Archives to Avery Library/ Columbia University

[SDR]

I don't know enough about microfilm, after reading some of what Wikipedia has on the subject. But it could be assumed that photographic film would provide the highest resolution images possible. Any reproduction other than a photographic print from a negative would contain the beginnings of degradation of the image; printing plates employing Benday dots to create half-tone necessarily provide a compromised image. Scans of printed material could not improve upon the material being scanned; scans of photographic originals or negatives (including those of microfilm ?) would have the potential to provide better resolution than any half-tone reproduction, limited then to the dpi (dots per inch) of the scanner.

S

[SDR]

Here's a random sampling of drawings from the first page of the Artstor collection as linked on the previous page. There's some fresh revelation in almost all of them.

Mossberg plan, early version before second-level bedroom---and the dramatic stair---were added:



Storrer as-built plan. Note that unit changed from 7'-0" to 5'-6":




An early (?) section drawing of Taliesin West, dated 1937, relating the pitch of the drafting-room roof to the pyramidal exterior stair. Marks at regular intervals on the sloping roof are mysterious:




View of Lamberson, with surprising wooden garden wall (?) at left. The dramatic dark areas of the drawing serve in part to support my assertion that reds can "read" darker that expected when photographed in black and white. Compare to colored version of the drawing, in Taschen:






Previously unseen view of the H E Brown project of 1906:



Previously we had seen the hipped-roof and the concrete-block versions of this house:






A nice birds-eye view of the Malcolm Willey house in its final form. We've seen a similar drawing, I think, perhaps only on Steve Sikora's site:




Last is a section drawing of the first Keys scheme, concentrating on roof form and structure. There are several variations of this house in print. CLose-ups of the section drawing show a total of five wide-flange beams, labeled either "porch" or "carport":






Drawings of Keys 1 in Monograph 7 and Taschen III. The Artstor site has 53 other Keys drawings (split between Schemes 1 and 2). Anyone who can connect the above sections with Scheme 1, variants A or B, has my applause:

A

A

B

B

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

[peterm]

The drawing of Lamberson is from 1948, before Wright notified the clients that he was dissatisfied with the siting of the house. It was relocated to the next knoll to the northeast, and the “shop” (the board and batten structure which looks like a wall or fence) was eliminated. The newer site was less steep and therefore didn’t require the additional retaining wall/planter on the north end (to the right in the image) of the house, which was also abandoned. The orientation was also shifted by a few degrees.

I think Wright might have anticipated the eventual growth of the adjacent County Hospital. I’m glad he repositioned it.

[Roderick Grant]

T-West: I would bet the marks on the sloping roof indicate (roughly) the locations of the canvas panels, and show how the grid is adjusted to accommodate the slope of the roof.

HE Brown: Perhaps the client objected to the proto-block version, and FLW redid the house, seemingly also on large blocks or bricks, rather than the plaster version. The real oddity is determining what that pattern in the block version meant.

Keys: Either of the two Keys Projects would make a good virtual study, and would have been better than what was built.

[Jeff Myers]

Roderick: I am currently modeling Wright’s structures using Artstor. I’ll gladly make up a visual of Keys soon. Currently I’m modeling the Elizabeth Noble terrace apartments.

The reason I started to do this was to add filler into my own pet project. It goes to show Wright’s commercial, religious, or multi family unit designs can fit seamlessly anywhere.

[Roderick Grant]

Noble was a missed opportunity. If it had been built, I know where I would be living right now.

[SDR]

Do you know where in the city it was to be built ?

S

[SDR]

Taschen II, p 203








From Artstor:

Tower terrace apartment bedroom level as described above:









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

[Roderick Grant]

I don't recall where I saw it, but I believe Noble was to have been built somewhere in the foothills of the Hollywood Hills in Los Feliz or Silver Lake. For those unfamiliar, that would be within a hardy jaunt to Hollyhock House.

[DRN]

There is a second way now to reach the images on ArtStor, but this time connected to projects:

https://findingaids.library.columbia.ed ... d_12471376

This is the finding aid for the Wright drawings. Click on a decade in the left Series box and the projects are listed by decade. The projects will have a link to the images for that project on ArtStor. There are a few projects without images, because they were not photographed as part of the project at the time. The images are from black and white 4x5 negatives taken in the 1980s or early 1990s at Taliesin and funded I think by the Getty.

Thanks to Shelley Hayreh, the Archivist in Drawings and Archives, for linking the images to the finding aid.

[SDR]

Very useful. I have gotten by so far by searching "Wright" and the name of a client---though one often gets much unrelated matter as a result. The disappointing aspect is that there's little order to the images; the Florida Southern College (FSC) file contains randomly assorted drawings for Pfeiffer Chapel, the administration building and Roux Library, in approximately equal numbers.

(Speaking of numbers, it's good to have a reference to the quantity of Wright drawings in the collection: c. 24,000.)

I was recently coached to enlarge images to full-page, for the best view. Not all drawings were photographed to the same level of resolution. Nevertheless, this source is a godsend to the never-ending quest for a full understanding of Mr Wright's creativity and of Taliesin practice---the nuts and bolts of building Wright.

S

[Tom]

Pls remind me how to enlarge the images here.
Apologies and thanks

[SDR]

Left-click on an image; a pane will appear with an option (the first one, in my case) to "open in new tab." Selecting that will present a URL at the top of your screen; hit that to enlarge the image to whatever size it was hosted and posted at.

S

[Roderick Grant]

Thank you, DRN. This is a great improvement.

I looked up Winn, and found 16 drawings, some of which are very revealing. It has always been implied that Winn had forced air heating because of it being a 2-story house in one half. There is, however, a plan (#8) for the usual heating system in the 6"-thick upper floor. The screened porch was also to have been open, with the roof covering only a part, rather than following the curve of the cantilever.

[Meisolus]

Is it possible to download the images or are these all screen grabs? Everything I'm finding is not downloadable.