Wright Chat

I appreciate your work on this, g.dorn. I'm not an architect and won't comment on your conclusions, except to say that explorers like yourself can expect to be surprised by Wright's cleverness in achieving his sometimes astounding architectural goals---by hook or crook ! As someone who knows remarke...

Does Pew contain a door "cut from" a corbeled wall ? We see this in a Usonian from time to time---but with plumb walls.

The (glazed) doors at Auldbrass probably represent this condition at its Wrightian extreme.

S

I have not found a published plan which definitively rules out a second pier. The plan we've all seen shows the top of the up-hill pier
---because it isn't hidden beneath the structure.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/12/0c/99 ... 795c45.jpg

S

This well-known view drawing of the house contains some erasure at the top. In Monograph 6 can be found a second image, published at very small size; it is interesting for its differences from the other version. Both views show a pair of masonry piers at the terminus---or even a C-shaped structure ?...

As for the Booth rendering---it clearly belongs to the one published in Taschen I, p 380; the Heritage Auctions version makes the other look like a copy . . .

Oh, geez---where to start ? The "provenance" for those Wisconsin windows has been cleaned up a bit from the last posting---meaning, made even more vague and unconvincing. Last time they were somehow given to the family by Mr Wright (for no apparent reason) and were attached to a piece of furniture i...

Wright is not always the neat, tight and tidy designer we find in the early flat-top Usonians; Goetsch-Winckler is a pristine example, perhaps. No, he has his flamboyant side---but you knew that ? To wit: The Huntington Hartford extravaganza. Seacliff house---and a number of other unbuilt designs. W...

The elevation shows twin doors made of boards matching the "corbeled" planking beneath the windows. So, the doors would have to be made to swing properly despite leaning outward. Hmm. Maybe I would have balked at that, myself . . .

S

The Forbes piece mentions the Farm Unit and Guest House for Lloyd Lewis, and here is the latter, as redesigned for Lewis a decade or so after the original construction. Apparently the slightly corbeled board walls were enough to put the guy off---but at last we have the mini-Usonian par excellence ?...

I think this model is helpful in translating the plan and elevation drawings into an understanding of the form: https://imgur.com/gallery/59AA7uN It is of interest that the form remains symmetrical about a diagonal axis until it reaches the very uppermost region, where the pair of elevator shafts be...

Welcome, gdorn, and thanks for the new work and illustrations. While I can't answer your interesting question, I can supply more original drawings, at larger size, than have been displayed before. (Images can be opened in a separate window or tab, and enlarged.) The earlier drawings show brick as th...

Pope

Bazett

Kundert

Roderick wrote that Jester as designed "is practically a pool house." There's nothing wrong with it---as long as the house is built where a pool would be suitable and desired. We have to take Wright as we find him. The plan shape of the Chahroudi terrace is a quirk that makes the house particularly ...

An early triumph, the "Romeo and Juliet" windmill at Hillside, is a strong expression of the vertical. There are few rules in Wright, and many exceptions . . .!

S

That's the way I see it. But others like Bradley and Hickox, or even Davenport, for that honor. We like categories; nature abhors them ? Some versions of an original floor plan show the ceiling of that glowing terminus to the dining room with something like a diagonal-square laylight, presumably rel...