Wright Chat

This building alone is worth the trip to Buffalo.

Did Sullivan design those leaded-glass ceiling panels?

The historic structure report put together by Jack Randall lists the firm of Healy and Millet as the original firm for the art glass skylights.

I'm pleased that such decorative exuberance was exercised, executed, and maintained down to the present day.

As an old-school modernist, however, my attention is always drawn to those adventurous street show-windows. Do we have an instance of Wright showing he had absorbed this particular invention of der Meister, any time within, say, a decade of the construction of the Guarantee ?

https://www.bluffton.edu/homepages/facs ... n/3830.jpg

SDR

I've only been there once.
I remember being kind of stunned, sort of like first going in to his
Auditorium in Chicago.

I must admit (sacrilege though it be) that the Auditorium itself - as opposed to the building overall - did not fill my heart with joy. FLWBC was treated to a lecture by Vincent Scully, which was also less than thrilling.

I am wondering what was it for you that was "off" about the auditorium itself.
For me it was the the sheer size. I thought a more "intimate" volume would have been better - like the Paris Opera interior.
Nevertheless I walked around and inside of Sullivan's building with my mouth open.
... admittedly I was young - having never seen something like it before.
The proscenium arch stands out in my memory - as if self-levitating.

RG: I remain, from the point of view of architectural intellectual conscience, interested in any articulation about the shortcomings of the auditorium you may have.
I would consider it a grace and educational.
Yours
TLP

As you point out, Tom, the auditorium seems over-scaled, no intimacy at all. It also lacks a sense of unity. The back half seems, to some extent, to be tacked on. And to maximize sales (one must assume) it has a nose-bleed balcony edging toward the next county. Unfortunately, all I experienced was a lecture, so I cannot address the quality of the acoustics, which, given Adler's mastery (he was the acoustician of Carnegie Hall, after all) must be excellent.

I have Joseph Siry's massive book on the building, which I have yet to plow through, so I should withhold criticism....

I'm sure I did not know that Dankmar Adler was the acoustician for Carnegie Hall.
d a m n

Interesting remarks and high praise on the Amazon site for the Auditorium book by Siry.

Roderick Grant wrote:As you point out, Tom, the auditorium seems over-scaled, no intimacy at all. It also lacks a sense of unity. The back half seems, to some extent, to be tacked on. And to maximize sales (one must assume) it has a nose-bleed balcony edging toward the next county. Unfortunately, all I experienced was a lecture, so I cannot address the quality of the acoustics, which, given Adler's mastery (he was the acoustician of Carnegie Hall, after all) must be excellent.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/03/arts ... -hall.html

This article discusses Adler's involvement with Carnegie Hall ... which was as a consultant to the architect ... William Burnet Tuthill. It also discusses how Adler tested his acoustical sense before the Auditorium was constructed in Chicago.

When Mr.Wright designed Grady Gammage Auditorium ... and the Opera House for Baghdad ... he said Adler looked to the Mormon Tabernacle as a model ... where the balcony does not engage the back wall ... and he used that as a feature of both designs.

I arrived at Taliesin West the week GGMA opened ... and along with several of the new apprentices who, like me, were short of ready cash, I purchased season tickets for a seat located in the middle of the back row of the upper balcony. We could turn around and look over the edge straight down to the orchestra level, far below. The surprise was that the acoustics were better there, than in the orchestra seats Mrs. Wright chose. After the opening Mrs. Wright seldom attended events at GGMA (one notable exception: Bill Cosby) and, on occasion, she handed out tickets to her seats to apprentices, so i sat in one of her seats many times ... but eventually I migrated back to the balconies ... because the acoustics were better.

Informative article.
Great story about the Tabernalce Choir and Grady Gammage.

Tom wrote:Informative article.
Great story about the Tabernacle Choir and Grady Gammage.

Actually, not the choir ... but the building. See this Wikipedia entry ... particularly the paragraphs on "Architecture" and "Acoustics"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_Tabernacle