Wright Chat

Beautiful Usonian house but choosing to go with a new gray concrete floor versus recalling the cherokee red I think was unfortunate;

Here is a link:

https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/6/5/157 ... an-beidler

Well, as we say, it's reversible. If the owners had consulted a restoration architect (ahem) they might have learned that the red floor isn't supposed to bleed; it may just have needed a waxing ?

Here's previous discussion on the house:

http://wrightchat.savewright.org/viewtopic.php?t=2371

http://wrightchat.savewright.org/viewtopic.php?t=3437

Perhaps, if the clients are uncomfortable, a new look at the radiant heating system could be had; removing much of the floor and installing a new and functional system, then pouring the new floor with its original color ?

SDR

Thanks SDR -Gorgeous pictures back in 2007 only emphasize the point that the slab should have retained it's original color- as an architect - you would think the Owner might have had more concern/care how the gray slab color would impact the atmosphere of the room - too bad...

Oh, yes -- the latest owner is an architect -- I'd forgotten. (Does the Curbed article mention that ? Is it Mrs, or Mr ? Not that it matters . . .)

Well, it's a lovely house, and Paul's firm did a creditable job with the modification, as I'm sure you've read. So, aside from some minor cosmetics, the house is in good shape, and appreciative hands, it seems.

SDR

Now all it needs is that circular swimming pool.

I like the big format photographs

A circular infinity pool from the early 50's! When did this idea originate? I remember seeing one for the first time on Bali near Ubud in the 80's.

DPJ wrote:Thanks SDR -Gorgeous pictures back in 2007 only emphasize the point that the slab should have retained it's original color- as an architect - you would think the Owner might have had more concern/care how the gray slab color would impact the atmosphere of the room - too bad...

I toured the house with the Conservancy in May and met the owner. The slab had been patched repeatedly as part of repair work to the radiant heating, and she made it clear it was her call to go with grey when they resurfaced it. She said that she knew there would be those who disagreed, but with red brick, pink block and all that wood, the red floors were, in her opinion, just too much. As noted, it's an easy enough reversal/modification down the line.

Please enlighten me how changing the color is easy enough to accomplish.

The floor was painted red, after repairs; the current owner painted it gray. So, short of removing all paint and replacing or repairing the bad concrete work, the solution would be yet another coat of paint -- which would be relatively easy ?

Mr Wright might be an originator of the "infinity pool," with the Jester project. Other examples include the unbuilt Huntington Hartford extravaganza. His straightforward and dramatic mechanism: let the water cascade over the edge.

SDR

Hartford's version was just the Jester Project with a dome of Pyrex over the Living Room instead of a solid flat roof. Through the years, FLW produced several Jester progeny. It was one of those schemes he really wanted to get built. I wonder what he would think of BBP's version.

I'm not certain what process was used to change the floor... possibly an overpour with gypcrete, but it did not appear that built-ins had been taken up to pour the floor, which would result in vertical wood "fins" encased in the new cementicious cover leading to cracking. A warmer tint to the material would have been preferable to my taste, if red was a non-starter. But in any case, the grey finish is smooth and consistent and I seemed to ignore its difference from other Wright houses rather quickly...there was too much else to see in the short time we had on the tour to dwell on the floor.

The loss of the scored or cut unit lines in the floor by the overpour may have contributed to a blurred sense of scale I experienced in the house.

I was thinking of the Huntington Hartford Sports Club, Hollywood, 1947, Plate 40 in Pfeiffer's "Treasures of Taliesin." I had neglected to note that the house project of the same year is a version of Jester . . .

SDR

Clarification:
RG is not talking about the Sports Club but about a house designed for Hartford?
RG's comparison is between a house for Hartford (not the club) and the Jester house - right?

That's right. There were three (or four ?) project proposals based on the Jester design. I'm not aware that we've previously discussed this set with any thoroughness, yet. There were models made of two of these projects, I believe, the original design and the elaboration proposed for a client in Connecticut.

A final, built version, made after Wright's death by and for his principal archivist, is a severely stripped-down "maquette" of the original Jester design. We have yet to see a realization of one of the original designs in its full glory. Most recently, a 3D architectural-presentation house abroad, one whose output is consumed largely by the real estate industry, has presented a digital model of Jester which also deviates from Wright's original.

SDR