Wright Chat

Sargent undertakes to list them in his book on the topic. He includes Lewis and Affleck but not Fallingwater. If I had my copy at hand I'd count them up.



Peter

None: he built usonian houses, not usonain . Had you asked about usonians , we'd need to know how you define this and where you draw the line. Is radiant heating a necessary condition? Does a big house with a maid's room, like Lewis or Affleck, count? Would Freeman count? It qualifies in some respec...

The Bazett lot has great downhill views to the east, but you can't see them from inside (except from his 50s addition for the Franks). Maybe this was because the highlight of the view is the Spreckels mansion, a Beaux-Arts wedding cake he would have hated.



Peter

Following up on what RJH has said, Joseph Connors, in his book on the Robie house (I think), points out that Wright was doing what we nowadays call passive solar design a hundred years ago. The prairie houses have broad eaves to provide shade in the summer and abundant windows to pick up any availab...

Johnson's remark is a catchy way of putting the unexceptional point that architects are in a service profession and they make their money by giving clients what they want. Self-employed professionals have to stay in the public eye in order to bring in business. Most, architects or otherwise, do this...

Philip Johnson high class!?



Peter

The point of the solar hemicycle scheme was maximum sun in the winter and maximum shade in the summer. To get this effect (especially in the far-north latitudes where most of them were built), the house ought to face south, with the winter sun in front of it and the summer sun in back.



Peter

Something similar happened during one of the Conservancy conferences, when they bussed us around to several Wright houses. We were looking reverently through one of them when we smelled cigarette smoke and were duly horrified at the bad manners of anyone who'd light up under the circumstances. The s...

Nearly everything here is twentieth-century. You'd have to include the Gothic cathedrals; maybe a catchall category or, to pick my favorite of those I've seen, Chartres. Ste. Chapelle, a small Gothic church in Paris, also deserves mention. Another that hasn't come up is Schindler's Lovell beach hous...

He actually did design some houseboats as part of the Tahoe project in the late 20s (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/flw/flw03.html). Does this have anything to do with those designs? (Probably not, or they'd run into legal problems)



Peter

What could it be if not the same old thing. OPRF has a limited number of Wright houses, and not all the owners are willing to take part. After about eight years you will have seen them all. I'm glad to get into them (some more than others) as often as I can, so the trip is always worthwhile. "S...

I can't help noticing how quickly he remarried and started a new family. This raises the suspicion that he, like Mamah, had something going on the side before the divorce.



Peter

Millie Ablin, a Wright client, once noted that eveything breaks on a concrete floor, even supposedely unbreakable plastics.



Peter

It's for sale currently at the Wright on the Market section of this site. It last sold some 8 - 10 years ago.



Peter

How sure are we that Unity Temple is neglected? I don't have hard numbers, but they've done a lot of work in recent years restoring exterior concrete and interior colors, finishes and fixtures. It appears to be in much better shape than Taliesin, though comparisons are difficult because it's a much ...