Wright Chat

Sorry if the word "competition" is a bit ambiguous. It can refer to a group of architects submitting proposals for a major project (ie the famous Tribune competition). But it can also refer to (Insert name of Magaziner here)'s "Best house of the year" competition. Or for that matter the many "home o...

Interesting, but I think this is referring to the practice of having a committee evaluate various proposals for a major commission.

I'm more interested in honors that completed projects may have received. Did any Usonian house ever win such awards?

"As part of the house donation, the school had to raise $7M for an endowment earmarked solely for the house by 2020." Who established this requirement? The seller? I can hardly believe that someone who has gone to such extremes to preserve the house would set an unreachable bar for the School to jum...

I lay some of the blame for his situation at the FLW School who rejected the donation of the house. The article mentions the need to raise millions for upkeep...which I find dubious. When someone is giving you a house, you damn well take it and sort out the rest of the *** later. Or were there other...

Yes, there were plenty of lifetime honors, but I'm talking more about individual project competitions. There were a lot of such competitions in the pos-war boom years. I am assuming that Wright was so busy he didn't need the recognition or publicity from such competitions. I also assume that there w...

I've been researching the 1950's recently and there were a lot of awards and competitions at the time for architecture. These were put on by magazines and AIA and building product manufacturers. I never see Wright's name crop up in these awards. I suspect he saw himself as well above this sort of th...

I should read more about Eichler and how he worked with architects and builders. Some important lessons there. He worked with A. Q. Jones (a UW Grad). What others were his go-to architects who could design for the mass market? Wright was so into modules that I'm surprised he never developed a modula...

I am working on a book about a NW Architect. Maybe I should consider a pre-release (heck a pre-manuscript) cover design.

How are you making use of the cover in your marketing?

Not familiar with this project at all. So there are no drawings? That may explain why I've never seen it in various books. Question...the second floor is stepped back form the first, so there are two bands of roofing separated by windows that are as tall as the band of wall between the bands of roof...

I would expect, given the current owner's investment in the property, that covenants be included in any deal that prohibits the alteration of the house.

Where they buried in the crushed rock? If they were lying atop the rock then the concrete slab would have been poured over them, right? It's not like there was anything to prevent that unless they were buried. Hard to imagine them tamping down the rock with pipes buried below.

Great information. Thanks.

Was radiant heat widespread? Is it Wright who popularized it, or were others involved in its promotion?

I'm researching Paul Hayden Kirk. Most of his homes of the 1940s had this odd system of radiant heat is cielings or floor or both. He did one of the Revere Quality Houses and that used a lot of copper pipe which no doubt pleased the Revere Copper and Brass company. I'm not sure if he was copying Wri...

Thanks for the info. The houses I'm researching had copper pipes in the ceiling. These were often shed roof homes so no attic. The heat was often by oil burner and I understand there could be some noise associated with the heat coming on as the pipes vibrated. One example of this architects work had...

I'm researching a mid-century architect of the Pacific Northwest and he often used radiant heating...but in the ceiling! Many of his homes of the 1940s were slab foundations with tinted and waxed surfaces, much like Wright's Usonians, but some had copper pipes weaving through the ceilings. This seem...