"Windswept" Studio for Franklin Watkins

[juankbedoya]

Thanks, Juan---that's more like it !

It is interesting to note that, working only from the perspective drawing (and plans) published in Taschen, the modeler wasn't aware that another version of the detailing exists, where the meeting of vertical and diagonal boards is not mitered, but woven or braided---alternating boards making a zig-zag pattern. The elevations in the Monograph show the house in that dress. It's impossible to say which version Wright would have preferred---but I suspect the more unorthodox, "organic" solution might have prevailed.

I am going to have to repeat my advice, that no modeler begin a project if at least plans and elevations are not available to him or her. I have done a little SketchUp modeling, so I have some idea of how much effort would be required to correct an error like that. As with most construction jobs, it's so much easier to get it right the first time !

Anyway, it's a pleasure to see the house appear in 3D. I downloaded the model in SketchUp 2017, and turned off the shadows so I could get a better look at the other side of the building.

you're welcome...enjoy with that model, it is very detailed..!!
here are some renderings made from that 3d model.... I forgot the credits:
3d model: John Luttropp
render: Razin Khan

[juankbedoya]

More like a praying mantis.

I see it more like a ship taking fly, going to the sky like Teater's Knoll.

[Rood]

More like a praying mantis.

I see it more like a ship taking fly, going to the sky like Teater's Knoll.

Yeah, but how did that ship happen to land in the desert southwest, a couple thousand miles from the ocean?

[juankbedoya]

More like a praying mantis.

I see it more like a ship taking fly, going to the sky like Teater's Knoll.

Yeah, but how did that ship happen to land in the desert southwest, a couple thousand miles from the ocean?

who knows... the Pauson house was on the desert and its called "shiprock"... Watkins is something like "shipwood"

[SDR]

This, Teater's Knoll and the Boomer house (a desert design originally) all look like they aspire to flight. The Gull, The Eagle . . . and the Chicken ?

[Rood]

This, Teater's Knoll and the Boomer house (a desert design originally) all look like they aspire to flight. The Gull, The Eagle . . . and the Chicken ?

Mr. Wright may have redesigned (and renamed) the house for the desert for cousin Jorgine, but the original design was meant for George Clark on a sandy beach site at Carmel, California ... and named "Sun Bonnet". See Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1951-1959, Page 22

[SDR]

Illustrious illustrator Razin Khan give Windswept a unique sort of masonry---rustic, if not Wrightian ? Perhaps it's meant to be adobe, appropriate to the desert. We don't like seeing short-grain woodwork like that on the roof fascia, as no carpenter (and few designers this side of l'Art Deco) would have employed it---but it is decorative, speaking distantly of a Wrightian eave decoration.

What sort of vehicle should be seen lurking in the carport ? A dune buggy ? A slightly rusty and dusty '38 Buick sedan ?

Finally, modeler John Luttropp gives us a Franklin Watkins painting. Here are some more of them. A painter in search of a style ?

https://www.google.com/search?q=Frankli ... 16&bih=952

S

[SDR]

Thanks for that, Rood---another little surprise from Mr Wright. The illustrations of George Clark in the Monograph are the Boomer drawings. One must turn to Taschen III, p 274, to find Clark drawings. The Clark plan is distinct from Boomer in lacking the servant's quarters; the drawing has some mysterious cuts in it (though the plan appears to be drawn on the mother sheet of paper), and the left-hand lot line is curiously similar to the one shown on the Boomer plan.

It is interesting to see two Clark bathrooms fitting into the same space as a single one at Boomer . . .

The view drawings of the two houses, clearly of the same design, are set up from slightly different viewpoints---a real rarity among Wright drawings of related or cloned projects.

Boomer

Clark

Boomer

Clark

© The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

[HOJO]

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%2 ... age-6B.jpg
Clark or Boomer view?

[SDR]

Thanks, HOJO. Well, it's pretty clearly the Boomer view, redrawn for Clark---or, because Clark came first, it's a second perspective layout for Clark, from which the Boomer view drawing was made. Note that the little clerestory window behind the chimney, found at Boomer, is missing in this colored Clark rendering.

It is possible that Mr Wright was dissatisfied with the first Clark perspective, and ordered the second layout---which shows some of the roof plane and perhaps better displays the form of the house ?




Mr Steiner has done the Wright community an enormous favor---tempered only by the limited file size given to each of thousands (?) of images. Perhaps he began the Wright Library at a time when digital storage was more limited---by a huge factor---compared to today ? Or, perhaps he didn't want to deal with the Foundation . . .
http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Collecting.htm


We don't have a second-floor plan of Clark. The little window at Boomer lights a tiny servant's room. On the Chicken-of-the-Sea© tuna label, the photo shows this portion of the second level---apparently enlarged from the original plan ?


Plans © 1993 by William Allin Storrer

[Roderick Grant]

Back to Watkins for a minute: What's this about the SE desert? Watkins was designed for Barnegat, New Jersey, ESE of Philly, by the Atlantic.

[SDR]

Oops. Heh-heh---how easily we are distracted by sand . . .

S