Wright Chat

An RE marketing video of the two houses...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZQQe62tas

The more I look at the sumptuous photos of these houses, the more I see how individual the designs are, and how the layout and character of each might appeal to different potential buyers. The double sale is unique and makes a big media splash, but it is clearly focused on buyers looking for an inve...

Are the sellers offering the option to purchase the houses separately?
That would widen the pool of potential buyers and reduce the possibility of an overburdened homeowner in the future.

“Wright-washing”... ...and it’s not a post-modern design, either. I do like the use of self referential historical photos in the public spaces. I continue to be amazed how people latch onto the superficial similarities of this building and the unbuilt Calico Mills Store in India. The Calico building...

The proposed club house is attractive on its own without resorting to "Wrightwashing" with "Biltmore Block", which Wright didn't even design. The signature Biltmore block pattern was designed as an ornamental abstraction by Emry Kopta with Albert Chase MacArthur. http://www.azarc...

For some background of the project and what was eventually built at the site (interior alterations by Carlo Scarpa to the historic building Wright proposed to replace): https://docomomo-us.org/news/identity-and-change-in-the-reuse-of-masieri-memorial-by-carlo-scarpa-in-venice More here: https://pape...

I bought Robert Lawlor’s “Sacred Geometry” for a college class. It addresses the Islamic geometric patterns well. https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Geometry-Philosophy-Practice-Imagination/dp/0500810303/ref=asc_df_0500810303/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312168166316&hvpos=&hvnetw=g...

I was unable to read more than the teaser of the WSJ, but I looked through the photos. The house outwardly appears to be an unusually large, well made and kept stone “rancher” with some mildly modern elements. Other than its size, it is unremarkable and not what one would expect as a “signature work...

A great house for a week at the lake. The kitchen seems to be the center of it all. I’m hoping the two spindly braces for the projecting prow deck are steel...given the angular motifs at the house, I might play with some cross bracing there to make it more substantial and to visually unify it with t...

Sad news indeed. I attended services there a couple of times during visits to AZ in the 1990's. It is a good building, but a big one for a shrinking congregation. My architecture enthusiast self wants to see the building sensitively repurposed or continue as a church, but my church property committe...

She gave him Froebel blocks. What else? It has been suggested by Donald Leslie Johnson that Wright's experience with the Froebel Gifts in his childhood may not have been as instrumental to his understanding of form, pattern, and composition, as was his later experiences with them in his home with C...

Thanks for sharing this David! It is quite a read but well worth the time if you are interested in FLW's family history and have some doubts about his autobiography's accuracy. The presented writings certainly place William. C. Wright in a more positive and plausible perspective from what has been o...

As much as we abhor the idea, all of FLW's privately owned residential work will be gone for one reason or another.

Agreed...and even what is carefully preserved over the millennia will eventually be lost when the sun expands to be a red giant or the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide.

The requirement by the local authorities having jurisdiction to remove the remaining masonry from the buildings may discourage some who might be inclined to attempt a rebuild. I’m thinking that in this case, lost is lost. Most buyers in Malibu want a much larger house than what was there and Wright’...

I believe if it has not been done already, there are plans by the current owner ( a FLW SoA graduate) to relocate the guesthouse on the lot containing the main house to better facilitate a re-subdivision of the neighboring lots accumulated and consolidated by the previous owner, Mr. Rawlings. The in...