Perit inci et, vel utpatum san- dio commy nit lore digna con eugueri ureros essi ea facil delismodiat, vel et augait ut wismod mod eliscilismod tion velis eugaitPUBLISHED augiat. Ut lut BYerae- strud mod molorercing ea con-THE sendre estrud. Fall 2016 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING Vol. 17 no. 2 ISSN: 1542-0884 SATURDAY-SUNDAY, 17-18 JUNE 2017 Walter Burley Griffin Society of America JOIN US IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: 1152 Center Drive St. Louis, MO 63117 EDWARDSVILLE, ELSAH & ST. LOUIS Website: www.WBGriffinSociety.org The eighteenth annual meeting of the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America will Email: [email protected] be held in downstate Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri. The featured building will Society President be the Ralph Griffin house in Edwardsville, built for Walter’s brother’s family in Peter Burley Griffin 1909-10. Visited by the Griffin Society in 2002, the house is now fully restored Board of Directors and will be the subject of a monograph to be issued by the Society in time for the Peggy L. Bang Griffin Homeowner, Mason City, IA June meeting. The Society plans to stop in nearby Elsah, Illinois, to tour Principia Rich H. Berry College, the extraordinary campus designed by California architect Bernard May- Griffin Homeowner, Edwardsville, IL Kathleen Cummings beck, and to visit Louis Sullivan sites in St. Louis on Sunday. Watch for further Architectural Historian, Chicago, IL information on our website and in the Spring 2017 newsletter. Eleanor E. Grumman Equibase Capital Group, LLC Chicago, IL GRIFFIN, WRIGHT, SEYFARTH & GOLDBERG Tom Hagensick Architect, Seattle, WA IN BEVERLY & BLUE ISLAND W. R. Hasbrouck, FAIA By Mary Berry Chicago, IL Paul Kruty On 18 June 2016, the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Walter Burley Grif- Prof. Emeritus of Architectural History University of Illinois at fin Society was held at the Arts Center of the Morgan Park Academy in Chi- Urbana-Champaign cago’s Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood, with tours continuing to Blue Is- Tannys Langdon, AIA Langdon Associates, LLC Architects land and, the following morning, to Elmhurst. The meeting site began as Griffin Homeowner, Chicago, IL a preparatory school of the University of Chicago, with buildings designed Mati Maldre by Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan’s former partner. Although these are long Prof. Emeritus of Art/Photography Chicago State University gone, Dwight Perkins’ 1900 gymnasium, built while Griffin was working for Griffin Homeowner, Chicago, IL Perkins, remains among later campus structures. In addition to the clutch of Robert E. McCoy, Hon. AIA Griffin Homeowner, Mason City, IA Griffin houses on 104th Place, afternoon tours gave access to Wright’s 1900 Jon S. Pohl, AIA Adams house, Bertrand Goldberg’s 1939 Heimbach house, and numerous AIA/Sarasota, FL buildings by eclectic architect Robert Seyfarth. Sunday morning offered the Anthony Rubano Illinois Historic Preservation Agency opportunity to tour Griffin’s two Elmhurst masterpieces, the William Sloane Springfield, IL and William Emery houses. Concurrent with the meeting, the Ridge Histori- George Shutack Prairie Multimedia, Inc., Wayne, IL cal Society, long a strong supporter of the Griffin Society, hosted an exhibition Paul E. Sprague of photographs by Mati Maldre illustrating the Griffin houses in Beverly, and Prof. Emeritus of Architectural History generously offered its rooms for the Friday board meeting. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Mary K. Woolever Art & Architecture Archivist On Saturday morning, Peter Burley Griffin, President, welcomed the attendees Art Institute of Chicago, retired and introduced guests with news about upcoming events in Elmhurst and San Honorary Director Diego. Lance Tawzer, Elmhurst History Museum’s curator of exhibits, and Akky van Ogtrap Dr. Anna Rubbo from Columbia University announced the museum’s exhibit President of the Walter Burley Griffin Society, Inc. , Sydney, Australia “In Her Own Right: Marion Mahony Griffin,” which runs from 7 October Editor: Paul Kruty through 12 March 2017 [see item below]. [email protected] James B. Guthrie, AIA, Gill Foundation President, invited us to a series of Please email news items to the events in October surrounding the extraordinary career of San Diego archi- editor. tect Irving Gill, including a symposium scheduled for 20 October investigat- ing “Irving J. Gill and the Chicago School,” which Lois Jones showed great interest in this possibility. includes panelists Tim Samuelson, Paul Kruty, and However, the Sloane house was not listed on the Na- David Jameson [see item below]. tional Register, so in January 2016 the Griffin So- ciety funded a consultant to prepare and present a National Register form. John H. Waters, whose pre- vious submissions to the National Register include Bruce Goff’s Ford House and a revised version of the Rock Crest/Rock Glen form. [Since the June meeting, Waters’ form, following discussions about what to do with the 1960s additions, passed the state advisory board and is headed to the Keeper’s desk in Washington, DC.] The second speaker, Robert Bruegmann, is distin- guished professor emeritus of Art History, Architec- ture and Urban Planning at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His talk, “Griffin and the Mainstream of Modernism,” evolved from his work as editor and contributing author of the upcoming book Art Deco Mati Maldre explains to Jon and Luci Pohl his Chicago: The Making of American Culture. As an al- photographic exhibition of Griffin’s local ternative to the iconic buildings of the International buildings on display at the Beverly Arts Center Style, the buildings that now come under the head- Board member Kathy Cummings then introduced ing of Art Deco are articulated, complex, and often the morning’s four scheduled speakers. Anthony decorated, as the term implies. In the most general Rubano of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency way, then, the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright from began by discussing “Griffin’s Sloane House and its 1913 to 1930, including Midway Gardens, are ex- Preservation.” He first recounted the Griffin Society’s amples of decorated modernism and, in some sense, connection with the Elmhurst building. In Decem- Art Deco. The same applies to much of Griffin’s ber 2015 Lois Jones, the house’s longtime owner with mature work. Bruegmann cited examples by Grif- her husband Jack, contacted the Society after Jack’s fin including the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, the death [see Griffin Newsletter, Spring 2015]. Lois was Australian incinerators of the 1930s, and Griffin’s concerned about the future of the house when she is last works in India. unable to keep it. While this was the central message of Bruegmann’s In 2006, after the 2002 demolition of the Stephen lecture, he also captured the sheer creativity of the Beggs house, Elmhurst created a Historic Preserva- architectural, graphic, industrial and fashion design tion Ordinance which designates landmarks, but this that falls under the rubric Art Deco, as revealed in does not make them immune to demolition; nor does the Schwinn bicycle, the radio flyer wagon, and the listing on the National Register of Historic Places. T-9 Sunbeam toaster. In fact, Chicago was the cen- However, National Register listing does provide eli- ter of commissioning, manufacturing, and distrib- gibility for preservation easements. A preservation uting industrial design in the late 1930s. easement, a legal agreement between the owner and Following a coffee break, the mood changed con- a qualifying not-for-profit organization, is the stron- siderably as we listened to Christopher Enck, of gest and only perpetual protection for historic prop- Klein & Hoffman, Restoration Architects, and the erties. In granting an easement, the owner and future Winnetka Historic Preservation Commission, dis- owners must maintain the building, while in accept- cuss “Van Bergen on the Move: Saving the Irving ing the easement, the not-for-profit must monitor it House.” This account of his rescuing a threatened annually. The financial benefit of an easement is the house by John Van Bergen (who began his long ca- eligibility for a charitable donation income-tax de- reer working for Griffin, followed by a stint with duction based upon an independent appraisal of the Wright) kept us wrapped in suspense. In 2012, the value of the easement. property on which the 1928 house stood was sold Page 2 Fall 2016 to a developer, who only wanted the lot. Following Clay Products Association at Chicago’s Coliseum. negative coverage in the press, the developer resold The latter was raffled off by guessing the number of the property to another developer. Again, the new marbles in a glass jar and currently stands in the Gage owner did not want to restore the house but offered it Park area. After moving to Australia, Griffin designed to anyone who would move it. workers’ cottages meant to be built in Canberra, lead- ing to his invention of a system of construction us- Discovered during this controversy was the fact that, ing thin concrete blocks called Knitlock because the before the house was built, the owners erected a small blocks are interlocking front and back panels. The garage where they lived first—and this garage was de- structure is flared out blocks that when joined be- signed by Rudolph Schindler in 1920 while he was come ribs, while service pipes run through the hollow working for Wright! This building was dismantled by spaces. Function and aesthetics are fully joined in a another preservationist and remains in a storage unit. single system. Chris Enck volunteered to help with the move and, as All of these buildings reveal Griffin’s abiding interest these things happen, was soon the chief mover behind in bringing well-designed, inexpensive modern archi- the move. To do so he had to have it cut in three tecture to everyone. pieces. Each section needed to be moved, turned and tarped. Power lines needed moving and stop lights Following this last lecture, the mechanics of the after- coordinated.