Wright Chat

Herb Fritz Prototype Plywood Table Frank Lloyd Wright Apprentice Taliesin MCM


David

This offering includes an important document. I'd love to see all of the work in the line he designed 1957-1966.


Is there anything in this letter that's known to be incorrect ?






SDR

Herb -- or the ultimate user of this prototype -- may have discovered what I did: that a half-full-size prototype or maquette of a dining table, makes a perfect cocktail table !

This interesting piece is both MCM and Wrightian, and represents a form of Constructivism as well. A three-fer . . .

SDR

Of course it is possible that this is a prototype only of a small table. It appears to be made of standard 3/4" material. The weakness of the design is that
there is limited resistance, inherent in the joinery, to side-to-side movement of the leg. That is, the intersection of two planes at right angles will be stabilized
primarily by the thickness of the material -- by the ratio of thickness to length of the lever acting to change the angle of the intersection. So, a leg of 14" will
be less easily moved from its 90º relation to the table top, than would a 30" leg, when a given thickness of material is present in both cases.

So unless the parts of a dining table employing this joint were increased in thickness from 3/4" to 1 1/2", the larger table could be expected to be too
easily rotated about its vertical axis when given a simple and accidental nudge to a corner of the top.

SDR