Communities by Design in THIS ISSUE

PRESERVATION | ADVOCACY ADVOCACY | EDUCATION EDUCATION Guest Editor: Jane King Hession Communities by Design IN THIS ISSUE

THE MAGAZINE OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT BUILDING CONSERVANCY FALL 2016 / VOLUME 7 / ISSUE 2 is a biannual publication of the Frank SaveWright Building Conservancy. Lloyd Wright Guest Editor: Jane King Hession Executive Editor: Susan Jacobs Lockhart Managing Editor: Joel Hoglund Copy Editor: Linda Botsford Contributing Editor: Janet Halstead Designer: Debra Nemeth 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 © 2016, Frank Lloyd Wright Jane King Hession Guest Editor communities by design by communities

Communities can take many forms and mean different things to different people. Vary though they though they people. Vary to different things can take many formsCommunities and mean different who, col- of individuals all composed are alike in that they fundamentally are all communities may, comprises whole of a community The or geography. characteristics interests, common share lectively, he lived and worked at was no stranger to this concept: for decades Wright its parts. Frank Lloyd as the essays in this However, of his own creation. Fellowship, a community the center of the Taliesin scales—in his architecture the idea of community—at multiple explored also Wright issue make clear, and planning. the philosophical divide considers Robert Wojtowicz politics of community, In his article on the on the critic Lewis Mumford, friend (and sometime foe), cultural and his longtime between Wright on the pages of their polar positions the two men often argued describes, subject. As Wojtowicz in best known communities, Usonia of one of Wright’s leading publications. The roots the country’s In ad- Roland Reisley. by an original owner in the community, revisited are Pleasantville, New York, vision on of Wright’s the impact glance at its origins, Reisley also reveals dition to taking a backward “the power of ge- application of Neil Levine describes Wright’s successive generations of residents. block. Through community at the scale of the individual house and the residential ometry” to create for Twenty- as the Quadruple Block Plan and a “Community Project such early 20th-century projects “to balance sought Park, Levine demonstrates how Wright Four Dwellings” for C.E. Roberts in Oak the needs of community and privacy.” project residential essay on the 1942 Cloverleaf Geometry is also the focus of Michael Desmond’s relationship of cluster housing to the Wright not only explored for Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Boyle to the automobile. Brigid that responded but also planned a community community, the larger 1903 Larkin Company Adminis- of two buildings: the limits her thematic exploration to the interiors SC Johnson Administration Building in Racine, and the 1936 New York, tration Building in Buffalo, communal created masterful spatial manipulation, Wright through Wisconsin. She discusses how, sense of identity.” in their employees “a shared to foster his clients’ desire workspaces that reflected view of the experience of living and working in the a personal Susan Jacobs Lockhart offers Finally, us that one of the so reminds in doing West—and and Taliesin “intentional communities” of Taliesin is that of family and friends. most meaningful and enduring of all communities Cover photo: Model of the Project for Broadacre City, 1934, photo by Skot Weidemann, 1994. Image courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright 1994. Image courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Weidemann, 1934, photo by Skot City, for Broadacre Cover photo: Model of the Project Columbia University). All rights reserved. & Fine Arts Library, Architectural (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Foundation Archives Lewis Mumford, Wright and the Politics of Community and the Politics Wright Lewis Mumford, Intentional Communities West: and Taliesin Taliesin Called Cloverleaf A Geometry of Community: A Project in the Larkin and Johnson Community Values Administration Buildings Heritage Letter: An Irreplaceable Executive Director’s President’s Message: Our Own Community President’s Now Usonia: Then and Wright’s Reflections on Frank Lloyd Geometry of Community Wright’s

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editor’s MESSAGE editor’s Jane King Hession, an architec- historian and curator, tural writer, is a founding partner of Modern She is a past House Productions. of the Frank Lloyd president Building Conservancy Wright and co-author of John H. Howe, Appren- Taliesin From Architect: Design tice to Master of Organic in (2015), Frank Lloyd Wright 1954- The Plaza Years, New York: 1959 (2007) and Ralph Rapson: of Modern Design Sixty Years (1999). ABOUT THE EDITOR CONTENTS president’s MESSAGE

Communities can take many forms and mean different things to different people. Vary though they may, all communities are fundamentally alike in that they are all composed of individuals who, collectively, share common interests, characteristics or geography. The whole of a community comprises its parts. Frank Lloyd Wright was no stranger to this concept: for decades he lived and worked at the center of the Taliesin Fellowship, a community of his own creation. However, as the essays in this issue make clear, Wright also explored the idea of community—at multiple scales—in his architecture our own community and planning.

In his article on the politics of community, Robert Wojtowicz considers the philosophical divide between Wright and his longtime friend (and sometime foe), cultural critic Lewis Mumford, on the subject. As Wojtowicz describes, the two men often argued their polar positions on the pages of After reading the articles that comprise this issue on the country’s leading publications. The roots of one of Wright’s best known communities, Usonia in Frank Lloyd Wright’s communities, I would like to Pleasantville, New York, are revisited by an original owner in the community, Roland Reisley. In ad- contribute yet another example, which may not have dition to taking a backward glance at its origins, Reisley also reveals the impact of Wright’s vision on been specifically envisioned by Wright, but would successive generations of residents. Neil Levine describes Wright’s application of “the power of ge- nonetheless have been appreciated by him. I pro- ometry” to create community at the scale of the individual house and the residential block. Through pose the addition of that community made up by the such early 20th-century projects as the Quadruple Block Plan and a “Community Project for Twenty- Wright scholars, homeowners and aficionados that Four Dwellings” for C.E. Roberts in Oak Park, Levine demonstrates how Wright sought “to balance make up the membership of the Frank Lloyd Wright the needs of community and privacy.” Building Conservancy.

Geometry is also the focus of Michael Desmond’s essay on the 1942 Cloverleaf residential project My experience with the Conservancy dates back to the for Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Wright not only explored the relationship of cluster housing to mid-1990s, when Roland and Ronny Reisley hosted a the larger community, but also planned a community that responded to the automobile. Brigid Boyle tour of Usonia for the Museum of Modern Art. A req- and its programs foster an almost-unrivaled sense of limits her thematic exploration to the interiors of two buildings: the 1903 Larkin Company Adminis- uisite to participation in the tour was a commitment community among Conservancy members that extends tration Building in Buffalo, New York, and the 1936 SC Johnson Administration Building in Racine, to a one-year membership in the Conservancy. We well beyond the formal structure of the organization. complied, and as the result of reading the Conservan- Wisconsin. She discusses how, through masterful spatial manipulation, Wright created communal As a Wright homeowner, I have appreciated the assis- cy’s ongoing listing of Wright homes for sale, Wright workspaces that reflected his clients’ desire to foster in their employees “a shared sense of identity.” tance that Conservancy members have given over the on the Market, learned that Wright’s Usonian Stuart Finally, Susan Jacobs Lockhart offers a personal view of the experience of living and working in the years to me and my husband in our efforts to restore and Elizabeth Richardson House in Glen Ridge, New “intentional communities” of Taliesin and Taliesin West—and in doing so reminds us that one of the the Richardson House to its initial condition—an Jersey, located just blocks from our Victorian, was on most meaningful and enduring of all communities is that of family and friends. effort that has given rise to yet another community the market. Two weeks later, it was ours. among the craftspeople skilled in the restoration of But marketing was not the only service rendered by our Wright structure. Additionally Conservancy mem- the Conservancy. Before our purchase was consum- bers contributed their invaluable knowledge of Wright mated, we contacted the Conservancy, and through it and his work, and have given me a perspective on were referred to a restoration architect experienced in architecture that I would not otherwise have had. Wright’s work who could give us an accurate evalu- SaveWright is a biannual publication of the Frank And, as all community efforts should be, the process Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. ation of the condition of our intended purchase. My has been not only enriching, but also enormously Guest Editor: Jane King Hession husband’s attendance at that year’s Conservancy con- Executive Editor: Susan Jacobs Lockhart enjoyable. Wright would be proud. Managing Editor: Joel Hoglund ference in Seattle led, serendipitously, to an introduc- Copy Editor: Linda Botsford tion to the Richardsons’ daughter Margot, who had Contributing Editor: Janet Halstead Designer: Debra Nemeth grown up in the house. She remains a dear friend and Edith Payne President The mission of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building valuable resource regarding the property. Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy is to facilitate the preservation and maintenance of the remaining structures designed Both my husband and I remained active members of Building Conservancy by Frank Lloyd Wright through education, advocacy Owner, Richardson House and technical services. the Conservancy, and through it, developed friend- tel: 312.663.5500 ships with many of the restoration architects, scholars, email: [email protected] web: savewright.org homeowners and persons interested in Wright’s architecture who regularly attend Conservancy events. Our © 2016, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy experience was in no sense unique, as the Conservancy

Ron Scherubel Guest Editor

1 ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROLAND REISLEY The site plan for Usonia Homes – A Cooperative.

Reflections on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonia: Then and Now In 1948 Usonia members came to see the ground plan for the first house. BY ROLAND REISLEY

Usonia Homes – A Cooperative, now known as Usonia, is a community of 47 homes on 98 acres in Pleasantville, New York, that Wright conceived with apprentice David Henken in 1944. (Wright called it Usonia ll; Usonia l was the unbuilt 1940 seven-home community designed for East Lansing, Michigan).

Its creation is a romantic tale of a group of idealistic young urban families who, follow-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ing World War II, pursued the American Dream of owning a modern, affordable home in the country. Their unforeseen and nearly overwhelming investment of time, energy and money resulted in a unique community. Roland Reisley has been a member of Usonia Homes Over his long career Wright designed a number of communities, but only a few were since 1950, and secretary, built. He thought of each of them as realizations of some of his ideas for Broadacre director and de facto historian City, the comprehensive design for a new city plan he put forth in the early 1930s. of the community for many Although a participant in various communities, mainly the Taliesin Fellowship, Wright years. He was a client of Wright in the design and construction of the Reisley House and the founding secretary of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

Usonia members unload cypress.

2 Wright with architects Aaron Resnick and David Henken (third and fifth from left) discussing The pump house, originally for the community water supply, now construction. Resnick and Henken each designed 14 of the community’s 47 homes. holds various memorial and National Register plaques. Children of Usonia formed play groups.

The site plan for Usonia Homes – A Cooperative.

Reflections on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonia: Then and Now In 1948 Usonia members came to see the ground plan for the first house.

did not assert communitarian social benefits but rather individual independence and self-sufficiency within a democratic structure. In 1943, in a petition signed by 64 Broadacre sympathizers (including Albert Einstein, John Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller) in an effort to Community members enjoy the beach. raise cash for the project, Wright wrote:

Its creation is a romantic tale of a group of idealistic young urban families who, follow- “Inevitably, there will develop a new form of commu- ing World War II, pursued the American Dream of owning a modern, affordable home nity life, but just what it will be except as Broadacre Wright encouraged community members to in the country. Their unforeseen and nearly overwhelming investment of time, energy City tentatively outlines it as free to grow, who can and money resulted in a unique community. say? Not I. Who is going to say how humanity will eventually be modified by all these spiritual changes participate in the construction of their homes. Over his long career Wright designed a number of communities, but only a few were and physical advantages, sound and vision coming built. He thought of each of them as realizations of some of his ideas for Broadacre through solid walls to men, each aware of anything City, the comprehensive design for a new city plan he put forth in the early 1930s. in or of the world he lives in without lifting a finger, Although a participant in various communities, mainly the Taliesin Fellowship, Wright making it unnecessary to go anywhere unless it is Wright presented the Usonia site plan in April 1947. It a pleasure to go. The whole psyche of humanity is showed 55 circular one-acre sites. After slight revision changing and what that change will ultimately bring the plan showed 50 sites, accessed on narrow, serpen- as future community I will not prophecy. It is already tine roads with a farm unit at one end and a commu- greatly changed.” nity building at the other, neither of which were built. Wright envisioned an unbroken wooded enclave with homes “of the land,” built of natural materials and scattered like jewels. The sites were not to be delin- eated but separated by the natural woodland. Restric- tive covenants and bylaws were enacted to ensure that there would be no fences, fabricated or living, and that any building or change to a home’s exterior must be ap- proved by Usonia. Initially, buildings also had to be ap- proved by Wright. Ultimately 40 of the 47 homes were designed by Wright and his apprentices and disciples. Wright encouraged community members to participate in the construction of their homes. Enthusiastic members did so, gathering stones for masons building the pump house, laying water pipe in trenches and other

The pump house, originally for the community water supply, now 3 holds various memorial and National Register plaques. The Roland Reisley House (1951, 1956) was the third Wright-designed house built in Usonia. Aaron Resnick’s own house in Usonia (1949).

Architectural novelty and inflation made all of the ed New York City watershed. To the west a once large homes cost much more than expected. After 36 homes estate is now a housing subdivision. Within the com- “The whole psyche of humanity is changing and what that had been built, 11 sites remained unsold. Community munity, the trees are taller and there is some suburban- change will ultimately bring as future community I will not members were given the title to their sites while the like planting. Otherwise much has changed in 65 cooperative retained 40 acres of the surrounding com- years. Social patterns and lifestyles are very different. prophecy. It is already greatly changed.” munity land. The remaining sites soon sold. It thus be- Original members emerging from the Great Depres- came possible to buy into Usonia without necessarily sion and World War II and motivated by their idealism wanting to share the original communitarian values. were anxious to participate actively, collectively, to The covenant and bylaw protections however remain create community. Today most members work at their activities. Working together, picnicking at homes being effective, and physically Usonia remains essentially professions harder and longer, are more affluent, and built or defending the “radical” community led to unchanged. Most of the newer buyers have become are more reliant on email or smart phones than face- strong bonds. Occasionally visitors came to see what committed community members. to-face contact. Of course there are still significant some had taken to calling “Insania.” exceptions in the community: the swimming pool and Physically the community is essentially unchanged tennis courts draw neighbors together, and children’s Members experienced extraordinary connectedness. from 1959. Much of Usonia is bounded by the wood- activities and friendships generate adult relationships. There were gatherings on holidays, at ball games and at the swimming pool (a pond created by damming a stream). Usonia resembled an extended family. Chil- dren called adults by first names and could enter any house for a cold drink. As families grew, had more children or more money, Usonians remained strongly attached to the community and most of the homes have acquired seamless additions. In the community’s first 40 years only 12 of the 47 homes changed hands, six of them to next-generation members. But that trend ended 25 years ago, and many homes have changed hands several times since. Remarkably, children that grew up in Usonia, now middle-aged and living elsewhere, remain in touch with each other and look forward to large reunions. The earliest new members quickly absorbed the communitarian architectural and social ethos, but gradually that has somewhat diminished.

The Benjamin Henken House (1949) in Usonia, designed by 4 David Henken. Aaron Resnick’s own house in Usonia (1949). The Sol Friedman House (1949), the first of Wright’s three house designs in Usonia. Its circular theme attracted wide acclaim.

ed New York City watershed. To the west a once large Perhaps the most enduring aspect of Usonia is its estate is now a housing subdivision. Within the com- reflection of Wright’s response to ideas of Ralph munity, the trees are taller and there is some suburban- Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, asserting like planting. Otherwise much has changed in 65 the profound connection between human beings and years. Social patterns and lifestyles are very different. nature. Wright’s decision to build with, rather than Original members emerging from the Great Depres- against nature is well realized in Usonia. He reminded sion and World War II and motivated by their idealism members that by not delineating their sites they would were anxious to participate actively, collectively, to experience greater connection with the larger natu- create community. Today most members work at their ral surroundings. The narrow, hilly roads necessitate professions harder and longer, are more affluent, and awareness of the land. Entering from the outside or are more reliant on email or smart phones than face- walking through the community one feels a sense of to-face contact. Of course there are still significant beauty and peace. Neuroscientists these days tell us exceptions in the community: the swimming pool and that such feelings reduce stress and contribute to bet- tennis courts draw neighbors together, and children’s ter health and longevity. Perhaps Wright perceived this activities and friendships generate adult relationships. intuitively. n

The Benjamin Henken House (1949) in Usonia, designed by The Odif Podell House (1949) in Usonia, designed by David Henken. David Henken. 5 Wright’s “Home in a Prairie Town” design was part of a master plan for four houses called the Quadruple Block Plan. The plan was featured above the drawings of the house itself. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY Presentation drawings for C. E. Roberts Community Project for Twenty-Four Dwellings.

Wright’s Geometry of Community

BY NEIL LEVINE

In 1903 Wright designed a housing development for an entire block in Oak Park, Illinois, for Charles E. Roberts, who had assembled the property, not far from his own

ABOUT THE AUTHOR and Wright’s houses, several years before.

The development was to include 24 single-family houses of a relatively modest size and Neil Levine has authored cost. Wright named the project the “C. E. Roberts Community Project for Twenty-Four numerous publications Dwellings” in the legend block of the first sheet of presentation drawings. It is, to my on Wright, including The Architecture of Frank Lloyd knowledge, the first time he used the word “community” in such a way. Its applica- Wright. A companion volume, tion to what amounts simply to a subdivision for a single residential suburban block is The Urbanism of Frank Lloyd unexpected and thus calls for explanation. The answer, we’ll see, lies in Wright’s belief Wright, for which he received in the power of geometry. grants from the Guggenheim and Graham foundations and About two years before, in July 1901, the Chicago Evening Post and Oak Park Report- the National Endowment for er both ran a story announcing that “eight houses will be built in two blocks” of Oak the Humanities, was released Park “on plans outlined in a Philadelphia publication by Frank Lloyd Wright.” The in 2015. He is the Emmet Blakeney Gleason Research two groups of four houses each were to be constructed north of Chicago Avenue and Professor of History of Art west of Oak Park Avenue, two blocks east of Wright’s own house. The article called the and Architecture at Harvard plan “ideal” and stated that its “object [was] to establish a community where every- University and a Fellow of the thing will be in harmony and where nothing offensive to the eye shall exist.” It stressed American Academy of Arts the importance of the overall plan for the development rather than its individual hous- and Sciences. es, and referred to the project variously as “community,” “colony” and “settlement.” 6 Wright’s “Home in a Prairie Town” design was part of a master plan for four houses called the Quadruple Block Plan. The plan was featured above the drawings of the house itself.

“The community,” it stated, “will be … a settlement of people desirous of living in the country in houses that are not an insult to the aesthetic senses.” It was intended to serve as a “model” for future residential planning. The “Philadelphia publication” referenced by the articles and amply quoted in them was the February 1901 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal, in which Wright first presented his “Home in a Prairie Town” as part of a novel idea for a community plan that he called the Quadruple Block Plan. This geometrically conceived concept for grouping houses around a common space made by the mutual relations between the individual houses formed the basis of the later Prairie house as well as the July Oak Park project and the slightly later Roberts commission. It provides the key to understanding how the invention of a new idea of organizational geometry gave Wright the means to forge a community basis for suburban housing. Wright first presented his “Home in a Prairie Town” in the February 1901 issue of the Ladies’ For the Ladies’ Home Journal project, Wright was Home Journal. asked to contribute a design for a series of “Model Suburban Houses Which Can Be Built at Moderate Cost” that could be used by the widely read journal to needs and desires, he wrote that “it seems a waste of raise the level of domestic architecture in the United energy to plan a house haphazard, to hit or miss an States. There were 13 other architects involved in the already distorted condition, so this partial solution of program, for which Wright actually contributed a sec- a city man’s country home on the prairie begins at the ond design, “A Small House with Lots of Room in It,” beginning and assumes four houses to the block as … in July 1901. Wright was the only one among the 13 the basis of his prairie community.” To drive home the to make his house part of a community plan. Indeed, point that the form and value of the individual house he made the design of the individual house contingent fundamentally depend on the overall community plan, upon and reflective of a master plan for four houses. he stated that “the block plan to the left, at the top He called this grouping the Quadruple Block Plan and featured it above the drawings of the house itself as a kind of headline and starting point for the project as a Wright’s idea of community planning was not a whole. nostalgic traditionalism that assumed a static social In the text Wright explained that “a city man going to the country puts too much in his house and too little system of family and clan, but rather envisaged a in his ground. He drags after him the 50-foot lot, soon the 25-foot lot, finally the party wall; and the home- maker who fully appreciates the advantages which he dynamic kind of community-in-the-making. came to the country to secure feels himself impelled to move on.” Acknowledging that a plan based on the benefits of community would better satisfy individual 7 of the page, shows an arrangement of the four houses Wright was neither a sociologist nor a social theorist. that secures breadth and prospect to the community as His 1901 Quadruple Block Plan and later application a whole, and absolute privacy as regards each to the of it to the Roberts block reveal a purely architectural community, and each to each of the four.” response to one of the major issues of late 19th- century society and, as such, can be seen directly in The relationship between community and the individu- the geometric means he used to model his residential al has been a major theme in modern architecture and community. Wright’s idea of community planning was sociology. Serge Chermayeff and Christopher Alexan- not a nostalgic traditionalism that assumed a static der’s Community and Privacy: Toward a New Archi- social system of family and clan, but rather envisaged tecture of Humanism (1963) is only one of the many a dynamic kind of community-in-the-making, wherein studies that can be related back to the pioneering Ger- individuals from diverse backgrounds, uprooted from man sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies’ Community and their rural origins or transported from an alienating Society, originally published in 1887 as Gemeinschaft urban environment, were placed in a situation where und Gesellschaft. Tönnies’ distinction between an the planning strategies instantiated a dialectical inter- organic, essentially pre-Industrial-Age organization of action of individual and community or private and social beings, grounded in traditional formations such public interests. Community was thus not a natural as family or neighborhood, and a modern, urban form inheritance, but had to be constructed. of organization, based on a more abstract, corporate model of instrumentality and self-interest, was to have The only preliminary drawing we have for the Ladies’ Wright detailed only one of the four identical structures in the an enormous impact on the later Chicago School of Home Journal Quadruple Block Plan goes some way Quadruple Block Plan. sociology. How aware Wright was of the underlying toward explaining Wright’s methodology. The sketch theory behind contemporary explanations of the com- occupies the left half of the sheet next to a penciled munitarian values embedded in his Quadruple Block note that fills its right half. The note begins with the Plan has never to my knowledge been explored—and sentence “This plan is arranged on the assumption cannot be here—but there is no doubt that Wright’s that the community interests are of greater value to thinking in 1901 embodied Tönnies’ critical supposi- the whole,” before describing how best to balance the tions just as his later distinction between the “rural- needs of community and privacy. The sketch is clearly ism” of Broadacre City and the “urbanism” of Le not about an individual house design but rather about Corbusier’s City for Three Million Inhabitants directly how a residential block could accommodate four hous- related to the Chicago School’s elaboration of its im- es and afford to each a sense of communal relationship plications for 20th-century city planning. to the others and a connection to the city as a whole while, at the same time, providing its occupants with a desirable degree of privacy. The block is square and its People who may not have known their neighbors beforehand implied biaxial symmetry left Wright to detail only one of the four identical structures. The rest can be filled in and probably had no traditional ties to one another would by us in comparing the sketch to the published plan. come to feel, by virtue of the geometric force of the plan, a Wright rejected the typical suburban oblong block sense of connectedness that lies at the basis of community. in favor of the ideal square that underwrote Thomas Jefferson and Hugh Williamson’s subdivision of the

8 The preliminary drawing for the Ladies’ Home Journal Quadruple Block Plan includes a handwritten note with the sentence “This plan is arranged on the assumption that the community interests are of greater value to the whole.” Wright detailed only one of the four identical structures in the Quadruple Block Plan.

American continent in the 1785 U.S. Rectangular Land Survey. Each of the four houses could thus be Plot plan for the initial project for the Roberts block, designed in 1896. given a quarter of the four-acre site. This quartering was combined with a process of centering and framing so that each house occupied the middle of its corner lot equidistant from the neighboring houses and from together to create a dynamic field, reflective of the the public space of street and sidewalk. The houses surrounding streets, yet removed from them and thus were linked to one another by low walls joining their offering their own sense of shared space. porte cocheres. This created a continuous square While the focus on the central square as the denomi- frame, concentric with that of the sidewalks and nator of community is explicit in fulfilling his inten- streets and enclosing a communal garden centered on tion of privileging the overriding “value to the whole,” four back-to-back stables. This central garden, which the rotational pinwheeling that Wright introduced lacks internal dividing walls, was to be heavily treed, here for the first time adds a further dynamic element as the perspective shows, both to provide privacy for that gives a particular meaning and modern coloration the individual houses and to reinforce a sense of a to his construction of community. The pinwheeling communal space and togetherness within the sur- of the four houses creates a geometric matrix wherein rounding streetscape. community is understood as something dynamic and Four years before, in 1896, Wright had designed an perpetually in construction—where people who may initial project for the Roberts block based on the stan- not have known their neighbors beforehand and dard system of lining up the individual houses along probably had no traditional ties to one another would the four street fronts but leaving an area in the center come to feel, by virtue of the geometric force of the of the block for a garden. This idea, while novel for its plan, a sense of connectedness that lies at the basis time and soon advocated by Garden City and Suburb of community. The architecture, in this sense, would enthusiasts, proceeded from a static conception of serve as a visual catalyst as well as physical impetus community in which the houses were oriented to the to bring people together. For this reason, no doubt, surrounding streets and, behind them, a communal the geometry of the Quadruple Block Plan became the garden filled in the space they abutted. In the Qua- DNA of Wright’s design thinking. In the 1903 Roberts druple Block Plan, by contrast, the houses are oriented plan the 24 houses were grouped into units of four as much, if not more, to each other than to the street each so as to break down the standard oblong block and the communal space around and between them is into six squares; in the Chicago City Club project of not a leftover but a result of their geometric interac- 1912-13, the concept was expanded into an entire tion. The houses are linked to one another by lines, 36-block urban neighborhood. And beginning with both real in the form of the low walls and purely the Sun Top Homes of 1938-39, outside Philadelphia, visual as the axes extending from one projecting wing many other of Wright’s housing schemes in the 1940s to the next. Instead of remaining discrete objects in a and 50s owed their construction of community to the pre-established street framework, they actively work precedent-setting Quadruple Block Plan of the beginning of the 20th century. n 9 PHOTO FROM THE LEWIS MUMFORD ART COLLECTION, MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY, COURTESY OF PHOTO FROM THE LEWIS MUMFORD ART COLLECTION, MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY, OF LEWIS AND SOPHIA MUMFORD THE ESTATE Lewis Mumford, Manhattan from Top of Palisades, Aug. 18, 1917. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF LEWIS AND SOPHIA MUMFORD PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ESTATE Lewis Mumford, 1931. Lewis Mumford, Wright and the Politics of Community BY ROBERT WOJTOWICZ

“One of our giant redwoods has fallen, and left a space we cannot fill by any quick plantation of lesser trees,” critic Lewis Mumford wrote in a 1960 obituary of Frank Lloyd Wright published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His words reveal not only his profound sense of loss over the architect himself but his equally profound sense of regret over an opportunity missed. To Mumford, Wright was an American original, the progenitor of an organic modern architecture that towered over its functionalist, expressionist and romanticist counterparts. With few exceptions, Mumford praised Wright’s buildings for their sensitive use of materials, ingenious manipulation of space and individual response to nature. It was only when shifting his lens to the wider field of community planning that Mumford found Wright’s designs ABOUT THE AUTHOR wanting. Mumford and Wright met face to face infrequently, but from their first exchange of Robert Wojtowicz, a professor of art history at Old Dominion letters in 1926 through the 1950s, they clashed repeatedly over the form the future University, is co-editor with American community should take. One might term their stances political, but not for Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer of partisan reasons. Both shared a liberal outlook, although Mumford leaned toward Frank Lloyd Wright and Lewis social democratism and Wright toward libertarianism, a tendency famously exploited Mumford: Thirty Years of by novelist Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead (1943). Rather, their stances were policy- Correspondence (New York, 2001). based, with Mumford advocating for a government role in solving the nation’s housing woes and with Wright relying on private initiative. As Alvin Rosenbaum astutely observed in his 1993 book, Usonia: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Design for America: “Mum- ford’s interest was in housing, Wright’s interest was in houses.” Mumford and Wright arrived at their divergent views on community planning from substantially different backgrounds magnified by their more than 28-year difference in age. Mumford, the younger of the two, was a product of New York City, and he spent his sheltered youth in a series of Upper West Side apartments. Conversely, Wright was a product of rural Wisconsin, and he spent his active youth alternating between his rela-

10 Clarence Stein, Henry Wright and Frederick Ackerman, Site Plan for Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York, begun 1924. tives’ farms and his family’s Madison house. Mum- ford’s more idealistic views on community planning were forever shaped by his encounter with the writings of Patrick Geddes, the Scottish biologist who espoused an organic, regionally based approach to studying human environments, and Ebenezer Howard, the English founder of the garden city movement. By the mid- 1920s, Mumford was an established writer and critic, freelancing for The Journal of the American Institute of Architects, among other outlets. He was also an author of critically acclaimed books, most notably Sticks and Stones: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization (1924), which dismissed the usual rubric of style in favor of a social and cultural analysis that included an appreciative mention of Wright. Through the Journal, Mumford was drawn into the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), an informal circle of architects, planners and reformers. Guided broadly by Geddes’ regionalism, but focused more narrowly on transplanting Howard’s garden city to the United States, the RPAA in 1924 formed a limited-divided company that developed Sunnyside Gardens, a garden neighborhood in Queens. Designed by RPAA architects Clarence Stein, Henry Wright and

Frederick Ackerman, it featured row houses grouped 131 1, 1925), P. THE SURVEY [GRAPHIC] 54 (MAY IMAGE FROM LEWIS MUMFORD, “THE FOURTH MIGRATION,” The First, Second, and Third Migrations illustration from around green commons with apartments at its edge. Lewis Mumford’s “The Fourth Migration.” (Mumford, who was by this time married with a young son, moved there in 1925.) financiers’ gathering of the populace into large cities. That same year, The Survey, a journal devoted to The fourth migration, Mumford contended, driven sociopolitical issues, published a special graphic by advances in transportation, communication and supplement to coincide with the New York meeting of electrical power, would facilitate the dispersal of the the International Town, City, and Regional Planning populace once again, but in more balanced communi- and Garden Cities Congress. Mumford’s introductory ties. Subsequently, this idea would be demonstrated in essay, “The Fourth Migration,” argued that American Stein, Henry Wright, and Ackerman’s Radburn, New civilization had previously proceeded in three dis- Jersey (begun in 1928), a garden suburb featuring su- tinct migrations: pioneers’ dispersal across the land, perblocks, separated traffic, residential cul-de-sacs and industrialists’ exploitation of natural resources and even larger green commons.

Clarence Stein, Henry Wright and Frederick Ackerman, Site Plan for Sunnyside 11 Gardens, Queens, New York, begun 1924. Wright developed his more pragmatic views on com- community in modern planning. The issue first flared munity planning on his own via his architectural in 1931, when Wright lectured at the New School for practice. His commissions came largely from private Social Research. Mumford, who was unable to attend, clients who occasionally sought to develop complexes wrote to the architect afterward: “I am naturally on of buildings, such as the Doheny Ranch Resort Project your side with respect to everything except ‘individu- (1923) in California. With his design for the Avery ality’… I still cannot conceive of a city in which each Coonley House (1906-08) and its associated build- separate work of architecture would be conceived in ings, Wright became familiar with Olmsted & Vaux’s complete freedom….” planned suburb of Riverside, Illinois (begun 1868), The issue flared again the following year, when Mum- and he was also likely familiar with Solon Spencer ford, who was consulting on the Museum of Modern Beman’s company town of Pullman, Illinois (begun Art’s Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, 1880). Wright’s greatest experiment in community convinced Wright to participate, even though its pri- planning, however, was Taliesin (begun 1911), the mary focus would be on European modern architec- sprawling estate he developed in stages for himself, his ture. Mumford contributed a catalog essay on hous- family and his followers on his mother’s ancestral land ing, highlighting such government-sponsored estates in southern Wisconsin. as J.J.P. Oud’s Kiefhoek in the Netherlands, and Otto The international success of Sticks and Stones led the Haesler’s Rothenberg and Ernst May’s Römerstadt Dutch architect Hendricus Wijdeveld to ask Mumford in Germany, as well as such private developments as to write at greater length about Wright for the journal Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn in the United States. Wendingen. Not long afterward, Wright sent his first Wright’s specific reaction to the essay is not known; letter to Mumford, which, while largely appreciative, nonetheless, Mumford felt compelled to assuage the contained an edgy tone that would never entirely dis- architect’s feelings: “The Great City is doomed: I agree sipate. The Mumford-Wright correspondence covered with you there: but life in communities will go on; a variety of subjects, but their views diverged most and true individualism has nothing to fear from that fervently over the role of the individual versus the growth… Capitalism could favor an organic architecture only by way of escape: communism will favor it directly by way of growth.” With few exceptions, Mumford praised Wright’s buildings. It was The issue flared a third time in 1935, when Wright only when shifting his lens to the wider field of community plan- exhibited his Broadacre City model at New York’s ning that Mumford found Wright’s designs wanting. Rockefeller Center. Broadacre, a community com- prised of various building types spread across the PHOTOGRAPH S7A1998_22455, INSTITUT FUR STADTGESCHICHTE, FRANKFURT AM MAIN PHOTOGRAPH S7A1998_22455, INSTITUT FUR STADTGESCHICHTE, 12 Ernst May, aerial view of Römerstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1926-1932. community in modern planning. The issue first flared landscape, had been germinating in Wright’s mind in 1931, when Wright lectured at the New School for for some time, but it required the student labor of the Social Research. Mumford, who was unable to attend, Taliesin Fellowship to bring the model to fruition. In wrote to the architect afterward: “I am naturally on many respects, Broadacre City, given its overall aim Wright developed his more pragmatic your side with respect to everything except ‘individu- of dispersal, exemplified Mumford’s “Fourth Migra- ality’… I still cannot conceive of a city in which each tion.” Yet, in a review for The New Yorker, Mumford views on community planning on his own separate work of architecture would be conceived in questioned the suitability of freestanding houses for its complete freedom….” lowest income residents rather than row housing. This infuriated Wright: “I don’t know what you can mean via his architectural practice. The issue flared again the following year, when Mum- by preferring the German tenement and slum solution ford, who was consulting on the Museum of Modern as preferable to the Broadacre’s minimum house and Art’s Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, maximum of space.” Mumford responded with his convinced Wright to participate, even though its pri- usual tact: “…the type of city you have so admirably mary focus would be on European modern architec- worked out in Broadacre City is one of half a dozen ture. Mumford contributed a catalog essay on hous- potential urban types that we can develop in order ing, highlighting such government-sponsored estates to achieve the maximum possibilities of life. My own as J.J.P. Oud’s Kiefhoek in the Netherlands, and Otto scheme of life has a place in it for Römerstadt as well Haesler’s Rothenberg and Ernst May’s Römerstadt as for Broadacre City, because concentration, when in Germany, as well as such private developments as not pushed to the point of congestion, offers certain Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn in the United States. possibilities of intercourse that dispersion doesn’t.” Wright’s specific reaction to the essay is not known; nonetheless, Mumford felt compelled to assuage the Mumford and Wright famously broke relations over architect’s feelings: “The Great City is doomed: I agree American involvement in World War II, with the for- with you there: but life in communities will go on; mer advocating intervention and the latter isolation. and true individualism has nothing to fear from that By this time, Mumford had come to view Wright’s growth… Capitalism could favor an organic architec- stance as symptomatic of a larger character flaw that ture only by way of escape: communism will favor it inhibited his community designs. As Mumford mused directly by way of growth.” to the poet John Gould Fletcher in 1946: “Wright is a creator of individual buildings. Apart from the The issue flared a third time in 1935, when Wright landscape, he has no sense of the whole. Hence his exhibited his Broadacre City model at New York’s Broadacre City is a collection of individual buildings Rockefeller Center. Broadacre, a community com- on single acre plots: in other words, not a city at all in prised of various building types spread across the any visible sense, even from the air. In every sense of the word, he is an isolationist.” ARCHIVES (THE PHOTO BY SKOT WEIDEMANN, 1994. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, MUSEUM OF MODERN ART | AVERY Frank Lloyd Wright, Model of the Project for Broadacre City, 1934. Yet, even after Mumford and Wright mended their relationship, deep cracks remained. When in late 1953 Mumford reviewed the retrospective exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: Sixty Years of Living Architecture for The New Yorker, he once again touched a nerve. “Good argument for the communist against Democ- racy,” Wright railed, reviving the old dispute at the height of McCarthyism. The distance between them grew and the exchange of letters lessened in the years before the architect’s death. Consequently, when writing Wright’s obituary, Mumford chose his words carefully: “Even Wright’s breezy arrogance… had the innocent if seemingly out- rageous swagger of the frontiersman, ready to match his strength against all challengers.” To Mumford’s ultimate disappointment, when it came to community planning, Wright remained stubbornly a pioneer of the first migration and the past, not a regionalist of the fourth migration and the future. n PHOTO FROM RADBURNUNITED.ORG Clarence Stein, Henry Wright and Frederick Ackerman, aerial view of Radburn, New Jersey, begun 1928.

13 SaveWright’s executive editor grew up around the Taliesin Fellowship. In this personal account, she reflects on the past, present and future of the most important community Wright created. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART Susan in the cottage designed and built by Susan and Ken Lockhart, 1990. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART The Wrights at Taliesin with invited guests for a formal dinner, circa 1940-50. Herbert Jacobs is standing at left; Katherine and Susan Jacobs are seated to the right. Taliesin and Taliesin West: Intentional Communities BY SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART

With a knock on the door, in the early fall of 1938, in walked Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna, followed by members of the Taliesin Fellowship.

They carried gifts of branches of brilliant red and orange bittersweet, armloads of fire-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR From this moment on, my parents and I (and my younger sister, Elizabeth) were always included in Fellowship social events, such as Saturday evening dinners, cooked and served by apprentice members, after which chamber and choral music was performed by the Susan Jacobs Lockhart is a past Conservancy president fellowship members who had a desire to share their musical skills within the community. and board member from Occasionally, if Wright wished to hear more music, he looked around the room to guests 1996-2002 and 2006 to present. A Taliesin Fellow- ship member for 45 years, she worked in all areas of the Frank Lloyd Wright Founda- tion’s activities, and as a board member from 1990- 1994 and 2011 to present. From her base in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lockhart works on commissions for architectural glass, steel sculpture, wood plate art and licensed products for J. Charles Crystalworks. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART 14 Senior apprentices Richard Carney and John Amarantides with Susan Jacobs Lockhart at Taliesin West, 1960. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART Susan in the cottage designed and built by Susan and Ken Lockhart, 1990.

The Wrights at Taliesin with invited guests for a formal dinner, circa 1940-50. Herbert Jacobs is standing at left; Katherine and Susan Jacobs are seated to the right. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART Susan in 1970 dancing the figure of “Fire” at the Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance, held annually from 1959-70.

They carried gifts of branches of brilliant red and orange bittersweet, armloads of fire- Participating in cultural arts was encouraged.

wood for the brick fireplace (all harvested at Taliesin), and multiple bottles of homemade PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART wine from grapes and wild fruits to celebrate what was the first of many annual dinners Susan completing graphic design work for Taliesin Architects, 1977. Sharing the daily work and maintenance in all areas for the Fellowship at the recently completed Usonian house designed by Wright for my was required of both students and faculty. family, the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin. I was apprehen- and Fellowship members, asking musicians, vocalists or sive about this first communal gathering, but my father gave me assurance with one of instrumentalists if they might perform something as an his sayings: “Stick with me and I’ll make you leader of the band.” encore. Wright knew I was seriously studying piano as a From this moment on, my parents and I (and my younger sister, Elizabeth) were always teenager and so he looked at me. But nerves took over, and I can’t remember what I played. Later Wright said included in Fellowship social events, such as Saturday evening dinners, cooked and served exciting—a great opportunity to experience the inside to me, “A little too much pedal,” and smiled that smile by apprentice members, after which chamber and choral music was performed by the life of community activities as a young adult. Feeling that said, ‘You did well, but keep studying.’ Sunday fellowship members who had a desire to share their musical skills within the community. surrounded by and working with creative, multitalented afternoons Taliesin offered to the public at the newly Occasionally, if Wright wished to hear more music, he looked around the room to guests people from diverse backgrounds made a big impres- repurposed Hillside theater a showing of special films, sion on me. such as all of the Charlie Chaplin classics, accompa- nied by a cup of coffee. Wright enjoyed good films and The Wrights’ “community of architectural apprentices” continued the practice of having a movie night for the lived together in buildings that Wright designed (or in Fellowship on weekend evenings. the case of Taliesin, “redesigned and repurposed”). It was a tight community, learning under Wright by work- These were the memories that I grew up with through ing on his architectural drawings in the drafting room, my teens, when I came to know members of the Fellow- as well as participating in construction and mainte- ship who were architecture apprentices in the Taliesin nance of the buildings. Live-work was considered part community, studying and working in Wright’s office. A of one’s architectural training. Apprentices paid a small few apprentices who shared my interest in music would tuition during their time at Taliesin, and working in the stop by our second Wright house, Solar Hemicycle community maintenance was part of their room and (1943), on their way into Madison and give me piano board contribution. Participating in cultural arts was records they thought I would enjoy playing. They were encouraged. Sharing the daily work and maintenance like big brothers. in all areas was required of both students and faculty. When I was at the University of Wisconsin in the mid- While Wright oversaw the architectural work, assisted ’50s, Olgivanna Wright invited me to come during by a group of senior apprentices, Olgivanna was in the summer to stay at Taliesin for two weeks. It was charge of all the daily life activities, including the diffi- 15 PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH The Cabaret Theater is the setting for formal dinners and musical entertainment. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN JACOBS LOCKHART PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH Preparing “Susan’s banana cream pies” for 60 Traditional Easter bread (Baba) is hand measured for people in the Taliesin West kitchen, 1990. rising by student helpers in 2012.

attributes of true community, giving 100 percent for the My experience is that communities need to good of the whole community, were tested during this construction time. keep being stimulated intellectually, emotionally, In 1957 the opportunity to join the Taliesin Fellowship was offered to me and my husband, David Wheatley, socially, culturally and spiritually. when we were living in New York City. The Wrights frequently stayed at their Plaza Hotel apartment during construction of the Guggenheim Museum. My husband had trained as an apprentice with Wright for a number cult job of counseling apprentices about their duties and of years, and then worked in the architectural offices the interactive behaviors demanded by being a commu- of former apprentices in St. Louis and New York. We nity member. She was responsible for guiding the menus were both thrilled to be asked to return to Taliesin to toward healthy foods simply prepared from the Taliesin become part of the staff—members of the community. gardens and farm. Taliesin in Wisconsin strived to be I was well known to the Wrights through my parents, a self-sufficient community, by growing and preparing and my husband was very well regarded by Wright as most of its food, assisting in the farming operations that an experienced draftsman and delineator. I hungered for produced both eggs and milk, as well as preparing cul- community while living in New York City. To satisfy tural events and entertainment for Fellowship members, this longing we went cross-town weekly to sing in a friends and clients on weekends. civic choir. I drove 45 minutes north of the city to take piano lessons with a concert pianist and had a job in the The community’s second site—Taliesin West, at the edge graphic design department of Alfred Knopf (low-level, of Scottsdale in Arizona—began construction in 1938. being that I was just out of college). We modified our Wright referred to it as a camp, seasonal for the winter tiny apartment in the village with Wrightian influences into early spring. It was constructed of desert masonry and a small grand piano (under which guests slept). walls using local rock, redwood structure and canvas roofs. The apprentices would provide all the labor for We saved our money and drove to Taliesin West in constructing the main buildings, picking up rock from November 1957 to participate in a community and the desert floor and sand and small stones from the site that I knew, but had not yet seen. By this time the riverbed, while living in 9-foot-square sheep herders’ Taliesin Fellowship had grown to almost 100 appren- tents and dining under the stars. It was all part of the tices. We were assigned a sheep herders’ tent in a group hands-on training of an architect. It was also romantic, of three tents on the side of a desert wash as a sleeping and a lot of work, to foster the spirit and commit- unit, with a double bed that folded into a twin to save ment of community. Foods canned in Wisconsin were space. Women’s and men’s locker rooms were provided transported to Arizona annually by the Fellowship, and for clothes and bathroom space. I fell in love with the supplemented by provisions from local markets. The desert—the scale of plants and trees, the horizontal

16 PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH Taliesin chamber musicians performing above Hillside dining room for an evening event in 2013.

The Cabaret Theater is the setting for formal dinners and musical entertainment.

vistas, the mountains, desert animals. The desert was a At Taliesin, I learned the importance of saying to myself meditation in itself. I felt I had found my spiritual home. and others “just do it” even if one has never done it attributes of true community, giving 100 percent for the before. My experience is that communities need to keep I quickly jumped into all the activities, for instance, good of the whole community, were tested during this being stimulated intellectually, emotionally, socially, starting as a tea cook, and immediately graduating to construction time. culturally and spiritually. A mix of new generations is the chef position. I joined the music and dance per- critical to success. Students and faculty of the Frank In 1957 the opportunity to join the Taliesin Fellowship formances and was pianist in the chamber ensemble, Lloyd Wright School of Architecture have brought this was offered to me and my husband, David Wheatley, accompanist to visiting musicians, did haircuts for stimulation to me, and the larger Fellowship, over many when we were living in New York City. The Wrights male apprentices and faculty, taught new generations years. For that, I personally am grateful. In Taliesin the frequently stayed at their Plaza Hotel apartment during of cooks and worked in the architectural office. The students choose an unusual form of community, one construction of the Guggenheim Museum. My husband opportunities were enormous and I took advantage of that values giving not only to architectural studies, but had trained as an apprentice with Wright for a number many, adding new skills. Not everyone had this same also to the quality of life experiences, domestic and so- of years, and then worked in the architectural offices experience, nor did they find their way as easily as I did. cial, as part of the process of education. I have learned of former apprentices in St. Louis and New York. We The fear of losing their own sense of individuality may much from their energy, their ideas. The students will were both thrilled to be asked to return to Taliesin to have held some back from trying a new modality. Or have experienced a quality of community during their become part of the staff—members of the community. the fear of trying something new or different in the face architectural training, equally from the architectural I was well known to the Wrights through my parents, of “this is way we have always done it.” identity of place and from the legacy of its founding and my husband was very well regarded by Wright as ideas. n an experienced draftsman and delineator. I hungered for community while living in New York City. To satisfy this longing we went cross-town weekly to sing in a civic choir. I drove 45 minutes north of the city to take piano lessons with a concert pianist and had a job in the graphic design department of Alfred Knopf (low-level, being that I was just out of college). We modified our tiny apartment in the village with Wrightian influences and a small grand piano (under which guests slept). We saved our money and drove to Taliesin West in November 1957 to participate in a community and site that I knew, but had not yet seen. By this time the Taliesin Fellowship had grown to almost 100 apprentices. We were assigned a sheep herders’ tent in a group of three tents on the side of a desert wash as a sleeping unit, with a double bed that folded into a twin to save space. Women’s and men’s locker rooms were provided for clothes and bathroom space. I fell in love with the desert—the scale of plants and trees, the horizontal

PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIK FLESCH 17 Taliesin alumni of all years attended a three-day gathering at Taliesin West in 2013. Alumni commemorate 80 years of the Fellowship. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY Aerial view at Cloverleaf. Wright’s Quadruple Block Plan (1903) design.

A Geometry of Community: A Project Called Cloverleaf BY MICHAEL DESMOND

Have you ever had the experience of searching through mounds of clover on a summer day, hoping to find a lucky four-leaf gem hidden in the profusion? Seeing one, or thinking you saw one, only to have your perceptions change as you reach into the mound? How much of nature is given to us in such visions of order, hope and discovery?

Across his long career Frank Lloyd Wright produced many examples of the myriad ways our perceptions of nature and built form are intertwined as he explored the inter- dependencies of building and site across the range of scale. The architectural historian N. K. Smith long ago observed the centripetal/centrifugal spatial order of the Willits House (1901) in Highland Park, Illinois, as prototypical of the Prairie house idea. Author and scholar Neil Levine has shown how Wright’s ability to simultaneously offer such complementary modes of spatial organization was rooted in explorations of the relationship of the individual unit to the urban grid, creating pools of identity at different scales. Together these demonstrate that the Prairie house architectural dynamic of axes crossing at the mass of the hearth might be seen as part of broader organizational patterns relating the individual home to various neighborhood groupings, and those to

ABOUT THE AUTHOR the scale of the city. This kind of interweaving of patterns and perceptions developed through a range of Michael Desmond is a licensed community scale designs across Wright’s career. In his 1896 housing project designs architect and holds a PhD in and 1903 Quadruple Block Plan, both for client Charles E. Roberts in Oak Park, the history, theory and criti- Illinois, the emerging Chicago grid was used as a matrix upon which to play out a cism of architecture from MIT, dynamic of individuality and continuity between the scale of the community and and a Master of Architecture in urban design from Harvard the individual house. In the unbuilt U.S. Defense Worker Housing project for Pitts- University. He has taught ar- field, Massachusetts, known as Cloverleaf, designed in late 1941 and early 1942, this chitectural history and design strategy was adapted to the automobile, with perceptions of community spanning a for more than 30 years. many-layered continuum from individual unit to landscape through an interweaving of geometry, cognition and movement. A few years later these ideas were transformed by encounters with more thoroughly natural landscapes at The Acres in Galesburg, 18 IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY Aerial view at Cloverleaf.

Michigan, Parkwyn Village in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Usonia Homes in Pleasantville, New York. In preparing for the Cloverleaf design, Wright vis- ited two potential sites with the government agent in charge of the project. At one of these sites, Talbot IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY Wegg wrote in the AIA Journal in 1970, Wright leapt Cloverleaf site plan. from the car exclaiming, “This is it! This is New England!” as an expression of his enthusiasm for the abounding hills and rocky outcroppings. An ideal site, he thought, for an architectural exploration with nature. The government instead selected the other Wright leapt from the car exclaiming, “This is it! site because, as they said, it was virtually level, even This is New England” as an expression of his enthusiasm Across his long career Frank Lloyd Wright produced many examples of the myriad featureless, and therefore a more economical place to for the abounding hills and rocky outcroppings, an ideal site, ways our perceptions of nature and built form are intertwined as he explored the inter- install the roadways and underground infrastructure dependencies of building and site across the range of scale. The architectural historian the project for 100 apartments would require. Wright he thought, for an architectural exploration with nature. N. K. Smith long ago observed the centripetal/centrifugal spatial order of the Willits responded to the less inspiring site as an open canvas House (1901) in Highland Park, Illinois, as prototypical of the Prairie house idea. by using strong geometries to create a sense of place, Author and scholar Neil Levine has shown how Wright’s ability to simultaneously offer just as he had several years before in the design of such complementary modes of spatial organization was rooted in explorations of the the partially built Suntop Homes project in Ardmore, relationship of the individual unit to the urban grid, creating pools of identity at differ- Pennsylvania. The Cloverleaf buildings utilize two high crossing ent scales. Together these demonstrate that the Prairie house architectural dynamic of walls to create a context for four separate apartments axes crossing at the mass of the hearth might be seen as part of broader organizational At Cloverleaf, however, an implicit planning grid was of about 1,500 square feet each, with four bedrooms, patterns relating the individual home to various neighborhood groupings, and those to used as a framework to create suggestions of formal two baths, a rooftop sundeck and a play area, as the scale of the city. and perceptual interrelationships through various scales, as in the earlier projects for Roberts. There are had the Suntop buildings. The building masses here This kind of interweaving of patterns and perceptions developed through a range of important differences here however in the ways the however were pulled away from the wall to allow community scale designs across Wright’s career. In his 1896 housing project designs automobile, and a sense of the greater landscape it enclosed ground-level play and laundry yards adjacent and 1903 Quadruple Block Plan, both for client Charles E. Roberts in Oak Park, makes available, are brought into the picture. Where to individual carports, all laid out on a 2-foot-by-9- Illinois, the emerging Chicago grid was used as a matrix upon which to play out a the singular house was identifiable as the basic unit inch planning grid. Perhaps the most unique feature of dynamic of individuality and continuity between the scale of the community and in the turn-of-the-century designs, the “Cloverleaf” the interior arrangement is the mezzanine level kitchen the individual house. In the unbuilt U.S. Defense Worker Housing project for Pitts- building takes this position in Wright’s plans for Pitts- placement, putting what Wright called the workspace field, Massachusetts, known as Cloverleaf, designed in late 1941 and early 1942, this field. This four-apartment unit building was adapted at the literal three-dimensional center of each apart- strategy was adapted to the automobile, with perceptions of community spanning a from the Suntop buildings of the Ardmore project, in ment, overlooking the living room below and with a many-layered continuum from individual unit to landscape through an interweaving which rotation and juxtaposition had been used with a view to the sundeck above. This feature is highlighted of geometry, cognition and movement. A few years later these ideas were transformed matrix of angularly placed drives and plantings to cre- in the sectional perspective rendering showing the by encounters with more thoroughly natural landscapes at The Acres in Galesburg, ate a sense of the individuality of each structure held living room hearth with the kitchen on a cantilevered in a common group. 19 THIS PAGE: IMAGES COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION IMAGES COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION THIS PAGE: ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART | AVERY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. LIBRARY, A Usonian building at Cloverleaf.

In viewing the drawings of this project the ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, | AVERY A living room at Cloverleaf looking in through windows. geometry seems to become more perfect or rigorous conceptually as you get further These kinds of shifts in perception of object to group away from the ground. would be replicated every day as the community’s occupants drove into and out of the site, around the diagonally placed buildings whose petal-shaped yards correspond so evocatively to the turning steering mezzanine at the core of the house. Wright’s publica- wheels, tires and movement of the automobiles. Ini- tion floor plans for these buildings illustrated one Aerial rendering of a Usonian building at Cloverleaf. tially each foursquare building stands on its own as an floor-level plan in each of the four quadrants of a object encountered along the journey through the plan. single building, creating a rising representational spiral Once inside an individual apartment, however, a dif- in the months before he began the designs of the Gug- placed buildings at the intersections of the expanded ferent perception emerges. In one of the four adjacent genheim Museum. boulevard-type roadways. These apparently out of corner units the perception of a neighborhood group place structures are a key to the layered arrangement would shift to those seen out of the windows, uniting A primary difference between the Cloverleaf site plan of the overall plan, as each marks the center of a the four whose alignment of crossing walls are more and Wright’s earlier, more strictly orthogonal ones modular group of five buildings used to determine the distantly shared to create the kind of open enclosure of the Prairie period is the use of circles and circular layout. Wright’s initial tracings of this scheme make seen in the front center of the aerial rendering. arcs to define the curving roadways and petal-shaped the significance of these five unit groups more evident, All of this creates a sense of suspension in a changing yard gardens. In the aerial rendering particularly these as each describes a large square module with a single suggest the momentum of cars as they wind in and out perceptual field where one’s cognition of individual diagonal unit at its core. These should be seen as the and/or group associations are nested at various scales, and around the cloverleafs. The sense of movement most basic compositional layer in the site plan. is accentuated by the presence of three diagonally continually transforming across the scope of the One’s perception of that order in the aerial rendering, project. Community is portrayed as the interactions however, is almost immediately overtaken by two oth- of individuals and groups in dynamic and changing ers, leading both up and down in scale. At the larger interrelationships, suggesting a view in which the indi- scale the centered diagonal buildings seem to unite vidual is not primary, but exists in the lively context/ across the entire grid, suggesting a kind of compet- process of groups seen in various ways. In viewing the ing diagonal planning grid arrangement running most drawings of this project the geometry seems to be- obviously from lower right to upper left in the draw- come more perfect or rigorous conceptually as you get ing. At the neighborhood scale however a quickly further away from the ground. In practice however it intruding perception condenses the corner buildings is readily adapted to the actual site and its real condi- of adjacent five-building groups into smaller, tighter tions, creating a suggestive balance of possibilities and clusters of four nested buildings that appear to more actualities. Even the natural cloverleaf Wright selected closely resemble the Quadruple Block arrangements as an expressive name for this work appears as a form of the Prairie years. This layered arrangement is not made of three, or four, as one, with petals suddenly seen as readily in the site plan, which was adapted switching their allegiance as they scatter together over pragmatically to the dimensions of the plot of land by the summer landscape, invoking the childhood experi- the addition of an intermediate row of four Cloverleaf ence of searching these mounds for the lucky four-leafed buildings at the center of the composition that were version hidden among the exuberance of petals. n not included in the rendering. 20 Interior cutaway perspective of the mezzanine level. COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, | AVERY A living room at Cloverleaf looking in through windows.

These kinds of shifts in perception of object to group would be replicated every day as the community’s occupants drove into and out of the site, around the ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, ART | AVERY diagonally placed buildings whose petal-shaped yards Publication floor plan of Wright’s Usonian house design for Cloverleaf. correspond so evocatively to the turning steering wheels, tires and movement of the automobiles. Ini- Aerial rendering of a Usonian building at Cloverleaf. tially each foursquare building stands on its own as an object encountered along the journey through the plan. Once inside an individual apartment, however, a different perception emerges. In one of the four adjacent corner units the perception of a neighborhood group would shift to those seen out of the windows, uniting the four whose alignment of crossing walls are more distantly shared to create the kind of open enclosure seen in the front center of the aerial rendering. All of this creates a sense of suspension in a changing perceptual field where one’s cognition of individual and/or group associations are nested at various scales, continually transforming across the scope of the project. Community is portrayed as the interactions of individuals and groups in dynamic and changing interrelationships, suggesting a view in which the individual is not primary, but exists in the lively context/ process of groups seen in various ways. In viewing the drawings of this project the geometry seems to become more perfect or rigorous conceptually as you get further away from the ground. In practice however it is readily adapted to the actual site and its real condi- tions, creating a suggestive balance of possibilities and IMAGE COURTESY OF MICHAEL DESMOND actualities. Even the natural cloverleaf Wright selected A graphic rendering of the cloverleaf pattern. as an expressive name for this work appears as a form made of three, or four, as one, with petals suddenly switching their allegiance as they scatter together over the summer landscape, invoking the childhood experience of searching these mounds for the lucky four-leafed version hidden among the exuberance of petals. n

21 PHOTO FROM THE BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY PHOTO FROM THE BUFFALO OF CONGRESS, HABS SURVEY WI-284 PHOTO FROM THE LIBRARY The Larkin Building, designed by Wright in 1904, demolished in 1950. Entranceway to the SC Johnson Administration Building.

Community Values in the Larkin and Johnson Administration Buildings BY BRIGID BOYLE

It was not often that Frank Lloyd Wright received large public building commissions; his individualism made him a more convincing ally for like-minded residential clients. On two notable occasions, however, he did find corporate clients willing to take a chance on him— and on modern architecture—to create buildings that would suit their industrial needs with economy and efficiency while symbolizing their companies’ dedication to future progress. ABOUT THE AUTHOR John D. Larkin, patriarch of the Larkin Soap Company, hired Wright in 1903 to design the company’s administration building in Buffalo, New York. More than 30 years later, Wright Brigid Boyle is a PhD can- was given the commission to design another administration building by the young owner of didate in architecture at the SC Johnson & Son, Herbert F. Johnson, nicknamed Hib. Each of these men was attempting University of California, Los to define the democratic identity of their young nation, particularly by reinstating the values Angeles. She earned her that industrialization and mass immigration had seemingly left behind—a concern for public Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University and welfare, participation in community values, a shared sense of identity—ideals which they her bachelor’s degree in embedded in two of the most iconic buildings of American architecture. architecture from Princeton University. Larkin and Samuel C. Johnson, Hib’s grandfather, were early advocates of welfare capitalism, a strategic combination of moral stewardship and paternal obligation that simultaneously dis- couraged unionization and government involvement. Employee well-being, self-improvement, cultural growth and financial stability served to create a sense of community within the corporation, and both Larkin and Johnson instituted benefit programs to foster their employees’ satisfaction with their workplace. They shortened the length of the workday and maintained pay. They offered paid vacations and recreational facilities. Larkin extended his reach with an ad campaign called “From Factory to Family,” and called his customers “Larkinites.” Hib’s father, Herbert Johnson Sr., trained workers in multiple jobs to ensure their flexibility and employment stability and initiated an unemployment insurance plan. Hib refused to lay off any employees during the Depression. In the era of financial turmoil and volatile values, these companies asserted that the private corporation, not the government, would be the source of 22 stability in modern society. When the need arose for new buildings, both Larkin and Though Wright was able to achieve a sense of community in Hib Johnson sought an architect who could translate their these two buildings through spatial manipulation, he was also values into the solidity of brick and mortar. Each was persuaded to hire Wright by someone who could translate able to create it through a new sense of collective identity. Wright’s “artistry” into the plain-speak of the business world. Darwin D. Martin and Jack Ramsey, the secretary and office manager for Larkin and Johnson, respectively, wrote of their meetings with Wright awash with inspired conviction and the firm belief that Wright’s buildings would be modern, comfortable and on budget. The two buildings shared basic requirements: to reunite the office employees who were scattered among separate buildings, and to provide a comfortable interior climate within a sealed exterior. The advanced mechanical systems sup- plying fresh air and guaranteeing a pleasant temperature were a necessity. The concern for company employees was publicly demonstrable. For Wright, of course, corporate community was a spatial and a formal problem, and open space was the key to its resolution. In the Larkin Building, Wright inverted the

typical relation of office hierarchies by erasing distinctions PHOTO BY WILLIAM CLARKSON of private offices and enclosed spaces. The executives oc- The ground floor at the Larkin Building. cupied the ground floor—Larkin and his sons had semi- private offices on the south end, and Darwin D. Martin and William Heath sat at undistinguished desks in the light court—and the top floor was dedicated to the communal dining room, where employee, employer and visitor were offered the same menu. Each department had its own location with a visual relationship to many others, which served as a continuous connection to the larger community. Workspaces were arranged in grids that emphasized regularity and the orderliness of even the mundane task; each quiet typewriter hummed in the chorus of work. The open atrium was the most remarkable part of the design. Though the light court type had emerged with the use of iron and steel construction—a 30-by-90-foot light court was on Darwin Martin’s original list of requirements for the building—Wright completely transformed the standard. He clarified the extents of the volume by removing the circulation from the central space, making it a vertical reference point around which the departments circu-

lated. The vertical void became dramatic, and views of it PHOTO FROM SC JOHNSON ARCHIVES constantly oscillated between the mundane and a spiritual The ground floor at the SC Johnson Administration Building, known ideal: the human scale juxtaposed with overwhelming as the Great Workroom. height; the straightforward treatment of brick, arranged in massive piers and metered by horizontal banding; inscription point,” from which George Twitmyer wrote in Busi- tions elevating the status of work bathed in a heavenly ness Man’s Magazine in 1907, “There is stretched before glow from the skylight above. one a scene unlike any other in the world… On the floor areas below and in the main court hundreds of people Wright also changed the program of the light court from busily transacting the affairs of this great institution are its precedent. From a circulation space of air, of light, of in plain view… There are the departments; each steadily, bodies, he turned the void into a static space for work, quietly rotating about its own axis, yet in perfect co-ordi- filling it with bodies busy with business, no different from nation with the rest, and each so delicately meshed to its any other department on any other floor. The visual expe- neighbor that one helps the other and in no way inter- rience of it reaffirmed the individual’s relationship to the rupts its progress. It is enterprise, American enterprise….” social. The top of the atrium became known as “inspira- Wright turned the Larkin company into a congregation. 23 PHOTO FROM SC JOHNSON ARCHIVES PHOTO FROM FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S LARKIN BUILDING: MYTH AND FACT BY JACK QUINAN (UNIVERSITY PHOTO FROM FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S LARKIN BUILDING: MYTH AND FACT OF CHICAGO PRESS, 1987) The open atrium at the Larkin Building. Visitors in the lobby of the SC Johnson Administration Building in 1939.

society’s progress. The recognition and engagement of the For Wright, corporate community was a artistry of the modern, progressive, democratic building unified employees with a sense of pride that was greater spatial and a formal problem, and open than the diversity of their cultural backgrounds. For individualistic Wright, art was exactly what tied people to- space was the key to its resolution. gether: “You see, you in America have been led to believe that an artist is necessarily a queer fellow—one divorced from the life around him. The contrary is true,” he wrote Johnson had a less egalitarian section in his building—the in Western Architect in 1916. executives were on the top floor—but the main workroom Both of these buildings hoisted American flags on at least was no less dramatic at SC Johnson & Son than it was one occasion, confirming Wright’s assertion in his 1906 at Larkin 30 years earlier. Wright brought the scattered essay in The Larkin Idea that “the American flag is the employees together in the Great Workroom, a double- only flag that would look well on or in this building; the height space filled with open workstations surrounded by only flag with its simple stars and bars that wouldn’t look a mezzanine. The strength of each column in the room incongruous and out of place with the simple rectangular was expressed by its scale, and their presence created masses of the exterior and the straightforward rectilinear natural zones within the open space; as a whole, the room treatment of the interior. I think the building is wholly became a veritable forest, with each column connected to American in its directness and freshness of treatment.” its neighbor laterally and backlit from the glass roof above. Wright’s, Larkin’s and Johnson’s notions of community The wall of common brick turned the employees’ gaze in- had much larger implications beyond the immediate fam- ward. At every turn Wright combined the individual with ily of the workplace; they were each attempting to partici- the collective and the part with the whole: small joints in pate in America’s struggle to define itself as a community the building’s signature glass tubing construction created and to define what values it held dear. Here, the similar mosaics within the walls, and each articulated volume of mindset of architect and clients diverged. For Larkin and the building engaged the streamlined whole. Johnson, the smaller community of their corporations Though Wright was able to achieve a sense of community mimicked an America defined by its industry and its work. in these two buildings through spatial manipulation, he For Wright, defining his building as “wholly American” was also able to create it through a new sense of collective was not simply an architectural aspiration, it was a proc- identity. The architecture actually did inspire employ- lamation that art could lift American society to its spiritual ees—the animated letters of those two original employees, ideal. n Martin and Ramsey, were preemptive proof—and estab- 24 lished a new opportunity for the employee to participate in executive director’s LETTER

an irreplaceable heritage

This year is the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The 1966 Act supported a growing movement to save significant places, declaring that:

“The historical and cultural foundations of the Nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people … the preservation of this irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest….”

Wright’s architecture is certainly a part of this heritage. His remaining structures in Japan extend that heritage beyond U.S. borders, as does his impact on the development of Register, including 162 Wright buildings and sites. This year modern architecture globally. five Wright houses are new to that list. The public is often surprised to learn that inclusion in the National Register The National Register of Historic Places—the official list does not provide any protections or obligations. So why do of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation—was private owners voluntarily embark on the detailed research created by NHPA. There are 90,000 listings in the National process and pursue this recognition? Perhaps there are several motivations: a cap to the owners’ efforts to preserve a special house (by publicly proclaiming “This place matters!”) World Heritage Update Each of the 10 Wright sites in the World Heritage nomi- the creation of a historical record accessible to the public, nation is a National Historic Landmark. At its July 2016 and occasionally to enable local landmark status and the meeting, the World Heritage Committee decided to associated potential property tax considerations in some “refer” the Wright nomination for revision. There was municipalities. strong support for inclusion of Wright’s work based on The higher designation of National Historic Landmark its “Outstanding Universal Value.” Serial nominations involving different types of buildings in different loca- indicates national significance and exceptional historic tions are complex and refinements prior to inscription value; 27 Wright buildings or sites are national landmarks. are not uncommon. The Conservancy is consulting with the Wright sites, the National Park Service and Janet Halstead the International Council on Monuments and Sites to Executive Director, determine when a revised nomination will be ready for Frank Lloyd Wright resubmission. Building Conservancy board of directors and staff

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Larry Woodin Neil Levine Sandra Shane-DuBow PRESIDENT Executive Director and Founder, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Research Member, Board of Directors, Edith K. Payne EcoHome Foundation Professor of History of Art and Taliesin Preservation Inc. Owner, Richardson House President, Gold Standard Capital Architecture, Harvard University Member, Board of Governors, Frank Retired Judge, Superior Court of Group Lloyd Wright School of Architecture New Jersey Susan Jacobs Lockhart MEMBERS AT LARGE Board Member, Frank Lloyd Wright Marsha Shyer FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Diane Belden Foundation Owner, Brandes House Ron Scherubel Senior Sales Representative, Member, Board of Governors, Frank Marketing and Communications Retired Vice President and General Tai Ping Carpets Americas Inc. Lloyd Wright School of Architecture Professional Counsel, Sara Lee Foods Retired Executive Director, Frank Lloyd John Blew Patrick J. Mahoney, AIA HONORARY BOARD Wright Building Conservancy Retired Partner, K & L Gates LLP Vice President, Graycliff Conservancy Vincent Scully Lauer-Manguso & Associates Architects Eric Lloyd Wright SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Daniel Chrzanowski Thomas Wright Richard Longstreth Owner, John J. and Syd Dobkins House George Meyer Vice President, Operations, Irvine Director, Graduate Program Visual Artist EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR in Historic Preservation, Company Janet Halstead George Washington University Ronald P. Duplack Commercial Property Management Partner, Rieck and Crotty, PC Executive STAFF SECRETARY Dale Allen Gyure Vincent Michael Joel Hoglund Lynda S. Waggoner Communications and Events Manager Vice President, Western Pennsylvania Professor of Architecture, Executive Director, San Antonio Lawrence Technological University Conservation Society Conservancy Kristen Patzer Director, Fallingwater T. Gunny Harboe, FAIA Scott W. Perkins General Manager TREASURER Founder and Principal, Director of Preservation, Fallingwater John H. Waters Mary F. Roberts Harboe Architects, PC Preservation Programs Manager Fred Prozzillo Executive Director, Martin House Scott Jarson Director of Preservation, Frank Lloyd Restoration Corporation Co-founder and President, azarchite- Wright Foundation Chuck Henderson ture/Jarson & Jarson Real Estate Tim Quigley Owner, Mrs. Clinton Walker House Bruce Judd Principal, Quigley Architects Senior Preservation Architect, 25 Quinn Evans Architects 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 PHOTO BY ANDY OLNICK

Muirhead Farmhouse (1950) in Plato Center, Illinois, is one of PHOTO BY ANDY OLNICK several Wright-designed houses that will be toured during Inside Muirhead Farmhouse. Out and About Wright 2017.

April 28-30, 2017 Out and About Wright: Chicago Points West Oak Brook, Illinois

Sept. 13-17, 2017 2017 Conference and Symposium New York City

We have exciting events in the works for 2017. Our The conference is timed to coincide with MoMA’s major annual spring event, Out and About Wright, will tour new exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking a number of Wright works in the region surrounding the Archive. Conference registration will begin in late Chicago, and our annual conference will feature an May. Chicago Points West registration will begin extended symposium held at the Museum of Modern in January. Art with more than a dozen renowned speakers from the United States and abroad addressing Wright and his legacy during the 150th anniversary year of his birth.

Educational presentations by more than a dozen speak- HEALD, COURTESY OF THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM PHOTO BY DAVID ers will take place at the Museum of Modern Art. The 2017 conference will feature a special visit to Wright’s only remaining building in New York City, the Solomon R. Guggen- heim Museum.