Wright Chat

[DavidC]

Frank Lloyd Wright ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE - [1:16]


David

[SDR]

I hadn't heard him conflate the "box" with fascism before.

If you have a valid and vital aesthetic novelty or development, why sell it as a philosophical or even a political matter ? Art can't stand on its own two feet ?

S

[peterm]

Selling organic architecture as anti-European totalitarianism/ pro-American democracy during the early days of the Cold War was not stupid as a marketing strategy. Did he believe his own words, or was he cynically working as his own ad agency?

Broken box= American patriotism
Box= European Fascism

Or did he see American conformity as fascist? (“Little Boxes, on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky...”

https://www.google.com/search?q=little+boxes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

[SDR]

Okay. Makes about as much sense as calling housing affordable to all as "democratic" -- as if a system of government by the whole population, typically through elected representatives, would naturally lead to that populace being able to afford better houses ?

S

[Matt2]

That Hugh Downs interview has always struck me as strange...very scripted. Did Wright ever do any audio interviews as a slightly younger man...maybe in the 1920s or 30s?

[SDR]

I haven't heard any.

Mr Wright had an odd way of speaking: he seemed to be trying to open his mouth or move his lips as minimally as possible -- sort of like the debutante who is taught to glide across a floor in her ball gown, with no visible gait.

S

[Matt2]

I was wondering if that was simply a matter of old age...and if he was perhaps more expressive or animated in his 60s or even 50s.

Has anyone researched his media appearances. There's a book on every other aspect of his life....

[Roderick Grant]

We have visited the subject of Fascist architecture before, and someone posted some very convincing examples of the type, along with personal experiences with it. (Fascist, Socialist, Nazi, not a hair's breadth between them.)

Recorded interviews don't go back too far. Movietone News, shown in theaters before the feature, ran from 1928 to 1963, but focused on hard news mostly, though occasionally veered off toward lighter fare, like Bess Truman trying and failing to launch a destroyer, the collapse of Galloping Gertie, or an odd Parisian restaurant, where the owner placed chicken food in his mouth, and fed the birds. Zsa Zsa got some play when she dated a Dominican racecar driver (can't think of his name). Also former King Farouk of Egypt got some footage during his banishment. A FLW interview would hardly have qualified. All filmed news programming prior to 1928 was silent, and that too would have been beyond FLW's reach.

[Rood]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_Rubirosa

[SDR]

I don't recall seeing Mr Wright speak in any other way . . .

Perhaps he had -- or thought he had -- something wrong with his teeth. One source on this speech variant -- from a book about voice acting -- suggests that "lack of [facial] mobility can be due in part to insecurity or a reluctance to communicate . . ."

https://tinyurl.com/yck3tsra

While this doesn't sound like the man we know, the effect given is precisely so -- for me . . .

S

[peterm]

[Matt2]

I always chalked up his tight lipped speaking as both age and something common to the upper mid-west. Which raises some questions. Did Wright wear dentures? Did he ever have a pronounced Wisconsin accent?

And radio was popular in the 1930s...did he do any local or national radio interviews? Granted, those may not have survived. Someone did record the Saturday chats with apprentices on a reel to reel machine, but that may only have started in the 50s.

[SDR]

The earliest recorded conversations on this list are from 1950:

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Books/Conversations.htm

He received a gold medal from the RIBA in 1941. He traveled to London. Haven't we heard his speech there ?

S

[SDR]

"Wright did a series of lectures in 1939 at RIBA that proved highly influential."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/master-of-the-mid-century-flw-is-still-packing-architectural-punch-150-years-later-a7785496.html

As an aside: https://www.thoughtco.com/frank-lloyd-wright-wit-and-wisdom-175867

S

[Roderick Grant]

At some point, Olga convinced Frank to have all his teeth extracted and use dentures. It had something to do with a verkakte idea about health.

Humphrey Bogart also had dentures from an early age, which affected his style of speech ... perhaps ensuring an enduring career.