Rose and Gertrude Pauson house

j_f · Post by **j_f** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 5:32 am

Tom:

Never noticed that window before.
Will keep my eye open for closer shots.
It seems it might consist of triangles:
two light pointing up and one dark pointing down

To me it seems as if these "triangles" are simply drapes...

j_f · Post by **j_f** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 6:14 am

David:

"On the other hand, the small window of this room that is located on the northwest facade does not appear in Wright's drawings.
Maybe it was a request from the client that had to be designed at the last minute?"

Wright Green, A.(2011). Building the Pauson House. San Francisco: Pomegranate, p.28.

In this plan from March 1940 - signed by both Ellis the contractor and Rose Pauson - you see the window and that the shape of the fireplace wasnÃ‚Â´t clear at the time.
Also that the opening was intended to be a wardrobe. Further you see the lozenge-shaped mullions.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 8:17 am

Large lozenge shaped mullions in plan drawing above

Question: in the enlarged master bedroom plan there is a note on the
balcony decking: "wear coat" ... or something like that.
Anybody know what that was?

j_f · Post by **j_f** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 8:46 am

@ David

A room that I have unfinish in my model and that I would like to recreate is the master bedroom. Unfortunately I have not found any pictures of this room so my main question is about the fireplace. How do you think the design was?

-does that mean you have pictures of the rest of the upper floor?

Not to knock your really outstanding work, but since youÃ‚Â´re open to suggestions...
When revisiting the master bedroom you might wanna check this discrepancy (distortion and angle aside) with the overlapping/intersecting part of the roof and the chimney

David Romero / L. Dahl-Wolfe; HarperÃ‚Â´s Bazaar; January 1942 p.40

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 8:49 am

Thanks, j_f. New information, on drawings not previously published, continues to surface. I had seen neither this drawing not the one(s) WJS showed us. Can you cite a source ?

Can you tell us what the unit dimension is ? It's noted on the drawing, at lower left, but I can't read it.

I'll have to look at the previous drawings for confirmation, but it's surprising -- isn't it -- to see window mullions falling between unit lines rather than on them . . .

Tom, Mr Wright was always open to the latest materials. Usonian drawings are sprinkled with trade names of new surfaces and sealants, for instance, most of them unfamiliar to us today.

SDR

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 9:08 am

On Storrer's plan, page two, the mullions are shown just off-grid; the "Arizona Highways" plan on page 9 shows them at mid-unit. Those latter plans seem most similar to the one j_f brings us ?

A color photo on page 7 almost shows the kitchen/dining window mullions. I read them as fin-shaped, like the living-room ones. Their shape seems to vary on the plan drawings cited . . .

SDR

j_f · Post by **j_f** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 9:16 am

I added the source.

The unit of the Pauson House grid is 3'6" square
The scale of I think all drawings IÃ‚Â´ve seen so far is 1/4" = 1'-0" (except for the details of course)

And yes you are right, it is surprising and a part of my /(our studioÃ‚Â´s) research as in how FLLW operated with the often varying grids in terms of positioning.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 9:28 am

Thanks. I'd be interested to find other examples of "wandering grids"; I can't say I've noticed this in other projects.

The lozenge-section mullion is a surprise in this project, as most of the detailing is as direct (and orthogonal) as in any Usonian -- isn't it ?

SDR

David · Post by **David** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 4:55 pm

Thanks j_f for pointing out the inaccuracy of the fireplace in my model, I will take it into account.

Unfortunately I do not have photographs of the upper part of the house, not even my model is very developed in those areas, Jeff's model (which you can find at some point in this thread) has done a great job defining the entire top of the house in his model

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Jun 08, 2018 6:39 pm

Sure. But it's a lovely model. Each digital artist brings a fresh perspective -- new choices of color, texture, lighting -- to a given work of architecture. When
I saw the detail image above, I thought "Ooh -- a photo I haven't seen before." No watercolor or colored-pencil rendering -- or photo -- could capture the
building in just that way . . .

I think j_f will be a force to be reckoned with, as they say. Now to (belatedly) acquire my copy of the Pauson book. Tsk tsk !

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:00 am

SDR: the Pauson book is small and mostly concerend with the history of personal relations during the project.
Not a lot of technical info between the covers if I remember correctly.

Meisolus · Post by **Meisolus** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:49 pm

Tom is correct about the Pauson book. Its quite diminutive, but there are a good amount of photos and I believe you can find it for a reasonable price. It chiefly consists of the correspondence between Rose Pauson and Wright, which is very interesting on its own.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 4:59 pm

Thanks, guys.

Did the plan that j_f posted above come from the book ?

SDR

Meisolus · Post by **Meisolus** » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:02 am

Did the plan that j_f posted above come from the book?

Yes, it is featured in the book, along with several others from various phases of the design.

Meisolus · Post by **Meisolus** » Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:17 pm

I just watched "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel" on Amazon Prime. It made a brief mention of the Pauson House photo shoot for Harper's Bazaar in 1942 and had a quick image of what looked like a contact sheet (around 27:15). I did a little digging and found this article:

http://news.fitnyc.edu/2016/03/03/exhib ... 1936-1958/

It mentions the "Behind-the-scenes photographs and alternate images from the famous 1942 Arizona desert photo shoot at Frank Lloyd WrightÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Pauson house." Of course this means there are unpublished photos taken at the house. While they are probably meant to feature the models, who knows what could be in the background? Maybe one was taken in front of the bedroom fireplace, you never know. Has anyone ever looked into this?