I found this design (Waterstreet 1941) at the visions of Wright website.
https://visionsofwright.files.wordpress ... -plan1.jpg
I am assumiong its an unbuilt obscure FLLW design. I did not have all the details so I improvised and took a little creative licence so I would call it "FLLW inspired". Does anyone have any information about this design?
My render:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater
Waterstreet unbuilt FLLW obscure design?
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goffmachine
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Waterstreet unbuilt FLLW obscure design?
Last edited by goffmachine on Mon Jan 08, 2018 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Roderick Grant
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goffmachine
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The George Prout house 1945 unbuilt also I believe.. has similar roof.https://visionsofwright.files.wordpress ... p-plan.jpg
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Roderick Grant
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Re: Waterstreet unbuilt FLLW obscure design?
It's the Mary Waterstreet Studio-Residence, originally designed for Spring Green. It's project 4109, shown in Taschen Vol 2 pg 465 and Monograph 6, pg 307.goffmachine wrote:I found this design (Waterstreet 1941) at the visions of Wright website.
https://visionsofwright.files.wordpress ... -plan1.jpg
I am assumiong its an unbuilt obscure FLLW design. I did not have all the details so I improvised and took a little creative licence so I would call it "FLLW inspired". Does anyone have any information about this design?
Docent, Hollyhock House - Hollywood, CA
Humble student of the Master
"Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old." - Frank Lloyd Wright
Humble student of the Master
"Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old." - Frank Lloyd Wright
Shown in reverse chronological order: George Prout, Columbus, IN, 1945, and Mary Waterstreet, Spring Green, 1941.
Zoom out x4 for a more convenient plan comparison ? Plan unit taken to be 2' x 4'.
It would be nice to see the digital model cleave a bit closer to the original, in proportion and in details like the fascia width and the canted window.
SDR
Zoom out x4 for a more convenient plan comparison ? Plan unit taken to be 2' x 4'.
It would be nice to see the digital model cleave a bit closer to the original, in proportion and in details like the fascia width and the canted window.
SDR
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goffmachine
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Visions of Wright is a mixed blessing at best, no ? There are dozens of designs that I daresay none of us had ever laid eyes on, before the Taschen volumes were published -- though many of the images could be found in black-and-white, a generation earlier, in the Monographs. But most are apparently reproduced at 1:1 from scans of the books, so they are of little use, on the screen, for study of the work. The site host asks that images posted be at least 600 x 800 pixels in size -- but the posts typically include two drawings together in one frame, so many of them are even smaller than in the book.
And, other than client and date (with occasional inaccuracies), no information on the project is provided to the reader. Yet, for many, I suppose these images will be their only access to some of Wright's most interesting and, in many cases, remote work.
SDR
And, other than client and date (with occasional inaccuracies), no information on the project is provided to the reader. Yet, for many, I suppose these images will be their only access to some of Wright's most interesting and, in many cases, remote work.
SDR
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goffmachine
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Thanks again SDR. It WAS fun to improvise when I did not know something or perhaps wanted to take some creative licence. This was a fun experiment. Please dont hate me for not being a purist. 
Last edited by goffmachine on Tue Jan 09, 2018 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I can't hate anyone who takes the trouble to learn to model, and who turns his attention to great architectural work of the past.
But I'll be frank: it always troubles me to find that such a person is not willing to separate his own creativity from the time-honored task of recording the work of another.
Professionals in our field know that, when working for a client who is a designer, that client -- whether a flesh-and-blood character, paying the bills (like Wright when he was alive), or one whom he has never met, who has his work in museums and in hundreds of published volumes -- that client gets to have his ideas copied faithfully.
Mechanical reproduction of drawings or models or photographs of the work will, with few exceptions, faithfully transcribe the ideas and their most minute details. But modelers and other illustrators have the shackles off, and can freely modify any aspect of the work as they see fit -- intentionally or otherwise -- producing work which no curator or publisher would (or should) consider representative of that designer's work.
(I think of the rather painful paintings that Archie Teater made of his own Wright house. Mr Wright said, "Bad architecture makes my teeth hurt . . .")
Why not make an accurate model, labeled as Wright's design -- and then modify it as one wishes, making a new thing of it, labeled to indicate that it is not the work of "that famous designer" but is instead an 'inspired-by' work by _____________ ? Wouldn't that be the honest and honorable thing to do -- assuming that one really respects the designer in question, and the art and the profession of design at large ?
Yes, I take your point that not all the data was available to you when you started. I've heard that perfectly reasonable objection before. The professional wouldn't start without the relevant data at hand. Would you go to the Louvre to copy the Mona Lisa when the lights were out, or a curtain cut off the right third of the painting, say ?
I don't have a ready answer to those who like playing with the tools and aren't making a serious attempt at recording the work of another. I'm sure I'd do the same thing, given the time and the skill set. Maybe the answer is not to publish if the object is merely play ?
SDR
But I'll be frank: it always troubles me to find that such a person is not willing to separate his own creativity from the time-honored task of recording the work of another.
Professionals in our field know that, when working for a client who is a designer, that client -- whether a flesh-and-blood character, paying the bills (like Wright when he was alive), or one whom he has never met, who has his work in museums and in hundreds of published volumes -- that client gets to have his ideas copied faithfully.
Mechanical reproduction of drawings or models or photographs of the work will, with few exceptions, faithfully transcribe the ideas and their most minute details. But modelers and other illustrators have the shackles off, and can freely modify any aspect of the work as they see fit -- intentionally or otherwise -- producing work which no curator or publisher would (or should) consider representative of that designer's work.
(I think of the rather painful paintings that Archie Teater made of his own Wright house. Mr Wright said, "Bad architecture makes my teeth hurt . . .")
Why not make an accurate model, labeled as Wright's design -- and then modify it as one wishes, making a new thing of it, labeled to indicate that it is not the work of "that famous designer" but is instead an 'inspired-by' work by _____________ ? Wouldn't that be the honest and honorable thing to do -- assuming that one really respects the designer in question, and the art and the profession of design at large ?
Yes, I take your point that not all the data was available to you when you started. I've heard that perfectly reasonable objection before. The professional wouldn't start without the relevant data at hand. Would you go to the Louvre to copy the Mona Lisa when the lights were out, or a curtain cut off the right third of the painting, say ?
I don't have a ready answer to those who like playing with the tools and aren't making a serious attempt at recording the work of another. I'm sure I'd do the same thing, given the time and the skill set. Maybe the answer is not to publish if the object is merely play ?
SDR
(*sad face)
Sorry goffmachine -- so you did. I do get up on my high horse from time to time, trumpet in hand. Maybe I need an ear-trumpet instead . . . ?
Those elevation drawings of Prout are interesting. The end windows of Wright's strange sheet-metal armadillo vary in their sill placement, between the side and end elevations and between the right and left sides of the volume. I like seeing the sill line intersect (on an imaginary line) the lower corners of the roof, as it appears in the two view drawings (of Waterstreet and Prout) and in the bottom-most elevation. That's just my urge for geometric order, as exemplified in so much of Wright's work.
SDR
Those elevation drawings of Prout are interesting. The end windows of Wright's strange sheet-metal armadillo vary in their sill placement, between the side and end elevations and between the right and left sides of the volume. I like seeing the sill line intersect (on an imaginary line) the lower corners of the roof, as it appears in the two view drawings (of Waterstreet and Prout) and in the bottom-most elevation. That's just my urge for geometric order, as exemplified in so much of Wright's work.
SDR
Last edited by SDR on Mon Jan 08, 2018 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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goffmachine
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Ah. I seem to recall you've already modeled that for me ? Some of the images are no longer available; I must have copies of them somewhere. I love seeing the work.
That project was sadly compromised for me by the architect himself, when he revealed that he meant it to be built of unplaned logs, not square-section lumber . . . !
That project was sadly compromised for me by the architect himself, when he revealed that he meant it to be built of unplaned logs, not square-section lumber . . . !