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 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)

Raold Gundersen's Organic Architecture

Photo: Paul Kelly for the New York Times

Roald Gundersen is an architect I heard about a few years ago when I lived in Spring Green, WI. His home and studio - located a few miles east of the Mississippi River near La Crosse, Wisconsin - is a study in organic architecture.

Gunderson utilizes natural unmilled forest trees in the structure and detailing of his designs. He skins the trees revealing a sensuous silky-smooth finish that invites the human touch. Nature has a way of offering ready-made beauty, and Gunderson's work is a wonderful case study in expressing that natural beauty.

Beauty aside, turns out whole trees have a greater structural capacity than milled wood, according to Gundersen, about 50 percent more. And bending the trees creates an arch-like affect contributing additional strength and lateral support.

The New York Times has an informative article on Roald Gundersen's life and work along with a photo essay of his designs. Check it out.

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?

Katrina Cottages

Images: Mississippi Development Authority

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of designers descended on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Chief among them were purveyors of the New Urbanism movement. The Katrina Cottage design was born out of those efforts.

New Urbanists lean heavily on borrowing historical examples of "traditional neighborhoods" in creating master plan layouts and in establishing the stylistic appearance of buildings and spaces.

(Before firing off hate mail to the author, please be aware that, admittedly, this is somewhat of a broad and over-simplistic explanation of New Urbanism. Somewhat. There are variations on the theme, but the "looking back" quality seems to be a common tenant. You can learn more about New Urbanism from pioneer Andres Duany and associates in the very informative book Suburban Nation.)

My critique of New Urbanism is that it tends to be forced, overly regimented, lacking in unpredictable creativity, and unnecessarily nostalgic - all qualities, when overly weighted - result in sacrificing environmental compatibility for the sake of "what it looks like." Having said that, I think the New Urbanists are spot on in their analysis of what's wrong with America's suburbs.

Take for example this proposed layout (above) included in Mississippi's grant application - Mississippi calls them Mississippi Cottages, not Katrina Cottages - for alternative hurricane relief housing. The explanation claims that this plan is based on a "Roman Camp" model. Just between you and me, I think it more closely resembles the layout of a stockade or a modern-day penitentiary.

Where's the life? Where are the unexpected delightful spaces. And what happened to Nature? (Here's a clue: think about bulldozers lined up blade to blade scraping Mother Nature's silt-soft skin.)



Earlier in the year, a coast developer who was considering buying out a few hundred of the excess cottages hired me to design a layout for said cottages a few miles north of the gulf. The density requirement was a challenge on this project, but here's the organic solution I came up with.

Notice the variety of spaces (carved out of the natural landforms) and the periodic relief between units and shared vistas into natural wetlands.

Quite a contrast. Same Katrina Cottages but with a very different feel. A more natural feel. What a difference it makes to the senses (and the human spirit) when sensitive coexistence with the natural environment trumps "historical" remedies.

Update: Since this post, a couple of people have mentioned that the site plan of the New Urbanist-generated Katrina Cottage layout looked curiously like 1) a concentration camp or 2) the hull of a slave ship. You be the judge.

The Diamond Zephyr

A few years ago, a client asked me to "draw up some plans" for some garden apartments (flats, two levels high) on a slender piece of land near the university here in town.

I had designed a couple of small apartment projects for him before so I knew what he expected. But after two projects with fairly conventional massing, I thought it was time to expand horizons.

When I presented the design concept, I showed him the garden apartment scheme and he thought it was dandy.

And then.

And then I pulled this out. The Diamond Zephyr.

"Look," I said. "You can have the same number of apartments, but instead of going out, go up!"

Spectacular views. An architectural icon clearly visible from the Interstate and most parts of town. What an opportunity!

He didn't buy it.

Nevertheless, here she is ... lonely... proud ... looking for a new owner. Any takers?

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."

Organic Skyscraper of the Future

Ah, yes - sketchbooks!

Any takers for an apartment in my skyscraper of the future? Grown from hybridized seed, then dried, shellacked and furnished. Perfect urban "oasis in the clouds."

I've claimed the penthouse on level 333 complete with heliport and man-glider launching pad.

Will you be my neighbor?

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.

Textile Blocks

Nature

The oblique angles of the roaming esplanades create dynamic open spaces where nature and man can, together, thrive.

Annie Pfeiffer Chapel

"Out of the ground, and into the light." - FLlW

More of Frank Lloyd Wright's Florida Southern College

The Esplanade

Organic Architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright in Florida

Wright Wrap-Up

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.

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.

Credits:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-credits.pdf

30's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1930s.pdf

40's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1940s.pdf

50's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1950s.pdf

60's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1960s.pdf

70's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1970s.pdf

80's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1980s.pdf

90's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-1990s.pdf

2000's:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/media/general/42011-taliesin%20timeline/taliesin_timeline-2000s.pdf

Entire Timeline:

http://www.valmcox.com/vmc/pages/taliesin_timeline_pdfs.html

More RiverView Terrace

OK. Can't help it. A couple more images of Frank Lloyd Wright's Riverview Terrace. Beautiful organic architecture.

Broadacre City Gas Station

Prompted by a PrairieMod post, I was inspired to dig up some photos I took on a trip to see Frank Lloyd Wright's only gas station back in 2001.

The R.W. Lindholm Service Station, now 50 years old, is straight out of the Broadacre City plan - a concept for decentralization of the American built landscape that Wright promoted in the 1930's as the automobile allowed a new great freedom of transportation. A huge model was constructed (in transportable sections) by apprentices at Taliesin West and Wright took it around the country as he lectured on the future of a more organically built America.

My college buddy Neal, then living near Minneapolis, rode shotgun as we drove north (and drove and drove) to Cloquet, Minnesota, a little town just sound of Duluth. When we arrived at the site, we met a young couple who had also made this building the destination of a long driving trip, and I noticed they had a copy of W. A. Storrer's catalog of Frank Lloyd Wright's built works in hand. I held my well-worn copy up as we approached them and we "clinked" them together as if we were making a toast. Thank you Mr. Storrer.

The PrarieMod post (where you can find a link to an interview with the apprentice who supervised the construction):

http://www.prairiemod.com/prairiemod/2008/08/gas-station-ref.html