Wright Chat

owenCollins · Joined: 30 Jul 2017 Posts: 27

Hi I am, in addition to being a fellow Wright enthusiast, a professor of Theater Design. I am trying to compile a list of various theater buildings designed by both Mr. Wright and the Taliesin Associated Architects. Should I track down the Monographs and just comb thru them looking for theater Structures?

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 17485 Location: San Francisco

That won't be necessary; we'll come up with a definitive list here. I'll wait for others to contribute suggestions, then (if necessary) complete the search and make a list. Offhand I'll guess there are no more than a half-dozen . . .

Churches have more than a little in common with theaters. If we were to add those the list would suddenly swell.

SDR

owenCollins · Joined: 30 Jul 2017 Posts: 27

The ones I can think of:

Hillside theater at Taliesin

Kalita Humphreys/ Dallas Theater Center - Based on a 1931 proposal for Woodstock NY.

Music Pavilion at Taliesin West
Cabaret Theater at Taliesin West
The Kiva at Taliesin West was used to show movies, and might not count.

Did Midway Gardens have a stage?

Reidy · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 1505 Location: Fremont CA

Gammage Auditorium at ASU.

San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, by TAA, looks like a knockoff of Gammage.

Theater, never built, for Aline Barnsdall's property in LA.

The Coonley playhouse has some interior steps that made the upper part a stage for the children's performances.

He might have designed a theater while in Tokyo (or was it a sumo-wrestling stadium?).

Legend is that the roof over the Hollyhock loggia was a stage, with the central courtyard a place for the audience, and that Martha Graham performed there, but the legend hasn't stood up under examination.

Opera House design for Baghdad, which may have been the precursor of Gammage.

JChoate · Joined: 04 Feb 2016 Posts: 964 Location: Atlanta

Midway Gardens:

from Steinerag.com

JChoate · Joined: 04 Feb 2016 Posts: 964 Location: Atlanta

unbuilt design at Florida Southern College for the Music & Theater Building:

Steinerag.com

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 17485 Location: San Francisco

The theater at Taliesin (North) hasn't been mentioned.

In "Treasures of Taliesin," on the pages following the Spaulding print gallery, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer reminds us that two theaters were planned for Olive Hill;
in Monograph 4, p 170, he mentions a movie theater designed for Japan and possibly proposed to Aline Barnsdall -- and on p 172 we have the Little Dipper
"kindergarten-community theatre" for the same property.

Even without the work of TAA, my initial estimate is looking like a slight on the reality ! A sub-task will be listing the built vs the unbuilt theaters . . .

SDR

dkottum · Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 417 Location: Battle Lake, MN

Tucson Creative Dance Center by John Howe while with TAA might be considered.

http://tucson.com/morguetales/historic-photos-tucson-creative-dance-center/collection_93303ac0-6634-11e6-9a08-47a56674e5c5.html#1

JChoate · Joined: 04 Feb 2016 Posts: 964 Location: Atlanta

Wright's design studies for the unbuilt Theatre on Olive Hill for Aline Barnsdall:

And, then for the same client, same hill, he designed an unbuilt "Motion Picture Theater":

(From ADA Edita Monograph 10)

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 17485 Location: San Francisco

"Treasures of Taliesin" was published in 1985; Monograph 4 is from the same year. Here are Pfeiffer's texts from both volumes:

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 17485 Location: San Francisco

Photographs of said models do not appear in "Treasures," in the Monograph, nor in Taschen I, which has even less on the theater project than is found in Monograph 4.

There is is Taschen, however, this additional plan drawing . . .

DavidC · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 6815 Location: Oak Ridge, TN

Also. the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall by TAA, in Sarasota, FL.

David

jay · Joined: 02 May 2016 Posts: 126

There's the Wes Peters/TAA designed Bartlesville Community Center, across the street from the Price Tower.

Lloyd Wright was involved in the early designs of the Hollywood Bowl, if that counts....

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 17485 Location: San Francisco

Gracious. I never saw that version of the bowl. Look at the giant planter urns. Lloyd was the only one who could take his father's bits and pieces and exaggerate them to good effect -- usually.

SDR

Forest · Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 63

There were a theater and a cabaret in the Imperial Hotel.

Wasn’t there a motion picture theater project for California at about the same time as Midway Gardens?

Then there was the Michael Todd theater prototype in the 1950’s.

If amphitheaters count, there was one proposed lakeside at Florida Southern for water events. Also, one in the grand scheme for Pittsburgh Point Park and one proposed for the Marin County Fairgrounds.

Later the TAA designed Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium by TAA was built at the fair grounds.