Documentary: "An American Home: Frank Lloyd Wright's B. Harley Bradley House"

[DavidC]

FLW film to be streamed by Lakeshore PBS

(direct link to streaming service):
Frank Lloyd Wright's B. Harley Bradley House


David

[juankbedoya]

FLW film to be streamed by Lakeshore PBS

(direct link to streaming service):
Frank Lloyd Wright's B. Harley Bradley House


David

OMG..!! thanks for posting this... Finally I can watch it..!!

[Paul Ringstrom]

The free streaming of this movie ends November 30th.

video.lakeshorepbs.org

[Roderick Grant]

This is an excellent and informative documentary. Don't miss it!

[g.dorn]

that looks like a pretty amazing house - really nice doco, would have liked to seen a full walk through.

I wonder if it has been furnished like they said how Mr wright arranged it when he stayed over?

[SDR]

Wright and helpers copied a photograph of the living room, with its semi-Victorian furniture placement (center table or desk, chairs scattered artistically about) for inclusion in the Wasmuth Portolio---so one can assume that he approved of that arrangement ?

[loo tee]

I don't think the Bradley House is quite "there" yet, despite all the extravagant claims in the video. It is unusual, but still semi-Victorian in feel. Note the fixtures, sideboard, and portieres for separating the rooms.
Back in its "Yesteryear" days as a restaurant it served the public nicely, being easy to enter and offering the pleasure of imagining yourself at a dinner party in an early Wright house with no obligation to speak polite nothings to the other "guests."
When the house was owned by the man who was later kidnapped, buried alive, and then suffocated by the failure of a crude breathing tube, it was also easily accessible. He was a great enthusiast, and welcomed any happenstance visitor who liked to hear him talk about the original plans.
The big question is why did Wright address the house formally to a dead-end street (eastward) rather than south toward the Kankakee River, which would have provided better sunlight and one of the few scenic views in the city. This strikes me as a backward step for Wright and major failure.

[Roderick Grant]

This is especially odd, since the street-facing façade of the neighboring, contemporary Hickox House is a side view, while the principal front (opposite the north entrance façade) faces due south toward the river, albeit with Bradley blocking the view. So obviously FLW was not averse to breaking the rule of houses facing the street in an orderly fashion. There is a property behind Bradley, facing Indiana Ave. (which Google doesn't go up) with a subsidiary structure snuggling up to the back side of the Bradley carriage house that may have got in the way of exploiting the best view.

The arrangement of the furniture as it appears in FLW's perspective was a common approach of the A&C movement more so than a Victorian preference.

[Duncan]

There is a very interesting discussion of the interrelated siting of these two houses in Wrightscapes by Charles E. Aguar and Berdeana Aguar. If someone could guide me through the steps of posting an illustration, I will scan and post.

[SDR]

Thanks, Duncan; illustrations are always appreciated. To post online you need an online image hosting utility, to which you would upload your image. There it would receive an address---a URL---which you would use here, bracketed by the [img] protocol (which is done automatically on the posting page by hitting the little landscape icon).

As an alternative, you are most welcome to e-mail images to me; I will host and post at your direction, or send the URLs to you for posting.

S

[SDR]

Thanks, Roderick---that correction is appreciated. One tends to lump everything BW---Before Wright---under the handy Victorian pigeonhole.

Edward VII died in 1910. Is Edwardian a term sometimes associated with the Arts & Crafts ?

S

[Roderick Grant]

I have never heard that. Party 'til you drop may have been the Edwardian mantra.

[SDR]

Hmm. There's this . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian ... is%20style.

S

[Roderick Grant]

Edwardian it may be, but the Antrim House might just as well have been built in Mama Vicky's day.

[Duncan]

SDR, I scanned the pages as PDFs but when I tried to attach them to a private message to you, the only choice it gave me was to attach as IMG. My scanner gives the me the choices of PDF, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF, or PNG.

My private message to you is sitting in my outbox.

Since this technology is obviously too much for my pea brain. If you send me yours in a private message I will email the scans to you to post.

Sorry I am such a dunce. Duncan