PRESERVATION | ADVOCACY ADVOCACY | EDUCATION EDUCATION 

Guest Editors: Neil Levine Susan Jacobs Lockhart Wright at 15O Wright of Frank Lloyd Taking Stock Taking SPECIAL EDITION

THE MAGAZINE OF THE FRANK BUILDING CONSERVANCY FALL 2017 / VOLUME 8 / ISSUE 2 is a biannual publication of the SaveWright Building Conservancy. Guest Editors: Neil Levine, Susan Jacobs Lockhart Executive Editor: Susan Jacobs Lockhart Managing Editor: Joel Hoglund Designers: Debbie Nemeth, Joel Hoglund (Feature) Building The mission of the Frank Lloyd Wright and Conservancy is to facilitate the preservation designed structures maintenance of the remaining advocacy education, through by Frank Lloyd Wright and technical services. tel: 312.663.5500 email: [email protected] web: savewright.org Building Conservancy © 2017, Frank Lloyd Wright Edith Payne President, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Former Owner, House Richardson an architectural awakening an architectural I am not an architect, architectural historian, critic or scholar, as are the eminent contributors to this contributors the eminent as are critic or scholar, historian, architectural architect, I am not an Wright of Frank Lloyd like to add my appreciation . Nonetheless, I would special issue of SaveWright House in Glen Richardson Usonian as a 20-year owner of Wright’s my personal perspective from Ridge, New Jersey. house in February 1996 was the husband and me when we viewed the my What first impressed two sides of the glass doors that comprised snow and through the surrounding light, glancing off that the house was built on a we focused on the details: the fact Then room. the triangular living (the two exceptions being for angles walls meeting only at 60- or 120-degree hexagonal grid with truss support- of a reversed ceiling, comprised was the living room bathtub corners). And then there of the living pyramid in the center a downward-facing so as to create roof, clad in cypress ing the flat interiors. And in yet another is unique among Wright-designed knowledge, that feature my space. To and a bath, not in-line, as bedrooms Wright designed the three significant gesture, architecturally a central “loggia” emanating spoke-like from of the time, but as was typical of Usonian the to meet the demands of brick and cypress crafting of The careful opening into a walled garden. architecture Our decision to trade Victorian Wrightian for geometry was evident throughout. house’s was almost instantaneous. and that his spirit would be oppressive, house would that living in a Wright-designed worried We While preservation our every decision as we commenced a 20-year period of renovation. control I think, that was done, they never felt confining; particularly, principles necessarily guided the work both modern designed in 1941, remained and surprisingly because the underlying plan of the house, to perform the work, all of whom that we hired close to the craftspeople we grew flexible. Further, the house and the skill with which it was planned and created. appreciated have awakening that would not an architectural gifted us with albeit posthumously, In sum, Wright, the Conservancy), friends (including many from and with like-minded in another environment, occurred our good fortune. with whom we shared in , 1953. in New York, of Frank Lloyd Wright The Work Architecture: of Living Sixty Years E. Guerrero. Cover photo by Pedro Archives. E. Guerrero © 2017, Pedro Bathrooms at Bathrooms Executive Director’s Letter: A Shared Experience Letter: A Shared Executive Director’s Taking Stock of Frank Lloyd Wright at 15O Stock of Frank Lloyd Wright Taking Wright-designed Restoring Building Owner Resources:

1 25 22 president’s MESSAGE president’s

CONTENTS FRAl\T'K LLOYD WRIGHT

"I bequeath my soul to God.... For my name and memory, I leave it to men's

charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age." -FRANCIS BACON

We mourn -with you the death of in his best works and writings, and Italy's past. We loved and honored the -world's greatest architect: He. it is this side of Wright that may him. Now we feel desperate, for a who almost singlehanded, a half have the best and most enduring modern architectural culture seems century "and more ago, created an influence on the younger genera- inconceivable without him. In Ven- architecture of the twentieth cen- tions. ice University I spent an entire day tury; an American .architecture of JOSE LUIS SERT Cambruioe, Mass. with the students going over his Taking Stock of which We are all rightf~lIy proud. buildings, r-eading passages from His monument is assured in the his books, and listening to record- great buildings which outlive him. A greater influence on students, ar- _ ings of his speeches. He seemed to chi teets, clients, and people could be living among us as h~win for- not have been put in -one lifetime. ever. We share our American col- A. QUINCY JONES leagues' grief, for Wright was the Death came to Frank Lloyd Wright world's greatest architect of all on the twentieth anniversary of the times. opening of the administration cen- When history sifts down to its . BRUNO ZEVI Rome, Italy Frank Lloyd Wright at 15O ter he designed for us. It has been short list of lasting names of this said that no business building in century. Frank Lloyd Wright will this century more surely combined be on that list. Little did Pope Frank Lloyd Wright will be re- originality, beauty, and functional Julius the Second suspect that his membered as a champion of the values. This and other buildings he greatest claim to fame was his human spirit against the conformi- designed for us, including the quarrels with Michelangelo. It is ties of our era. His valiant spirit INTRODUCTION BY NEIL LEVINE Johnson Research Tower, mark the to the discredit of our business and will redeem our architecture. man himself as an authentic origi- government not to have given JOSEPH HUDNUT Dover, Mass. nal in our time. I believe the fame Wright greater opportunities, and he achieved in his long and vigor- our profession will bear the brand ous life will increase with the years of not recognizing him as "the ar- A fine and good man has passed OD. and that his influence on future chitect of the century." We are still He was a genius not only of the generations as a thinker as well as too close to him, and it is difficult building art of America but also in an architect will be profound. to distinguish between the great his life and art in general. He has H. F. JOHNSON Racine, Wis. message he, in his concept of archi- in his creations showed a passion tecture, has given us and the per- for humanity. His forms in art will sonal style which should remain surely retain their greatness more Farewell to this genius of architec- his own. As time goes by, his con- than 100 years ahead. Personally I ture. This is the great man whose tribution will ring clearer and be- have lost a real friend. Following Wright’s death in 1959, Architectural Forum essential truth is in his buildings come part of the architecture of Helsinki, Finland and his writings. His is the great- generations to come. est influence on architecture to Bloomfield Hills, truth and beauty: his the influence Mich. Frank Lloyd Wright was a great on man to richness and liveliness architect who early used free forms published a group of “comments” on his “life and of spirit. Farewell. which made for the interior flow ANSHEN & ALLEN San Francisco For Italian architects Wright was of space. Further he used da~light not only the greatest living genius sources as a painter does a palette but also the incarnation of ideals of colors which means that all di- I admire in Wright's work the de- which make being an architect rections and all locations in a room work” by architects, critics, historians, clients and velopment of Sullivan's principles worth-while. The antifascist fight are in repose. in new and varied forms, his per- coincided for us with a growing WILLIAM W. WURSTER Berkley, Calif. sistent spirit of revolt against the passion for Wright's architecture, dangers of a modern academicism because it stood for individual free- other professional acquaintances. To mark Wright’s and the limitations imposed by dom and democratic courage. He Frank Lloyd Wright was a distin- rigid doctrines. Above all I admire was the only creator we could com- guished architect as to form and the full enjoyment of life expressed pare with the greatest masters of shape and design, of course. But his sesquicentennial, Susan Jacobs Lockhart and I thought Architectural Forum I M~Y 1958 113 it would be interesting to revive the Forum’s idea in order to take stock of how attitudes toward Wright Philip Johnson have evolved over the past half century. We have We mourn with you the death of the world’s greatest architect. He, who perforce included only architects, historians and critics almost singlehanded, a half century and more ago, created an architecture of the 20th century; an American architecture of which we are all rightfully (and excluded those who participated in the Conser- proud. His monument is assured in the great buildings which outlive him. vancy’s symposium in New York in September 2017). Anshen & Allen Our letter requesting “a statement of anywhere from Farewell to this genius of architecture. This is the great man whose essen- 50 to 500 words or more” said that we were “looking tial truth is in his buildings and his writings. His is the greatest influence on for candid and thoughtful appraisals from those who architecture to truth and beauty; his the influence on man to richness and liveliness of spirit. Farewell. have been particularly interested in Wright’s work as well as those who may not have been so engaged.” We Eero Saarinen urged contributors “to provide us with an account of When history sifts down to its short list of lasting names of this century, the meaning Wright’s work may have had for you in Frank Lloyd Wright will be on that list. [...] It is to the discredit of our busi- ness and government not to have given Wright greater opportunities, and the past and whether it still has any relevance to you, our profession will bear the brand of not recognizing him as “the architect and to architecture in general, today.” We stressed that of the century.” We are still too close to him, and it is difficult to distinguish we were looking to present a personal and wide-rang- between the great message he, in his concept of architecture, has given us and the personal style which should remain his own. As time goes by, ing series of viewpoints that could provide a window his contribution will ring clearer and become part of the architecture of into the significance of Wright’s architecture at this generations to come. historical juncture. Alvar Aalto The Forum’s responses in 1959 (some of which are A fine and good man has passed on. He was a genius not only of the reproduced here) and ours in 2017 could not be more building art of America but also in his life and art in general. He has in his creations showed a passion for humanity. His forms in art will surely retain different. With rare exception, the earlier ones extolled their greatness more than 100 years ahead. the “genius” of Wright and his almost “singlehanded” creation of . Philip Johnson called Harwell Hamilton Harris him “the world’s greatest architect”; H. H. Harris Frank Lloyd Wright was the most original and the most creative architect of modern, and possibly all, time. Not so fully recognized is the fact that he added “possibly [of] all time.” Most if not all of the expressed the underlying thought and spirit of our age, often times when contributors knew Wright. Theirs were more trib- he seemed most at odds with it. [...] Coupled with a fertility of imagination, utes than “comments.” By now, not only has Wright there was in Wright a steadfastness to purpose, an attachment to principle and a toughness of character almost equally rare. With them he was able become a historical figure rather than a living pres- to continue his own course whether appreciated or neglected. Without ence; our approach to history has rejected the “great them, few products of his genius would be ours today. Finally, he did more man” theory with its focus on genius. The responses than any other architect to destory the anonymity of the artists, and for this, too, architects and society should thank him. to our request are more analytic and historiographi- cal in their attempt to assess Wright’s contribution Louis I. Kahn in a larger cultural context. Many search to explain Wright gives insight to learn that nature has no style, that nature is the their emotional experiences of his work. Two note the greatest teacher of all. The ideas of Wright are the facets of this single thought. ongoing historical prejudice against teaching Wright in the schools. Werner M. Moser He contributed to the enlightenment of mankind. If anyone could build One thing we might learn is that, while Wright’s work up the emotional and spiritual quality of our technical age it was he. His still has an extraordinary affective power, it remains life and his ideas are of unsurpassed entity; his buildings are organisms for us to clarify his place in history. We therefore want of radiating intensity. [...] His genius will be for many generations a bright example of integrity and highest achievement. to thank all those who contributed their insights and ideas on this issue. 1

Steven Holl I had an intense experience of the light, space and Workroom of this 1939 creation has amazing space materials of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and light. Wright invented a mushroom-column-and- when I first visited his works in Oak Park and slab structural system which he called “dendriform”— as a student. I remember the amazing details in his tree-shaped. He used botany terms to name the home and studio, the intensity of the , column’s elements: stem, petal and calyx. However, the and the phenomenal light and space of . main force of this space comes from the diffused day- This building—a first in exposed concrete—was like light via translucent glass tubes. This extruded glass a first astonishing launch of modern architecture. The tubing, invented for the project, was as inspiring as all cubic geometry from outside to inside pre-dates the De the other inventions in the furniture and fixtures. Since Stijl movement, founded in the Netherlands by Gerrit that first visit over 30 years ago, I have returned to Rietveld, , , Bart van the Johnson Wax Building several times to be, again, der Leck and architect Robert van ’t Hoff, by over 10 amazed and to find the Great Workroom still in use. years. The fact that van ’t Hoff copied Wright’s designs While I have an extensive library of first-edition is well documented in the magazine Wendingen from Wright books, including a first edition of The Living 1918 to 1925 (Ernst Wasmuth published Wright’s City, Modern Architecture: Being the Kahn Lectures portfolio in Berlin in 1910–11). Many important for 1930, When Democracy Builds and An Autobi- works of architecture and painting from 1915 to ography, it is the physical experience of the space, 1931 produced by this movement owe a beginning to light, materials and details of his buildings which have Wright’s work. forever moved me. It was not until a few years later that I was astonished Steven Holl is an architect and founder of Steven by the interior experience of Wright’s Johnson Wax Holl Architects, New York Building in Racine, . The single, large Great

Wright’s work makes you live with intensity.

Paul Goldberger The significance of Frank Lloyd Wright seems only to grow as time goes on, and we see and understand even more threads that connect to this protean career. There is nothing in our experience of 19th-, 20th- or 21st- century architects that can compare to Wright. I find myself thinking of him more often as being like Picasso, his career spanning a great arc that shoots out of 19th-century academicism and reaches out to touch almost all that meant from the beginning of the 20th century to its middle. Like Picasso, Wright had a personal life of great drama and intensity, and an oeuvre comprised of multiple chap- ters, distinct yet connected, each of which would be sufficient on its own to justify a place in history. And both lives ended in a burst of creative energy that was thought inferior to the early work when it was being produced, but which now seems to possess more gravitas than we had thought. What the years have done—and what is helpful to Wright’s reputation—is to separate his rhetoric, much of which was bombastic and self-indulgent, from his work, almost all of which was meaningful. Wright the man was the first modern celebrity architect, a brilliant manipulator of the media, but if that served to make him famous, it also distracted a certain amount from an objective understanding of his work. I am now struck by how rich, how considerate, how inventive was his way of manipulating materials, form, space and light to make us feel the world more deeply, more passionately, than we had before. That is the truth about Wright’s work: that it makes you live with intensity. And it speaks for itself, despite Wright’s insistence on always speaking for it, which is why Wright’s architecture to every generation will say something always true, and something always new, at the same time. Paul Goldberger is a New York-based architecture critic, now contributing editor at Vanity Fair SC JOHNSON GREAT WORKROOM PHOTO BY CAROL M. HIGHSMITH, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WORKROOM PHOTO BY CAROL M. HIGHSMITH, LIBRARY SC JOHNSON GREAT 3 Deborah Berke Whatever one’s opinion on his work, Frank Lloyd Wright is a towering figure in 20th-century American I urge his fans architecture. No other American architect has sur- passed him in the public’s imagination. This is due, in part, to the ceaseless flow of publications, exhibitions, to not limit their documentaries, tours, lectures and events devoted to his life and work. A significant portion of my firm’s work involves bringing new life to old buildings by architectural architects both well-known and forgotten, so I admire the devotion many feel for Wright. I urge his fans to not limit their architectural appreciation to the caped appreciation to master, but to take a broad view of the importance of the American landscape, both built and natural. the caped master. Deborah Berke is an architect, founder of Deborah Berke Partners, New York, and dean of the Yale School of Architecture

Peter Eisenman I met Frank Lloyd Wright only once, in his room at to international attention. However, despite his large the Plaza Hotel, sitting in a great high-back chair, Wes- ego, he did not know the reason for the invitation to ley Peters at his side, and spitting gherkin seeds on the make these monographs. In my dissertation, I argued carpeted floor. It was the spring of 1958, and he was that these houses held a critical position in modernist visiting the construction site of the Guggenheim. I was discourse. The Prairie Style integrated the architectural working for Percival Goodman, who had arranged object and the site, taking a critical stance toward the the visit. In the ensuing years, I worked with Edgar American context. I have always maintained that the Tafel and The Architects Collaborative before heading later post-1910 styling, particularly of diagonality and to England for a three-year stay at Cambridge. There pure geometry, were the result of a misunderstand- I finished a doctoral dissertation on the formal basis ing: that Europe published his work due to a desire of modern architecture, which included an analysis for style and dynamic imagery. In other words, the of works by four architects: , Giuseppe sparked in Wright a feeling of Terragni, Alvar Aalto and Wright. Two Wright build- international acclaim that changed his work, bringing ings—the Darwin Martin House and the Avery Coon- an end to the more authentic and critical Prairie Style. ley House—were subjected to a formal analysis. Although Wright would go on to many later triumphs, they never quite had the cutting edge of pre-Wasmuth! It was my contention at the time, and remains so today, that a change occurred in Wright after the Peter Eisenman is an architect and theorist, publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio of 1910–11. founder of Eisenman Architects, New York, These two books, published first in Germany and then and professor at the Yale School of Architecture made available in the , brought Wright

4 Wendell Burnette I am a lifelong student of architecture, and part of being an Avenue for the fourth time in 37 years, and this time finally architecture student has always been to engage through di- experienced the full restoration of Unity Temple. It has been rect experience quintessential examples of architectural space in continuous use for almost 110 years. It is still brilliantly “in context,” as there is no other substitute for understand- serving its purpose in its place for its community. I first saw ing this multivalent art form; i.e., books, publications or it in 1982 when it was not in the best condition, certainly remnants in museums are not enough to understand architec- compromised by its experimentation as one of the first ture. Architecture is best experienced and understood in its monolithic concrete buildings in the world, and certainly original place and for its original purpose and “in total.” tired from almost 75 years of use. Architecture is fragile. Architecture can be ruined by neglect, by additions, by an In America, this includes hundreds of works of architecture unfaithful restoration or, worse, a shoddy one. The Unity by Frank Lloyd Wright. My first visit to a Wright building Temple restoration is a triumph, and it was thrilling to finally was at the age of 17 in 1979. My second visit experience it complete for the very first time. was West, where I was interviewed by Mrs. Wright to attend the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. I have had many great experiences in faithfully preserved Over almost 40 years, wherever my work or my travels have Wright houses, such as the Zimmerman House in New taken me, I have always sought out, for the reasons stated Hampshire, the Sol Friedman House in Pleasantville, New above, Wright’s work, often with the help of William Allin York, and the Shavin House in my home state of Tennessee. Storrer’s definitive catalog. I would estimate that I have Each and every one of these experiences has shaped me as an personally experienced over 80 works across the U.S. and Ja- architect and has taught me through direct experience that pan, a lot of those both outside and “the space within,” and architecture is for people and the enrichment of the human quite a few times with the original owners (I heard firsthand experience, albeit for the individual, the family or the com- from them more than once how living in a work of architec- munity. It is about connecting us to our place, to our envi- ture was one of the most rewarding decisions in their life). ronment and to each other. I just returned from speaking at the Chicago Architecture Wendell Burnette is an architect and founder of Biennial, and while there I visited Wright’s Oak Park Home Wendell Burnette Architects, Phoenix, and a professor UNITY TEMPLE PHOTO BY JOHN BOEHM, 2017; OPPOSITE: ROBIE HOUSE RICHARD NICKEL and Studio, and the seven or eight houses along Forest at The Design School at Arizona State University 5 Will Bruder On a summer morning in 1960, at the age of 13, I took a bicycle ride to the suburban edge of Milwau- kee, further afield from my home than I was allowed to go. I came upon an intriguing construction site surrounded by a temporary construction fence. My curiosity drew me through that fence and into my future. Growing out of this site was a raw, surreal, concrete sculpture, just some walls and a domed roof positioned on this rise of the hill, its complex circular plan was like nothing I had ever seen before. On departing I read the job sign that said it was to be a Greek Orthodox Church and that the architect was Frank Lloyd Wright. I asked myself, who is Frank Lloyd Wright? What is an architect, anyway? I continued to go through that fence many more times over the next year to watch this intriguing and seductive structure take shape near new stick-framed What is an architect, houses and fresh streets, surrounded by still-empty fields. It was a good time in a good city, a brief moment of vitality, national pride and community anyway? optimism. It was a time between wars! The newly built school I attended was brick and glass, and it had clean lines in the mold of Eero Thomas Beeby Saarinen’s Crow Island masterpiece. While there Here is a distillation of theoretical discourse emanat- was no library nearby, the book mobile stopped ing from Frank Lloyd Wright over his career. This in my neighborhood. It was full of books about manifesto is consistent with communal beliefs in Oak architecture and architects. I soaked it all up, eagerly Park and River Forest (where all my grandparents attending art and shop classes. Books on Wright and moved in the late 19th century) and my current resi- his mythical persona fueled my curiosity. Other ar- dence in rural southwest Wisconsin. In other words, I chitects came into focus as well, especially Saarinen, believe, Wright’s origins in the upper Midwest served with his just-completed Milwaukee War Memorial as a basis for his belief system throughout life. and Art Museum. These experiences and memories are the taproot of my nearly 50 years in architecture. Interestingly, when I entered architecture school at Cornell in 1959, these rules seemed to be firmly in Now in 2017 I have visited almost all of Wright’s place. Arriving for my study at Yale, there was no built work, some buildings multiple times. I have break in this theory of architecture. The only opposi- had the privilege of conversations with original tion to this approach appeared in the mid-1960s when clients and contemporary owners and caretakers. I both Colin Rowe and Vincent Scully suggested to me have experienced the joy of waking up at first light that this canon was a genuine hindrance to the further in some of his masterworks, Taliesin and the Palmer evolution of the discipline. House. I have been moved by the beauty of Wright’s first sketches and finished renderings (particularly As far as I can perceive, the rule of Wright has re- the drawing, recently seen in the Wright retrospec- turned now with a vengeance to the mainstream of tive at The Museum of , that landed the schools and the profession. Only the stars Wright a job with ). I have walked the outside of the control of this yet empowering code: ramp of the Guggenheim Museum every year for Genius illuminates true understanding of man as long as I can remember to see art enlivened by and nature. Wright’s architecture. Truth in architecture is only possible when While the history and the stories that swirl around intention satisfies verifiable need. Wright are interesting, it is the sensual and intellec- tual richness of his architecture that is most compel- Economy results from the efficient arrangement ling. Wright’s understanding of siting and context, of necessity. his inventiveness and originality, his fine-tuned sense Visual order is consistently necessary in all of materiality and structure, plan and section, pro- aspects of a building. portion and scale, are all timeless. In his best work, he challenged his clients and builders to magical Structural clarity is essential to all architecture. results that perfectly balance function and poetry. The prosaic nature of construction transforms Wright’s work shows us how to make buildings through geometry into architecture. Buildings that grow from the outside in and the inside out, become architecture only when the spirit is that leave the earth and kiss the sky with grace and engaged. beauty. Wright’s gift to the world is his work and Material perfection ultimately leads to excesses ideas, standing strong in the company of all man- and death of the spirit. kind’s great cultural and artistic accomplishments. As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Wright’s Fashion and significance are always in mortal birth we are grateful that his work remains with us, combat. challenging us to heed his lessons and strive to be Innovation transforms the forms of the past better architects. into the future only through invention. Will Bruder is an architect and president of Thomas Beeby is an architect and chairman Will Bruder Architects, Phoenix emeritus of Hammond, Beeby, Rupert, Ainge

ANNUNCIATION GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH CONSTRUCTION PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNUNCIATION ERIC M. O’MALLEY COLLECTION/ + DESIGN ARCHIVES Architects in Chicago 7 Kenneth Frampton The exceptional lifelong achievements of Frank Lloyd why the representational elevations of his major civic Wright are perversely ignored today by successive gen- works were located within top-lit spaces rather than erations of architects in both America and elsewhere, without. This principle is as evident in the Larkin largely because of their general failure to perceive Building and the SC Johnson Administration Building the principle and values that are subtly incorporated as it is in Unity Temple and the Guggenheim Museum. into his protean vision, quite apart from the aesthetic Even in those instances when he created micro-urban idiosyncrasies of his ever-evolving style. For me there complexes, the significant volumes were within rather remain certain aspects of the Wrightian parti pris that than without, as in the case of and seem to be as relevant now as when his ideas were first the Imperial Hotel. projected. I have in mind, above all, Wright’s Usonian In addition, Wright was exceptionally sensitive to house as when this concept was first fully realized in the way in which built-form expresses itself as much the mid-1930s, notably in the Herbert Jacobs and through the intrinsic quality of its material and mode Stanley Rosenbaum houses of 1936, both of which of construction as through the plastic assertiveness of seem to me to have been the last serious attempt to its spatial form. This surely accounts for his ambiva- render the middle-class American suburb as a place of lence with regard to concrete, a conglomerate which civility. The ways in which the layered horizontal roofs for him had “neither song nor story.” His textural, of these brick and timber houses fuse into the adjoin- tactile rendering of this material in the form of con- ing landscape suggest the possibility of a continu- crete blocks testifies to his profound commitment to ously green ecological domain wherein built-form the way in which a building expresses itself through its becomes indistinguishable from the landscape into manner of assembly. Wright’s insistence on rendering which it is embedded. concrete as if it were a fabric led to his textile-block The other salient contribution of Wright was surely houses realized in Pasadena and Los Angeles in 1924. his lifelong recognition of the irredeemable placeless- Later he would come to realize that the other essential ness of North America; that is to say, his vast aware- character of reinforced concrete was its capacity to ness of a vast continent which was not conducive to constitute itself as a seamless cantilevered form. This engendering a space of public appearance in either was dramatically the case with Fallingwater, built in a cultural or a political sense. This possibly explains Mill Run, , over the years 1936-39. It is this awareness that led to one of the most felicitous inventions of his maturity, namely, the dendriform mushroom column as this was pro- jected for the Capital Journal Building in 1931 and later realized with sub- lime consequences in the SC Johnson Administration Building, completed in 1939. Kenneth Frampton is an archi- tectural historian and professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

8 Waro Kishi I have never First of all, as an architect, I have never been a worshipper of Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather, I consider myself more architecturally influenced by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. However, I did want to go all the way been a to The in New York to see Wright’s hand-drawn sketches. And I was totally overwhelmed! It was the first time for me to see so many of his drawings, but that was not the only reason for this sensation. worshipper I do not know how many photographs of Wright’s architecture I have seen so far. I even made multiple trips to experience many of his actual works, in Chicago, the East Coast, and outskirts of Los Angeles and . But of Wright. I felt his drawings have much more meaning than the experience that I got from his finished work. Here is what dawned on me from my trip to MoMA: It is the meaning of the “void,” or the empty space surrounding the actual drawings. Some- times, these voids are trimmed in books and publications. Or the void has some rough sketches for the perspectives, thus giving more interesting details than the drawing itself. Above all, what impressed me most were the empty “voids.” Take for example, the vertically long drawing of the Thomas P. Hardy House. The architectural drawing itself occupies one quarter of the space of the upper part of the sheet and even including the landscape design, up to one half. So, is the lower half space of this unusu- ally long drawing, unnecessary? Not at all. This void in the lower half is probably the key to understanding the true nature of Wright’s architecture. There lies a message from Wright that space is the most important ele- ment in architecture. The existence of space is the characteristic of modern architecture of the 20th century, just as Le Corbusier and Mies are the representatives of the era. This unusually long drawing with half its space empty... This format is of- ten explained as the influence of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from Japan. In Wright’s case, you can say that he not only incorporated the Ukiyo-e for- mat and visual proportions, but also the sense of space at the same time. The collection of Wright’s drawings published in Europe by Wasmuth in 1910–11 so much influenced modern architects in Europe. This further implies that the effect Wright’s drawings had on the modern architecture of the 20th century is beyond our imagination. And to think that Ukiyo-e from Japan was the original influence, brings me so much pleasure, as a Japanese architect. Actually, I had another, even more delightful discovery on this trip. It was in the K.C. DeRhodes House drawing. I found scribbled in its small corner, a dedication to Wright and Hiroshige Ando, the Ukiyo-e artist! Even in those days, the global distances did not matter. I realized that architectural ideas and their influences always had and have the power to instantly travel over the globe. In fact, this interaction is what we are inheriting from Wright’s time and age. Waro Kishi is an architect, principal of Waro Kishi + K. Associates, Kyoto, and professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART | AVERY ARCHITECTURAL AND FINE ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART | AVERY IMAGE © THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION OF CONGRESS NEW YORK); OPPOSITE: JACOBS HOUSE I PHOTO FROM THE LIBRARY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, ARTS LIBRARY, 9 Robert Campbell It was a book that first got me excited about Frank Architects typically don’t read much. They tend to Lloyd Wright. A friend dropped out of the school of learn visually, not verbally. Years ago I worked for the architecture at Columbia and gave me his copy of architect Josep Lluis Sert, a highly educated and liter- Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New ate person who never opened a book except to look Tradition, by Sigfried Giedion (third edition, 1954). at the pictures. I’ve been told the same is true of I. M. That book was the bible of modernism in architec- Pei, who spent his weekends trolling the New York ture, or at least that’s how it presented itself to a naive art gallery scene. Both men were fascinated by art and 25-year-old. It’s a massive volume of 778 pages. I read surely learned as much from their perusal of images it cover to cover and found it thrilling, never more so as any of the rest of us learn from words. Wright was than in the 30 or so pages devoted to Wright. to some degree an exception. He wrote well, in a conversational vernacular you associate with Mark Reading through these pages now, some 60 years later Twain. Other than his culture hero Emerson, I don’t (I still have the book), I realize that what Giedion did know what he read. Whitman? Wordsworth? Hora- was to place Wright, this very individual artist, in a tio Alger? William Morris? The King James Version? series of different contexts from which he’d emerged. Owen Wister? The context of time, of Richardson-Sullivan-Wright- Mies-Corbusier. Of space, a farmland Midwesterner I didn’t mean to talk so much about books. Useful as interacting with European urbanism. Of evolving they are, you can’t experience architecture through methods of construction, massive walls to steel sky- books or movies or any other media. You have to scrapers. Of trends in painting and sculpture, as those go to the work itself, perceive it in its time and place arts moved in the direction of abstraction. as one part of some larger whole (social, historical, geographical), try to respond to it with all your senses. This is even more true of Wright than other great The space explodes like architects. You rarely feel like standing in front of a Wright building to admire it, as you’re asked to do, Cinerama. say, by the Taj Mahal. Giedion saw Wright’s architecture in the fullness of its Wright keeps you on the move. Why has he hidden the relationships. I think what I learned from him is that front door (at Robie, Fallingwater and many others)? no building is ever alone. No one has covered Wright Hiding the door turns the architecture into a game of any better in so few pages. There were photos of the hide and seek. You must explore the building before Robie House, the House, the Larkin you even get there. Then, when you get inside, you Building, the Johnson Wax Building and other master- move in space that keeps reconfiguring itself, getting pieces. There were floor plans. There were thoughtful, taller and wider, or lower and narrower, or closing off literate descriptions of every aspect of the architecture. and opening up views. There was none of the pseudo-intellectual preening or When your car pulls up at Taliesin and you get on cult-like language that later became fashionable in ar- your feet, you find you must take maybe six or seven chitectural criticism. Giedion always yoked his specific right-angle turns (and climb some steps along the comments to his basic Darwinist/Marxist narrative of way) before the space explodes like Cinerama into the a continuing architectural evolution over time. But he living room with its row of windows looking over the never let academic theory get in the way of looking hills and river. As at the Sirens’ chapel at Otaniemi in directly at the physical facts of architecture. Finland, the indirect route to the living room slows Only a couple of other writers have meant as much you down, opens your pupils, and prepares you for to my education. Maybe Jane Jacobs (The Death and the great bright view of the landscape—a horizontal Life of Great American Cities, which arrived in my life framed view that recalls 1940s westerns. at just about the same moment as Giedion), or later, Robert Campbell is an architect and the Christopher Alexander (A Pattern Language, A City Is architecture critic of the Boston Globe Not a Tree, The Oregon Experiment).

Robert A. M. Stern The exhibit of selections from Wright’s archive at The Museum of Modern Art brought few surprises as did, regrettably, the scholarship that went along with it, reminding me of Philip Johnson’s remark after touring the two massive Mies van der Rohe exhibitions in 2001, one at MoMA, the other at the Whitney: “still dead.”

Robert A. M. Stern is an architect and founder of Robert A. M. Stern Architects, New York PHOTO BY ANDREW PIELAGE TALIESIN 10

Francesco Dal Co In architecture school in the late 1960s in postwar Italy, my exposure to Frank Lloyd Wright was deeply influenced by Bruno Zevi, as were several Italian architects at the time. For this reason, I thought it significant to describe and explain the importance of Zevi’s work on Wright. I met Zevi at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, where I studied. Later I became his friend. I never shared his ap- proach nor his historiographic method. For this reason we had many discussions. Most of these discussions took place using an ancient tool of communication—the fax. Curiously, about 100 of the letters Zevi sent were not addressed to me but to my daughter, Bastiana. Zevi started when Bastiana was six years old. Very often he began with this phrase: “My dear Bastiana, you should teach your father that...” From 1922 to 1943, Benito Mussolini governed Italy. In 1938, the regime enacted a series of laws and measures for the “defense of the Italian race,” primarily directed against citizens of Jewish descent. After the promulgation of the racial laws, the young Jewish architecture student Bruno Zevi left Italy. He studied in London in 1939 before moving to New York at the beginning of 1940. After applying for citizenship, he contacted the famous art historian Lionello Venturi, a member of the political movement Justice and Freedom that was to become the Party of Action. After the fall of Mussolini in 1943, it played an important role in the armed resistance to fascism and to the German troops that occupied the country. After the end of the war, the Party of Action joined with the radical, socialist and communist par- ties. Zevi remained tied to the ideals of the Party of Action FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT WITH BRUNO ZEVI IN 1951 throughout his life. In the United States, after a “short and unsatisfactory stop work and Towards an Organic Architecture were entirely at Columbia University,” Zevi moved to Harvard in 1940, inspired by this postulate in whose formulation the political where he was admitted to study under . had a greater weight than the cultural and aesthetic. Before returning to England in the summer of 1943, Zevi When Zevi returned to Rome after the war, he worked for engaged in intense anti-fascist propaganda in the U.S. Back the United States Information Service (USIS). “Advertising in London, he wrote Verso un’ architettura organica (To- America” was the aim of the USIS, whose various initiatives wards an Organic Architecture), published in 1945. It was during Italian reconstruction advanced American culture and his first book that contributed to making Wright a primary lifestyles. In these circumstances and based on what was an- reference for Italian architectural culture of the postwar pe- nounced in Towards an Organic Architecture, Zevi thought riod. Towards an Organic Architecture identified Wright as a it was his job to find an authoritative model to propose to model that Italian architecture should follow after the end of Italian architectural culture. The term “organic” in the title fascism and in the years of postwar reconstruction. of his first book lent itself to widespread use and gradually Already in 1941, a group of Harvard students, including became charged with increasingly significant ideological and Zevi, published An Opinion on Architecture, a booklet that political values. Having derived it from Heinrich Wölfflin, recorded the growing disaffection with the didactic and prac- filtered through Walter Curt Behrendt, Zevi transformed it tical design approach inspired by Gropius and, at the same into a synonym for “democratic architecture.” Its use was time, identified Wright as an alternative. An Opinion on understood as an expression and proof of the architect’s Architecture announced a theme that Zevi would later privi- social commitment. lege, namely, the opposition to closed forms of the freedom Zevi was not the only one who contributed to making the of open ones, the latter considered expressive of the demo- term “organic,” by virtue of the ideological meanings as- cratic purpose that architecture was called upon to embody, signed to it, the keystone of the mythology by which Wright and, above all, a reaffirmation of the ideological axiom that became a model for a part of Italian architecture. In 1945, favoring modern architecture and being against fascism were Wright’s book Modern Architecture: Being the Kahn Lec- two aspects of the same battle imposed by the times. Zevi’s tures for 1930 was published in Italian. In the American 12 edition of 1931, the back cover and the cover postwar period to the end of the 1960s. Unlike page set forth what Wright considered to be what happens in myths, Wright’s had a history. the “modern concepts concerning an organic Since this history is one that Zevi contributed architecture.” Among the many words on these decisively to writing, it is a history that has noth- two pages, “democracy” does not appear. The ing to do with reconstructing what actually hap- Kahn Lectures, in fact, contained “Wright’s first pened. Wright’s myth in Italy was the result of a full-fledged public presentation of his reaction historiography driven by a purpose that did not to the new modern architecture in Europe,” question itself. Inevitably, it was interwoven with as Neil Levine has written. At the same time, omissions and, above all, erasures. they were proof of his ability to take ownership Zevi enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture in of what was occurring “on the other side,” as 1936, one year before the XIII International Wright defined what was happening in Europe. Architecture Congress in Rome. On that occa- In the Italian edition of the book, the title was sion, read a message by his changed to Architettura e Democrazia (Architec- father addressed to Mussolini. In his message, ture and Democracy). Also in 1945, An Organic Frank Lloyd Wright suggested to Mussolini that Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy he consider taking up the project of Broadacre was published in Italy. Wright had collected nine City as a model for fascist urban planning and, years after the Kahn Lectures the texts of the in particular, for the construction of the newly four lectures he had delivered at the Royal Insti- founded cities envisioned by the regime. tute of British Architects in London, where Zevi was living in May 1939. And it was precisely the message given by Wright on the first page of An Wright suggested to Mussolini Organic Architecture—“I think it is proper to consider the place that architecture must have in that he consider taking up the social life, if we want to achieve a democracy”— that was destined to resound in different ways, project of as a but constantly within Italian architectural culture after the war. Zevi not only committed himself model for fascist urban planning. to spreading this message but also tried to make the combination of the name Frank Lloyd Wright and the words “organic architecture” and “de- As Le Corbusier did on other occasions, Wright mocracy” much more than just a slogan. proposed to Mussolini the opportunity to take advantage of his expertise. This coincidence Pursuing this aim, in 1946 he played a leading is easy to explain. The country that Mussolini role in founding the Association for Organic began to govern after the end of WWI was very Architecture; Metron, a magazine that supported different from the one he led to the disaster of its activity; and the drafting of the Architect’s WWII. Fascism was the creator of a pervasive Manual for directing the practical activity of Ital- and profound work of transformation and mod- ian professionals. His attempt to create a School ernization in Italy. The price Italy paid was a loss of Organic Architecture was significant as well. of freedom, accompanied by injustice, violence To make it perceptible that a new era had begun and racial persecution, which led Zevi, again in for Italy in 1945, he needed a model. This he 1970, to remember in the opening of his book found in Wright, recognizing in his architecture dedicated to : “Albert Einstein the values that were rather those of Bruno Zevi and Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schönberg and Erich himself. These were the same values that the Mendelsohn: four in the multitude of the dias- young architecture student of the second half of pora, an exile without return.” In fascism, both the 1930s believed to be dominant “in the great Wright and Le Corbusier saw only a regime com- Italian tradition.” Not those of Renaissance mitted to making a country modern—and they architecture nourished by the lessons of ancient were modern architects. For several decades, the Rome, so much exalted for the most varied myth of Wright has led many Italian architects to reasons by fascist rhetoric, but those that Zevi believe, as Zevi said, that “modern” and “de- attributed to the medieval art produced by many mocracy” were synonymous. But they are not. free local communities, organically organized. [Translated from Italian] Establishing a link between this “great tradition” and Wright’s work and writings was the hidden Francesco Dal Co is an architectural his- meaning of what Zevi did to establish the Ameri- torian, professor emeritus of the Istituto can architect as an imperative example, which Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, Italian architecture had to confront from the and director of Casabella 13 Michael Rotondi Teachers of my generation were Eurocentric. They were mostly third-generation modernists who were driven by formula and form rather than principles. They spoke only of the five points and the desired look. This was too limit- ing for my generation and quite boring. It was a transitional time, familiar things were being replaced by the unfamiliar, deductive and reductive methods were being replaced by a new hybridity, collage cities filled with complexities and contradictions. The world we might have expected to inherit was be- In solitude, picking olives, staring at a special building coming unrecognizable, so we began inventing a life. I from an unusual point of view, was enough of a reward wanted to talk about Aalto, Scharoun, Stirling, Chareau for doing this work, but the real payoff was the family and, most of all, Wright. Besides, the intellectual and meals. Cured olives, pasta, wine and opera were staples aesthetic umbilical from Europe never made it complete- in an Italian-American family. From this position in dif- ly over the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Los Ange- ferent trees around the hill, the view of the city below les. We were free to re-imagine the rules of our fathers, was exciting, with a grid to the east, west and south. and what might emerge out of the intersection where As it moved north up into the foothills surrounding the universal principles intersect a new idiosyncratic context. , the gridded geometry accommodated the Wright knew context and drew from it in more ways slopes. Turning my head back and forth I could look at than we were capable of knowing or imagining at this both the Hollyhock and Ennis houses almost simultane- age. Our teachers were not interested in what we were ously, and aiming the line of my view toward the center interested in. Education was not student-centered. It was of the site and crest of the hill, I had a wonderful view and is an industrial process. So, we became autodidacts. across the rooftop of the , a trace of the inner courtyard and the city beyond. Rudolph Schindler and came to America in search of Wright and personal freedom, in 1918 and It wasn’t until years later that I understood and appreci- 1923, respectively. In 1920 Wright sent Schindler to ated the genius of Wright’s architecture, its siting, mass- L.A. to supervise the construction of Hollyhock House. ing, materiality and spatial intentions. The house was Schindler, Neutra and eventually Lautner attracted the never occupied and seldom open to the public, but it was next generation of architects to the city: Gregory Ain, Ra- no problem if I wanted to go check out the inside, which phael Soriano and H. H. Harris, each inventing their own I sometimes did, respectfully. Over the years, I had aesthetic through a lens of L.A. modernism and Wright. acquired an embodied spatial and formal memory of this house and could draw the floor plan and massing from memory, visualizing the spaces unfolding in my mind’s Most other buildings eye as I moved through them. Years later, as a young teacher, I would have my students work with me, analyz- were quite ordinary ing my favorite houses, including Hollyhock and Ennis. I wanted them to know these buildings conceptually and and easy to ignore. systematically. An important aspect of these case studies was a comparison of spatial concepts expressed through geometric ordering to spatial memory and intelligence. I have wonderful childhood memories of Wright’s two This was a critical intersection in my mind, conceptual houses in L.A.’s East Hollywood district, where I grew and perceptual. To my surprise, Hollyhock was bilaterally up. Hollyhock House is on a domelike hill surrounded symmetrical in diagram and asymmetrical experientially. by flatlands, and the Ennis House, two miles north, is in the foothills of the coastal range that define the north- Our teachers never discussed such things. Any mention ern boundary of the L.A. basin. Both houses slowed us of symmetry was not allowed, quite reminiscent of my down when we saw them, triggering a sense of wonder days in Catholic school when we had to choose sides. and natural curiosity. Staring at them freed up our minds Our teachers were missing the point. It was not merely in unexpected ways. Most other buildings, in our field of a matter of geometric ideology. It could have been a view, were quite ordinary and easy to ignore. discussion of how experience might be enriched when matters of the mind and body augment each other in There was a playground in a large clearing within the meaningful ways. Projecting our limits onto our children expansive olive orchard covering the slopes surrounding and students limits their curiosity and imagination. Hollyhock House. My brothers and I spent a lot of sum- mer days here. We were there to play and explore with To this day, I feel fortunate that a man named Joseph a special assignment given to us by our parents, twice a Spires, a Canadian immigrant, arrived in L.A. in 1886, year, November and March. We picked olives for curing. bought a 36-acre tract in East Hollywood and planted Being the youngest and most agile in my Italian-Ameri- olive trees on its slopes. Then purchased can family, I was the one who climbed the trees and did it from his family and commissioned Wright to create the picking. I enjoyed these mini-harvests a lot, espe- an architecture that provided a window into wonder- cially the solitude, so I picked slowly and looked around. land for a young boy who would discover an enchanted Up in the trees I could see in every direction, near and world to sustain his beginner’s mind for a lifetime. far, down, out and beyond by merely turning my head. Michael Rotondi is an architect and principal Sprinkled throughout the grove were picnic tables most of RoTo Architects, Los Angeles, and faculty often occupied by day, with men playing cards or domi- member of SCI-Arc (Southern nos, and as long as I shared some of the harvest with Institute of Architecture), which he co-founded them my presence was not considered a nuisance. HOLLYHOCK HOUSE PHOTO BY MARVIN RAND, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HOUSE PHOTO BY MARVIN RAND, LIBRARY HOLLYHOCK 15 Juhani Pallasmaa Frank Lloyd Wright’s works impressed me deeply Wright was clearly conscious of the importance of already as a first-year architecture student in the late atmosphere in architecture: “Whether people are fully 1950s. There was something inexplicably enticing in conscious of this or not, they actually derive counte- his buildings. This interest and sensory enjoyment nance and sustenance from the ‘atmosphere’ of things continued through my five-month stay at Taliesin they live in and with [Wright’s italics].” The fact that West, in 2012–13, and my recent visit to Taliesin. he identified the unconsciousness of the impact is sig- Despite the 60 years that I have been interested in nificant, as ambiences and feelings work subconscious- Wright’s architecture, I must confess that I do not ly as merged multisensory and unfocused stimuli. The “understand” it intellectually or theoretically. It sim- subliminal and essentially “formless” nature of the ply gives me a feeling of relaxed pleasure, comforting atmospheric experience makes it difficult to analyze integrity and beauty. Wright’s work takes place in a and theorize, not to speak of deliberately aiming at realm of experiential phenomena that speaks directly in the design process. The experience resembles the through my sense of existence. These buildings give impact of a textile weave more than a singular ocular rise to stimuli and experiences that are part of my be- image. Architectural atmosphere is a reflection of the ing rather than my intellect. Instead of being tectonic designer’s feeling of being, which fuses all the sense constructions, his architecture is a man-made nature stimuli into a singular embodied experience. that mediates between the landscape, the organic The most essential architectural qualities arise instinc- world and the realm of human culture. It makes me tively from the designer’s existential sense rather than recall Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s remarkable statement: from intellectually conscious objectives. In addition to “We come to see not the work of art, but the world his intuitive grasp of the significance of atmosphere, according to the work.” Wright was also instinctively sensitive to other archi- tectural qualities, such as the reading of the dynamics, Wright’s buildings project rhythms, materialities and hidden narratives of the landscape. Grant Hildebrandt suggests that Wright an embracing character grasped instinctually the genetically derived evolution- ary reactions of the human mind, the dialectics of a that is felt through the skin protective enclosure, safety and comforting intimacy, on the one hand, and an open, overall vista across the as much as the eye. setting, providing a means of anticipation and control of the environment, on the other. As ecological psy- chology suggests, these are bio-historically acquired Modern architecture at large has been more interested instinctual and unconscious reactions brought about in pure form than feeling, surface than materiality by evolution. Wright’s houses provide the duality of and texture, and focused visual imagery than envel- a protective center and an open peripheral vista, i.e. oping space and attunement. Yet, there are modern they simulate the environmental experiences of early and contemporary architects whose spaces have an humans and consequently provide a strong sense of atmospheric character that is felt as an embodied protection and well-being even in today’s dwellers. embrace rather than as external retinal image. These In the spring of 2012 I had the opportunity of staying atmospheric works engage and make us participants five months at in Arizona, built as an in space instead of inactive onlookers. Wright’s build- “architectural sketch,” as the architect characterized ings especially project a haptic, embodied and embrac- the project, which he kept expanding and altering un- ing character that is felt through the body and skin as til his death. Having myself developed a deep interest much as through the eye. From his early works, such in architectural atmospheres, the stay offered a unique as Unity Temple, Robie House and the Imperial Hotel possibility to sense and identify its design strategies. (in photographs this dismantled building appears ex- My experiences and observations have confirmed my ceptionally material, textural and tactile, like a man- assumption that atmosphere could well be the most made stalactite cavern), to his modern masterworks, comprehensive and integrated of architectural quali- Taliesin West, Fallingwater, the SC Johnson Building ties, but connected so deeply and complexly with our and numerous houses, his designs have an inviting and memory and bio-cultural instinctual reactions, that calming sensual presence. Wright’s spaces are expe- they can hardly be conceptualized and verbalized. rientially “dense” in their rich material and textural The atmospheric sensibility could well be named the stimuli and varied illumination, which enhance the sixth human sense. The difficulty of the analyses arises tactile realm. The deliberate reduction of scale—a from the fact that emotions, moods and behavior are miniaturization of sorts—adds to the experience of fundamentally conditioned by unconscious motives. denseness, nearness and intimacy. Another problem for the analytic effort is a result of 16 the fusion of oppositions and internal contradic- Not surprisingly, Wright also recognized the atmo- tions, a characteristic of all profound works of art spheric and imaginative power of fire and water. and architecture. Wright’s houses always center around a fireplace or a cluster of them. At Taliesin West there are numerous The Taliesin West complex arises from the land and fireplaces, in the studios and other workspaces, dining landscape, but at the same time, it gives the setting rooms and outdoor terraces. The fireplaces used to new readings and meanings. The architectural struc- provide heat for the rooms, which originally did not tures mediate images and hints of primordial or mythi- even have glass to close the openings, but more im- cal origins. Wright’s use of desert concrete (desert portantly, the huge fireplaces, rising directly from the stones and boulders set in the formwork with viscous floor and large enough for a person to enter, project an concrete to appear simultaneously as a masonry wall extraordinary sense of welcoming and warmth, both and cast structure) echoes the desert floor and terrain, physical and psychological. Besides, they create points whereas the architectural geometries evoke distant of focus and images of gathering. Sound and music are geological processes and early native Indian cosmo- omnidirectional and embracing experiences in contrast logical structures. The compound actually contains to the directional and externalizing vision. In Wright’s several ancient petroglyphs, while the architectural pedagogic thinking and life, music had a central role ornamentation of the buildings suggests native Indian (there are nearly 10 pianos at Taliesin West alone), motifs. The buildings fuse opposite images, such as and this seems inevitable for someone interested in suggestions of ruins and Utopia, togetherness and soli- highly emotive and moving atmospheres. tude, weight and lightness, gravity and flight, impene- trable darkness of shadows and purifying light, filtered At Taliesin West, nature is the setting, but it also through surfaces of stretched white canvas. Further literally takes over the human constructions, sug- polarities keep coming to the observer’s mind: a gesting temporal duration and eventual decay. As a cave and a kite, agelessness and novelty, uniqueness consequence, we feel that we are dwelling in time as and tradition, recklessness and safety, adventure much as space. Wright’s favorite color, Cherokee red, and homecoming. blends concrete floors as well as (continued on p. 18) 17 Juhani Pallasmaa (continued) steel and wood structures with the colors of the desert mode of being human, and part of nature and culture, and the sunset. Wright often made the remark that at the same time, and from observing life and human there are no continuous and hard lines in the desert; behavior itself, not from theoretical constructs or ra- the lines of the desert are broken and “dotted.” In tionalizations. A deliberate and conscious idea of fus- the desert studio, the lines of the eaves are broken by ing abstract geometries and motifs of Indian tradition, small ornamental cubic blocks to echo the thorny and images of Mesoamerican ruins and a spiritualist camp, prickly edges of the Sonoran plants. When thinking of and locality, cosmos and an intense sense Wright’s way of blending buildings with the landscape, of place—all characteristics of Taliesin West—would I wish to use the word “orchestration” to emphasize surely be doomed to failure. Only a sensitive mind the intuitive manner of integration through similarity that has internalized all of this can succeed in this de- and contrast into a unified and dynamic unity, as in a manding task of orchestration. As musical counterpoint. tells us, verses in poetry are not mere feelings; they are experiences. But these experiences have to be forgot- Wright’s architecture is a natural architecture, not pri- ten and turned into the blood in the poet’s veins before marily in any biomorphic or mimetic sense, or even in they can give birth to the first line of verse. reference to his own notion of “organic architecture,” but in its deep grasp of the genetically derived ways in Juhani Pallasmaa is an architect and former which we are in constant dialogue with our settings professor and dean of the Helsinki Institute of and domicile. “Natural architecture” arises from our Technology

Wright knows about the processional aspects of Suzanne Stephens In writing about architecture, I often wonder how a architecture. new building by an “avant-garde” architect that is critically lauded today will be received in the future. Will it be recognized and revered? What are those principles a work of architecture embodies that ensure its longevity historically? Frank Lloyd Wright’s rich legacy provides any number of examples of such timelessness, but two buildings, quite distinct from each other, reveal various precepts that transcend the tastes of the moment. Both Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, and Taliesin West, near Scottsdale, Arizona, indicate why and how once startlingly avant-garde architecture can still be relevant. Unity Temple has been heralded as a modernist land- mark for its exposed, poured-in-place concrete struc- ture and the plasticity of interlocking horizontal and vertical spaces, to name just two of its salient features. Yet it has a sense of timelessness that connects it back to the classical tradition of monumental architecture. In examining this religious structure, it is interesting to find that Wright, who scorned the architecture of the Beaux Arts, depended on classical proportions based on Pythagorean musical harmonies for the plan and design of this landmark church. I investigated these ideas in some detail years ago when Edgar Kaufmann Jr. asked me to speak as part of the Preston Thomas Memorial Lectures he orga- nized for Cornell University in the spring of 1983. The overall topic was “The Non-Residential Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright” and my lecture and essay for 18 the subsequent publication was “Unity Temple: Form and Meaning.” At my behest, architect Grant Marani, using drawings of the church created from the Historic American Build- ings Survey, found that a 1:2:4:8 ratio underlay the building’s proportions. He traced two series of proportional progressions, one that began with the dimensions of the exterior corner piers of the temple; the other with the dimensions of the four internal piers. Although the geometric 1:2:4:8 ratio was important to the design of Unity Temple, Marani found that not all the dimensions adhered to it. Nevertheless, the cubic volume forming the most sig- nificant space, the sanctuary, emanated from this progression. It made sense for Wright to look at mathematical rules, which, since ancient Greece, had been viewed as a materialization of absolute Platonic forms. And accordingly, the cube’s centralized space relates what appears to Johnson to be a “meaningless group to centuries-old sacred houses of worship. It made of buildings.” But, as he soon makes clear, Wright particular sense to use the square plan for a Unitar- knows about the processional aspects of architecture. ian church since its congregants reject any form of The visitor to Taliesin West finds surprising, unex- hierarchy, including the trinity, in their search for an pected spaces, compressed, enlarged, both closed in absolute unity with God. The religious monument that or opening out to vistas of the desert. Johnson tells Wright created in Oak Park addresses long-held beliefs of the experience of being pulled through a gold-leaf that the human body could relate to the universe concrete tunnel and then finally ending up in “the through architecture. most single, exciting room we have in this country, filtered by daylight.” More is to come, such as a secret But Unity Temple, with solid masses penetrated by garden before you enter an “inside room, no desert, natural light, was not grounded just in the cube, but or garden,” with a shaft of light filtering down on also in the labyrinth—the former, static; the latter, stone walls. Johnson concludes, “That is the essence encouraging a kinesthetic perceptual experience. The of architecture.” visitor gains access to the church precinct by climbing up stairs outside and entering into a low-ceilinged, The sense of procession, surprise and the experience compressed space. Then through various turns, he of constricted and expanding spaces, dramatized by or she proceeds along perimeter galleries wrapping light seen in both Taliesin West and Unity Temple can around the sanctuary block. By means of varying often be found in the work of architects who still em- heights and volumes of enclosing spaces, Wright pro- phasize the kinesthetic, tactile and optical qualities of pelled visitors through a labyrinth, until they arrived their designs. To be sure, the proportional system and in the stable center of the church, the sanctuary, 33 cubiform plan of Unity Temple may be less prevalent by 33 by 33 feet in dimension, bathed in illumination than the labyrinth of Taliesin West. But both are still from glass skylights. crucial to the creation of a sense of place in architec- ture and its timelessness in architecture. With Taliesin West, Wright created the labyrinth, without the cube. But even some more architectural Suzanne Stephens is an architecture critic and principles were in evidence that still influence archi- architectural historian who is now deputy tects today. Philip Johnson pointed to these in a talk editor of Architectural Record he gave to the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1957. In the speech, “100 Years, Frank Lloyd Wright and Us,” he leads his audience on a tour through Taliesin West, describing vividly the twists and turns you take as you approach UNITY TEMPLE AND TALIESIN WEST (OPPOSITE) IMAGES FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WEST (OPPOSITE) IMAGES FROM THE LIBRARY UNITY TEMPLE AND TALIESIN 19 Jerry van Eyck At their core, Wright’s designs balance gestures of fa- miliarity and estrangement. They are at once enigmatic To create unique and knowable. One can, in a somnambulistic manner, weave through a Wright space guided solely by free will. In this state of mind, the user draws the neces- designs, there is a sary associations primed by carefully curated moments until the moment of crucial emotional connection that immediately becomes ingrained in his or her memory. need to curate a Once that occurs, the experience becomes a timeless expression because it is now internalized by the user; it has become personal. This is the realm of “identity,” level of mystery. and it exists as a map of the conscious and subcon- scious associations of place and mind. the designer’s state of mind that matters? Is identity a Our ideas about, and expectations of, cities or places projection of the designer?” are not made exclusively in physical space. The city of Design is a language. We regularly pull from a tool- our collective consciousness is an aggregate of numer- kit of materiality, geometry and composition. This ous cultural viewpoints, media representations and so- becomes a form of speech, an expected vernacular cioeconomic constructions. The context for our ideas that carries a prescribed meaning. However, in order about cities/places is substantially in our heads. This to create unique designs, there is also a need to curate is a wild diversion from the way most architects frame a level of mystery. It is precisely that second nature the issue of context. However, the common premise that allows us to load the composition of a space with that our designs should be rationalized by metrics, ma- hidden meanings by implanting certain visual cues so teriality and aesthetics as found in the adjacent built or it becomes a space in which every component, every unbuilt environment is simplistic and misguided. The form, communicates one overarching narrative. By identity of a place can never be clarified, and is even infusing each element of a design with hidden symbols less likely to be transduced through the creation of an and subconscious emotional associations, the project echo chamber of continuity that reverberates only in in its totality will spur the proper projection from the the space of a “double.” Saying that context is in our user. This type of approach, which is about establish- heads is not intended to be dismissive of the idea of ing an experience of immersion, is evident in many of context—it simply relocates it. Context quite literally Wright’s designs. is in the mind of the individual and is shared in the vast territory of collective consciousness—where the There is no set formula for design. Every project is “original” exists. unique. Finding the proper balance of estrangement and familiarity truly is paramount. In the moment After making that claim, does this now give us per- when perception is challenged, when the mind briefly mission as designers to do whatever we wish? Do becomes orphaned from itself, do the seeds of identity we practice with an attitude of no-holds-barred and and sense of context begin to take root. anything goes? No. Actually, it makes our work more challenging. We, as designers, need to act as arbiters Jerry van Eyck is a landscape architect and urban of perception. Interestingly, one could then ask, “Is it designer and founder of !melk, New York

Sarah Whiting Architecture is a generalist discipline—it reflects and affects its political, historical, social, economic, material, technical and cultural contexts, as well as the immediate physical context it occupies. It’s this synthetic quality that makes it such an extraordinary and exciting field of study. Despite this synthetic reality, architects today are all too often specializing instead, isolating themselves within separate niches of expertise: facade specialists, hos- pital designers, school designers and the like. Frank Lloyd Wright offers a far more valuable and ever more rel- evant model for today’s students of architecture: Wright was omnivorous as he ravenously consumed every pos- sible facet that architecture could include. His synthetic or generalist approach embraced architecture as a form of ethics or cultural politics. And while his terminology and syntax may at times appear outmoded, his message can be more relevant than it ever was: “Our worst enemy now is this craven fear managed by conscienceless politicians,” he wrote in 1952 (“Wake Up, Wisconsin”). Just imagine what he would have said today.

Sarah Whiting is an architect, co-founder of WW Architecture, Houston, and dean of the BOGOT Á , COLOMBIA, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS GUGGENHEIM PHOTO BY SOL ROBAYO, 20 Rice University School of Architecture

building owner RESOURCES

Restoring Wright-Designed Bathrooms at Graycliff

BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY, AIA

VICE PRESIDENT, GRAYCLIFF CONSERVANCY

Graycliff, in Evans, New York (14 miles from Buffalo) was the lakeside summer home of Isabelle and Darwin D. Mar- tin and was built from 1926 through 1931. The Martins oc- cupied the four-building complex from 1928 through 1944. fixtures. The project was competitively bid and after evalu- A Catholic educational order, the Piarist Fathers, acquiredbegin ation building of the bids was owner awarded to Buffalo-based Reddin it in 1951 and lived there until the Graycliff Conservancy Construction. purchased the property and began restoration in theresources late The first-floor restroom is accessed from the entry hall to 1990s. the house and contains a water closet, sink and shower Whereas the exterior was largely restored by 2008, the in- stall. This restroom had initially been planned with its own terior restoration has lagged behind due to a lack of fund- exterior door to allow bathers returning from the beach to ing. The Hooper Family Foundation and the Margaret L. change without entering the house proper. In Wright’s final Wendt Foundation have generously supported restoration plan the exterior door was eliminated (a steel casement of portions of the interior, which created the momentum window was substituted) and the bathers changing func- for the remainder of the interiors to be restored currently. tion was relocated to another restroom on the first floor of With $3.7 million in funding promised by the State of New the chauffeur’s house. The first-floor restroom in the main York, interior restoration work was begun during the tour house includes lime based integrally colored stucco walls season of 2017. Public tours are intended to continue with and ceilings, a shower stall with scored painted plaster that their regular schedule uninterrupted throughout restora- resembles subway tile, an elegant sanitary seamless toilet tion with minor exceptions. made by the then Buffalo-based W. A. Case Company, and stock lighting fixtures made by the Meriden, Connecticut- The main house at Graycliff is the largest of the four struc- based Bradley and Hubbard Manufacturing Company. tures. It is a two-story dwelling with five restrooms, seven Bradley and Hubbard also manufactured Wright’s custom- bedrooms, three stone terraces and two lake viewing designed recessed lighting fixtures throughout the first balconies. Four of the restrooms serve bedrooms on the floor of the house. second floor, and one restroom serves the first floor. These restrooms were to be the focus of the initial restoration The floor of the restroom was a variegated buff colored project. Although modest in area, the restrooms include rubber tile designed to be water resilient as well as soft on some of the more complex restoration tasks due to a the feet. The original floor was destroyed due to excessive variety of finishes, historic plumbing and historic electrical moisture in the crawlspace below that portion of the first floor which occurred as a result of landscape modifications to Wright’s complex exterior pool / sunken garden system. PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK 22 Isabelle Martin bathroom before Isabelle Martin bathroom in process PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK Graycliff, Evans, New York

The moisture issue was corrected in an earlier phase of Case historic toilet fixtures in restored condition several restoration that provided gravity drainage throughout what years ago (the fixture in question was an elegant T-N Mod- is now a complete basement under the house. The floor el toilet). The fixtures have been stored waiting for their tiles are being custom-made to match the color and size of installation in lieu of more modern fixtures that replaced the original tiles as was done several years ago when the the originals while the Piarist Fathers resided in the house. adjacent family sunporch was restored. A series of inte- On the second floor, the four restrooms are divided into gral colored stucco samples was made to ensure that the two types, master restrooms and servant-style restrooms. damaged paint covered walls were matched to the original The master restrooms served a two-bedroom suite shared conditions. by Mrs. Martin and her companion, Cora Herrick, as well as Historic lighting fixtures are being restored where they a guest room. These restrooms feature ceramic tile floors existed and reproduced if they are missing in all of the with walls partially of ceramic tile. The upper portions of restrooms (fixtures are actually removed, restored and the walls are painted plaster surfaces. The tiles were mostly reinstalled after the remaining portions of the rooms are intact with minor portions that required custom made restored). We were fortunate to locate and acquire W. A. replacements. The original bathtubs were restored in place

Editor’s Note: This recurring column addresses preservation and mainte- nance issues relevant to owners of Wright-designed buildings. Find more Building Owner Resources at the new SaveWright.org. PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK Darwin Martin bathroom in process Darwin Martin bathroom in process 23 PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK PHOTO BY JOHN STRAWBRICH Servant bath before restoration Servant bath in process

whereas the sinks and toilets were removed to facilitate work on the walls. Paint analysis was performed to match PHOTO COURTESY OF PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO COURTESY OF PATRICK the original paint surfaces on the upper walls and ceilings. W.A. Case T/N model toilet ad The bath shared by Mrs. Martin and Cora Herrick (also known as Aunt Polly by the family) underwent severe deterioration of the ceiling due to a leaking pipe buried in a non-accessible ceiling chase. This required complete walled over it, leaving it in place to be uncovered decades reframing of the ceiling and parts of the walls before any later (the window was still visible from Darwin’s bedroom stucco work could be started. When first designed by balcony). Some of the scored plaster there was able to be Wright, Mrs. Martin’s bath was located near the center saved, other areas needed to be recreated. of the house and was to feature a high ceiling and high Ninety years ago Darwin D. Martin wrote Wright on Oct. ventilating window much like the restrooms designed for 19, 1927, indicating that “There remains to do this fall only the Imperial Hotel (Tokyo) and for the Henry J. Allen House ... remainder of the plastering and the tiling of the bath- (Wichita). Mrs. Martin prevailed in the restroom design with rooms; all in process. a bath that featured a conventional casement window set within the stonework of the main chimney mass. The restroom restoration project is expected to be com- plete by the end of 2017. n The servant-style restrooms served either a pair of house- maid’s rooms at the east end of the house or a pair of bedrooms used by Darwin D. Martin and a guest. At Mar- Patrick J. Mahoney, AIA is a Wright enthusiast, tin’s request his bath was a servant-style bath with scored author, architect and board member of both the Frank plaster walls and rubber floor tiles. The restoration of this Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the Graycliff room was made much simpler by the manner in which Conservancy. the Piarist Fathers had renovated it 65 years ago. Rather than eliminating a narrow window in the bath they dry-

Please Note: Each restoration/maintenance/repair situation involving a Wright building requires analysis and research to identify the correct approach. The Conservancy shares information so it may be of use to others as they evaluate their own specific situation and may consider these and other approaches. The Conservancy strongly recommends that owners consult with a design professional and an experienced contractor to determine which method is best for their specific projects. The provision of this information or mention of a specific product or products does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, prefer- 24 ence or approval by the Conservancy. executive director’s LETTER

a shared experience

As I have been getting to know the Conservancy’s mem- bers in my first year as executive director, it strikes me that there is something we all have in common. We can all remember the moving experience that we had when we visited our first Wright building. Maybe someone recom- mended we visit one of the public sites, maybe we learned about Wright’s significance in a college course or perhaps a Wright building was part of our neighborhood as a child. We all have a story to tell about the special way that we connect to Wright’s work, and we are all passionate about saving them for future generations to experience. for postponing and revisiting their original demolition and During my first annual conference in New York this past redevelopment plans, the future of the building and site September, it was clear to me that Wright’s work has the remains one of the Conservancy’s highest priorities. This power to bring together people from different walks of fall at the National Trust for Historic Preservation confer- life—scholars, architects, building owners and general ence our staff had the opportunity to network with many enthusiasts. This makes for a very special shared experi- preservation partners across the country. With a Wright ence. A big thanks goes to Neil Levine, guest editor of this building in almost three-quarters of U.S. states, this was an issue, for coordinating a stellar lineup of presenters at our important opportunity to strengthen advocacy work. symposium at The Museum of Modern Art, which attracted This year we made a lot of new connections to Wright many new people to our mission. stewards and provided technical services to more than 60 As the year comes to an end, we look back on some of the Wright buildings. I am happy to report that John H. Waters other highlights of our efforts to preserve Wright’s work. will transition to our full-time preservation programs man- The Conservancy continues to work with eight Wright ager beginning in 2018. He will be working to increase our sites to pursue World Heritage inscription; our nomina- technical services with more resources and programs that tion is being revised and resubmitted to UNESCO to be allow us to reach more building owners and stewards. considered in early 2019. The Conservancy continues to We couldn’t do this without our members and supporters. work with local advocates and the Montana Preservation Thank you for joining us in our mission to save Wright. Alliance on the fate of the Lockridge Medical Clinic build- ing in Whitefish, Montana. While we thank the new owner Barbara Gordon Executive Director, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy board of directors and staff

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS AT LARGE Neil Levine Tim Quigley PRESIDENT Diane Belden Emmet Blakeney Gleason Research Principal, Quigley Architects Edith K. Payne Senior Sales Representative, Professor of History of Art and Former Owner, Richardson House Tai Ping Carpets Americas Inc. Architecture, Harvard University Thomas Rodgers Retired Judge, Superior Court of President, Altgeld Appraisal, Ltd. New Jersey Barry Bergdoll Susan Jacobs Lockhart Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art Member, Board of Trustees, Frank Sandra Shane-DuBow FIRST VICE PRESIDENT History, Columbia University Lloyd Wright Foundation Member, Board of Directors, Ron Scherubel Curator, The Museum of Modern Art Taliesin Preservation Inc. Retired Vice President and General Patrick J. Mahoney, AIA Member, Board of Governors, The Counsel, Sara Lee Foods Ken Breisch Vice President, Graycliff Conservancy School of Architecture at Taliesin Retired Executive Director, Frank Lloyd Associate Professor, School of Architec- Lauer-Manguso & Associates Architects Marsha Shyer Wright Building Conservancy ture, University of Southern California George Meyer Owner, Brandes House SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Daniel Chrzanowski Vice President, Operations, Irvine Marketing and Communications Larry Woodin Owner, John J. and Syd Dobkins House Company Professional Executive Director and Founder, Visual Artist Commercial Property Management HONORARY BOARD EcoHome Foundation Executive Ronald P. Duplack Vincent Scully, , President, Gold Standard Capital Partner, Rieck and Crotty, PC Vincent Michael Thomas Wright Group Executive Director, San Antonio T. Gunny Harboe, FAIA SECRETARY Conservation Society EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Founder and Principal, Chuck Henderson Barbara Gordon Harboe Architects, PC Daniel Nichols, AIA Owner, Mrs. Clinton Walker House Architect, Ragan Design Group STAFF Jeffrey Herr TREASURER Owner, Sweeton House Curator, Hollyhock House and Simon Joel Hoglund Mary F. Roberts Rodia’s Towers in Watts Scott W. Perkins Communications and Events Director Executive Director, Martin House Director of Preservation, Fallingwater Restoration Corporation Scott Jarson Kristen Patzer Co-founder and President, azarchite- Fred Prozzillo General Manager ture/Jarson & Jarson Real Estate Director of Preservation, Frank Lloyd John H. Waters Wright Foundation Preservation Programs Manager 25

Non-profit FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT U.S. Postage BUILDING CONSERVANCY PAID 53 W. Jackson Blvd. Suite 1120 | Chicago, IL 60604 | savewright.org Permit No. 3912 Chicago, IL events

The Conservancy has several exciting events in store our annual conference will be based at for 2018. Our biannual visit to Auldbrass, Wright’s 1939 with a focus on Preserving Wright’s Legacy in Wiscon- southern , offers an intimate group an exclu- sin and featuring tours of more than a dozen Wright- sive tour of the private multi-building estate followed designed buildings (registration opens in June). We’ll by a gourmet dinner and bourbon tasting in the main close out the year with the Conservancy’s first major house. May’s Out and About Wright tour will include tour of Japan, visiting dozens of major architectural houses by Wright and others in the area around Des highlights throughout the country. Moines, Iowa (registration opens in January). In the fall,

Dinner at Auldbrass Yemassee, South Carolina March 10, 2018 PHOTO BY ANTHONY PERES Out and About Wright: Des Moines Des Moines, Iowa May 4-6, 2018 PHOTO BY PATRICK J. MAHONEY PHOTO BY PATRICK Lamberson House in Oskaloosa, Iowa

Annual Conference: Preserving Wright’s Legacy in Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin Oct. 10-14, 2018 PHOTO COURTESY OF MONONA TERRACE Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin The Great Living Creative Spirit: Wright’s Legacy in Japan Japan Nov. 11-22, 2018 PHOTO COURTESY OF YODOGAWA STEEL WORKS, LTD PHOTO COURTESY OF YODOGAWA Yamamura House in Hyogo, Japan