And "the building should have its own Nature; it should have a soul!"

This building certainly does have all of that.

For Sale: Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House

Images: Ennis House Foundation


You can own this home. Don't have fifteen million to shell out? You can purchase this groovy Ennis House print by artist Josh Agle, better known as "Shag"offered by the Ennis House Foundation.

Link to a National Public Radio piece by Karen Grigsby Bates on the impending sale here.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim

BeauSoliel: Home Stretch

Solar Decathlon Update: Every two years 20 university teams are chosen, based on proposals, to design an all-solar home and assemble it on the National Mall in Washington DC for public viewing and judging. Check back each Wednesday as the NAV Blog reports on the process of the design and construction of BeauSoleil, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's entry. For more info about the project, visit their website. And check out a short film about the project.

I recently made a visit to the BeauSoleil World Headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana where Professor Geoff Gjertson and graduate student Catherine Guidry gave me a tour of the construction progress.

With the Solar Decathlon coming up in October, TEAM BeauSoleil is in full construction mode. The basic frame with wall and roof panels are in place as are the windows. Soon, interior and exterior finishes, will be applied.

As with any piece of experimental architecture, magical little details are beginning to appear. Contrary to popoular opinion, a "good set of drawings" is not all it takes to complete the building. Frank Lloyd Wright famously refused to finish the interior drawings until the shell construction was completed and he could stand in the building and make decisions about the final details. Sometimes he went so far as to move a drafting board into the space and finish drawings then and there.

Reports from the field:

Well it has been an exciting week for the Beausoleil Team. We have just finished up a very tough semester and we are gearing up for the hot and very humid Louisiana summer. Summertime also means fulltime work on our project, which has been through some amazing changes. We have just made some major updates to our cd’s. By correcting and refining our layout our cd’s are looking pretty good. So far things are looking very good for finishing on time. Starting next week we will continue to tweak some minor issues and hopefully finish them up in a timely manner, since we will be at full strength as we welcome back the rest of our team.

Greg Jefferson - TEAM BeauSoleil

This week the design and construction crew down at the BeauSoleil Worldwide Headquarters is raising the roof…literally! We’ve been making great progress on the various roof systems the house incorporates. The galvalume metal roofing is installed and the aluminum roof frame that houses the water heating system is also being made! The fancy, shifting-ridge roof we designed is kind-of a pain in the neck sometimes, but boy does it look good! We’ll continue with posts to keep you guys up-to-date on all the shenanigans going on at the BeauSoleil Worldwide Headquarters. Have a BeauSoleil Day!

Chris Dufreche -TEAM BeauSoleil