Turkel House Has Been Sold
Turkel House Has Been Sold
The Turkey House has sold according to reliable sources. It was listed for $399,000. I applaud the purchasers. I believe that it will make a wonderful residence when restored.
Paul Harding FAIA Restoration Architect for FLW's 1901 E. Arthur Davenport House, 1941 Lloyd Lewis House, 1952 Glore House | www.harding.com | LinkedIn
Here's something many may not have seen: the "traveling Automatic" which toured from Arizona to several locations in 1989[?]-1990. These photos were taken in Marin County, California in February of 1990. As I recall, the exhibit and this knock-down recreation of a c1955 house were sponsored by a combination of Taliesin, the city of Scottsdale and an appliance manufacturer (Whirlpool ?).
The pieces were largely made of something like oriented-strand board, coated with a sand/color layer to resemble concrete.
The living-space interior closely resembled the photo of the Kalil house in Storrer's large book, p 415, but with square window-blocks like those of Turkel. The plan was closer to the Kalil that any of the other built houses of the type, but the living space would have been rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise, putting the kirchen about where the Kalil study is, and a "lobby" connected the entrance with the opposite front of the house, as I recall it -- the doors can be seen in the first photo below.
SDR
The pieces were largely made of something like oriented-strand board, coated with a sand/color layer to resemble concrete.
The living-space interior closely resembled the photo of the Kalil house in Storrer's large book, p 415, but with square window-blocks like those of Turkel. The plan was closer to the Kalil that any of the other built houses of the type, but the living space would have been rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise, putting the kirchen about where the Kalil study is, and a "lobby" connected the entrance with the opposite front of the house, as I recall it -- the doors can be seen in the first photo below.
SDR
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Roderick Grant
- Posts: 10613
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:48 am
The house travelled all over the country with a show called "In The Realm Of Ideas." I saw it in D. C. where it was not very well sited, just sort of jambed into a tight space. One of the sponsors was Kohler, a Wisconsin manufacturer of plumbing appliances. Of course, the house included a huge bathroom (very un-Wright-like) with the latest Kohler products on display, including a black Darth Vader toilet that looked like it could eat your ass.
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NickSpellman
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:53 am
Usonian Exhibit House
Does anyone know of the status of the Usonian Automatic exhibit house since it was last seen ~15 years ago? Will it make a re-appearence? (Hopefully without that Karnivorous Kohler toilet!)
Karnivorous Kohler ! I like it. . .
I happened upon the local exhibition site (at the Marin County Civic Center, of course -- you can see the Wrightian [?] exhibit hall behind the house, with its semicylindrical wall profiles and multi-globe pole lamps) as the house was being assembled -- I shot thru a chain-link fence -- and in the foreground were parts and pieces: the assembly was panelized (you can make out the two-block-wide parts of the main room). My impression was that this kit wouldn't have an indefinite "shelf life"; the OSB was already curling at the edges amd sloughing off its battering of dark textured coating in places. I would imagine that each successive reassembly would have caused the crew more and more "touch-up" work. . .
I recall some oddity of scale in the kitchen; the bathroom I probably didn't see, as the crowds were prodigious.
The last photo above was taken on the day I visited the finished house; the first shot is Kodacolor (probably) and the others are with a wide-angle disposable camera (do they still make those ?).
SDR
I happened upon the local exhibition site (at the Marin County Civic Center, of course -- you can see the Wrightian [?] exhibit hall behind the house, with its semicylindrical wall profiles and multi-globe pole lamps) as the house was being assembled -- I shot thru a chain-link fence -- and in the foreground were parts and pieces: the assembly was panelized (you can make out the two-block-wide parts of the main room). My impression was that this kit wouldn't have an indefinite "shelf life"; the OSB was already curling at the edges amd sloughing off its battering of dark textured coating in places. I would imagine that each successive reassembly would have caused the crew more and more "touch-up" work. . .
I recall some oddity of scale in the kitchen; the bathroom I probably didn't see, as the crowds were prodigious.
The last photo above was taken on the day I visited the finished house; the first shot is Kodacolor (probably) and the others are with a wide-angle disposable camera (do they still make those ?).
SDR
Karnivorous Kohler ! I like it. . .
I happened upon the local exhibition site (at the Marin County Civic Center, of course -- you can see the Wrightian [?] exhibit hall behind the house, with its semicylindrical wall profiles and multi-globe pole lamps) as the house was being assembled -- I shot thru a chain-link fence -- and in the foreground were parts and pieces: the assembly was panelized (you can make out the two-block-wide parts of the main room). My impression was that this kit wouldn't have an indefinite "shelf life"; the OSB was already curling at the edges amd sloughing off its battering of dark textured coating in places. I would imagine that each successive reassembly would have caused the crew more and more "touch-up" work. This may not be the most ephemeral of Wright's works (is this a Wright work ?) but it's definitely in the running.
I recall some oddity of scale in the kitchen; the bathroom I perhaps didn't see, as the crowds were prodigious.
The last photo above was taken on the day I visited the finished house; the first shot is Kodacolor (probably) and the others are with a wide-angle disposable camera (do they still make those ?). I like the color variations in the various shots (analogous to what really happens to color in different lights) -- I can't say if any one of them was the "true color" of the house. . .
SDR
I happened upon the local exhibition site (at the Marin County Civic Center, of course -- you can see the Wrightian [?] exhibit hall behind the house, with its semicylindrical wall profiles and multi-globe pole lamps) as the house was being assembled -- I shot thru a chain-link fence -- and in the foreground were parts and pieces: the assembly was panelized (you can make out the two-block-wide parts of the main room). My impression was that this kit wouldn't have an indefinite "shelf life"; the OSB was already curling at the edges amd sloughing off its battering of dark textured coating in places. I would imagine that each successive reassembly would have caused the crew more and more "touch-up" work. This may not be the most ephemeral of Wright's works (is this a Wright work ?) but it's definitely in the running.
I recall some oddity of scale in the kitchen; the bathroom I perhaps didn't see, as the crowds were prodigious.
The last photo above was taken on the day I visited the finished house; the first shot is Kodacolor (probably) and the others are with a wide-angle disposable camera (do they still make those ?). I like the color variations in the various shots (analogous to what really happens to color in different lights) -- I can't say if any one of them was the "true color" of the house. . .
SDR
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Barry Peterson
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:25 pm
- Location: Sausalito, CA
- Contact:
Mobile-Psudo-Usonian-Automatic fate
Nick,
When I was an apprentice at T-West, I found fragments of the Unsonian Automatic in the wood shop. It was made of plaster-sprayed foam so that it was light weight and easily transportable for the travelling show, "In the Realm of Ideas". It was never meant to outlast the show and, for the most part, did not.
But some believe that fragments of it were found by Michael Graves as he was rummaging through the waste cans of better architects than he (as was his wont) and so began the rather amazing "outdoor", weather-resistant version of highschool play set designs that we can readily see lining our major boulevards of lat--and are called Post-Mod strip malls. The lesson here is that one really has to be careful about just what one throws in the trash can....
When I was an apprentice at T-West, I found fragments of the Unsonian Automatic in the wood shop. It was made of plaster-sprayed foam so that it was light weight and easily transportable for the travelling show, "In the Realm of Ideas". It was never meant to outlast the show and, for the most part, did not.
But some believe that fragments of it were found by Michael Graves as he was rummaging through the waste cans of better architects than he (as was his wont) and so began the rather amazing "outdoor", weather-resistant version of highschool play set designs that we can readily see lining our major boulevards of lat--and are called Post-Mod strip malls. The lesson here is that one really has to be careful about just what one throws in the trash can....
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Roderick Grant
- Posts: 10613
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:48 am
The Graves house looks like an overblown version of the regency style remodelled cottages of West Hollywood from the 60s. That both Wright and Graves (not to mention Jefferson) received the AIA Gold Medal just proves how capricious their standards are. Great architecture stands the test of time; Graves work was a witty aside at a time when people were so bored with the grayness of the Miesian Mode they were willing to accept anything else. But in retrospect, it all looks a bit silly, doesn't it? Like Tigerman. And soon, like Gehry.
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Barry Peterson
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- Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:25 pm
- Location: Sausalito, CA
- Contact:
I also caught the Automatic when it was in San Francisco. The siting made it very difficult to enjoy, and aside from the obvious "unreal" materials, the cheesy decor rounded things out. A nice, good sized model would have been much more informative.
And speaking of cheesy, isn't Graves just a hoot? Sterns' Disney work was at least an honest attempt at whimsy, where Graves is perhaps the worst "big name" architect to come down the pike. I swear his only recurring program is to see how often he can pull the wool over wealthy clients eyes who he targets with the illusion of grandeur of his "classicism". Speaking of "Targets".....clocks! Spoons! Tea pots..oh my! Only in America.
Tom Wolfe's "From Bauhaus to Our House" is a very funny read laying bare interesting(and spot on) theories of the whole Postmodern mess the country has "taken like a man" from the likes of Graves, Venturi, Gehry, etc, by way of Gropius, Mies, Le Corb, etc, and eventually the whole crew at SciArc. Wolfe's interest in such a subject was curious to me until I found out years later he was a friend and client of Edgar Tafel-whose work you see very little of published.
And speaking of cheesy, isn't Graves just a hoot? Sterns' Disney work was at least an honest attempt at whimsy, where Graves is perhaps the worst "big name" architect to come down the pike. I swear his only recurring program is to see how often he can pull the wool over wealthy clients eyes who he targets with the illusion of grandeur of his "classicism". Speaking of "Targets".....clocks! Spoons! Tea pots..oh my! Only in America.
Tom Wolfe's "From Bauhaus to Our House" is a very funny read laying bare interesting(and spot on) theories of the whole Postmodern mess the country has "taken like a man" from the likes of Graves, Venturi, Gehry, etc, by way of Gropius, Mies, Le Corb, etc, and eventually the whole crew at SciArc. Wolfe's interest in such a subject was curious to me until I found out years later he was a friend and client of Edgar Tafel-whose work you see very little of published.
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Barry Peterson
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:25 pm
- Location: Sausalito, CA
- Contact:
Tom Wolfe was good and short. Sometimes an outsider's view is sobering. Fantastic and long would be Chirstopher Alexander's " THE NATURE OF ORDER". Sometimes and insider can be incredibly intoxicating....
http://www.natureoforder.com/
But we do wander from our subject.
http://www.natureoforder.com/
But we do wander from our subject.
Wright or wrong?
Detroit