Article: "Frank Lloyd Wright: Rebel Architect"

[DavidC]

Frank Lloyd Wright: Rebel Architect


David

[Paul Ringstrom]

This article is not just informative, but truly an extensive biography capturing all facets of FLW's interesting life. The article, while long, is worth the time. IMHO: Even long-time Wright fans will learn something from it.

[Tom]

This essay by Sandefur is political and timely for 2024. I welcome it. Thanks for posting. The Objective Standard is an organization with the purpose of examining the work and thought of Ayn Rand. In addition Sandefur leads in directing legal counsel at the Goldwater Institute. Judging from this essay alone he is very bright, very articulate. Looking at everything else he’s written on shows serious depth and breadth.

I think it is correct to align the work and thought of Wright with the political ideals of Barry Goldwater:

“ This country has grown great and strong and prosperous by placing major reliance on a free economy, … Private property, free competition, and hard work - these have been our greatest tools.” (BG)

There is however one aspect of Goldwater’s legacy that I know Wright would vehemently oppose. Goldwater’s notorious quote that extremism is no vice in defense of liberty came to be associated with fighting communism offensively and ruthlessly world wide with hard weapons and economic sanctions. Although the Soviet Union is gone we are still enthralled with that today. Recall that before she met Bill, Hillary was a Goldwater Girl. She and the late Senator from Arizona (Goldwater’s seat) were two peas in a pod on this issue. Stories are told how the two of them threw down Vodka shots together, and how McCain was impressed by that. You can take the girl out of Goldwater but you can’t take Goldwater out of the girl.

I have no original ideas about anything-politics included. I just read thoughts of other people and make my judgments. I do agree, so far, that the West is on the cusp and in the throes of becoming what we prior accused the Soviets of aspiring to: an anti-sovereign, supra-national, international organization of control: the ruler of “the rules based order”, in which people are not Citizens but subjects. I agree with that assessment.

I agree with the thinking that the wealth of the nation is weaponized abroad, encircling China, fighting Russia, funding Israel, backing Syrian opposition, building AfriCom, basing in Djibouti etc. The nation’s major corporations pay no taxes. Meanwhile it is impossible to be a free architecturally creative citizen at $400 per residential sqft. The wealth of the nation is abroad and not in motion on the “earthline” of the ground at home. Ukraine is a terrible “investment.” If democratic freedom and security are to be established on the basis of minimum taxes then the world wide war mongering (among other things) will need to stop. The late Chalmers Johnson put it this way: “The United States has a choice to make. We can either be a global hegemon or we can be a constitutional republic. We cannot be both.” I agree with that.

Politics doesn’t stand still. It seems to shift shapes, cracking up one coalition over here while piecing together another coalition over there. In time people surprise themselves sharing a table with those they had thought misdirected. This is where I find myself today. It feels right and expansive.

Recently I was re-reading in Alfonsin’s The Lost Years. I came across this by him:

“The efforts of artists, including Frank Lloyd Wright, to achieve meaningful symbolic form could be achieved only when a structure of belief existed and when form had affective power to engage that structure. But in the absence of any collective belief and understanding, the symbol becomes hollow …” (p. 303)

It seems a shame to leave it there.
Seems to point to a critical relation between a person and some more expansive rational, accessible, and necessary substrate.

[SDR]

I gather you had a non-confrontational, even a productive holiday gathering ? Hosanna . . .

S

[Reidy]

YouTube has a video of this material.

[SDR]

Is it here that I should report what I'm hearing this week about the prospects for the continuation of a state of democracy in our fair land ?

The convergence of an intercontinental drift toward autocracy, the adoption of a radical agenda ("we must win at any price !") by portions of the American fundamentalist Christian community, and the wholesale capitulation to a ruthless and seemingly delusional cad by a majority on the Right bode ill for our immediate future---to say nothing of our long-term prospects. The government in your bedroom ? Wasn't that once the cry of the ruffled conservative ? How times change . . .

WWWD ?

S

[Tom]

SDR - you are spot on about my T-Giving family experience.
Blessings upon you and apologies for the rant.

but the essay here is really good, thanks again to DavidC for posting.

[Roderick Grant]

SDR, you overstate the havoc that will be brought upon the Republic with the return of the "cad." The insistent calumny and egregious lies piled upon him by the choir of your secular hoard are ludicrous and ignored by those beyond the tether of the suffocating, intolerant "church" you attend where, instead of communion, you receive a pat on your pate and a "Good boy," like the lapdog you are.

[Tom]

Working from memory here but I'd be willing to bet that the "fins" in the rock on the terrace off of Edgar's room are not merely ornamental as Sandefur says.

My memory says that they are tied into the tensile structure with rebar and in fact do significant work in keeping that cantilever afloat.

Will check the archives.

[SDR]

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 1733710651

This is the only structural drawing I've found with indication of that portion of the house, Tom; see upper left corner. The appearance of the fins in contact with the rock differs from what was built ?

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/326 ... 1733957707

This drawing seems to show the terrace (far left) being supported by a nearly centered stone wall or pier.

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 1734371944

Most early view drawings show some form of contact between the terrace and the native stone rising on the driveway side of it---but the nature of that contact, supportive or not, is not made clear, and varies from one view to another.

I don't remember seeing this drawing before: a plot plan with the house layout clearly superimposed on it.

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 1734697344

S

[Tom]

From review of the first drawing you posted - and from what I could decipher - the condition seems to be that of a massive cantilevered beam running the length of the terrace and crossed at right angles by joists - the last three being the ones with fins. Those fins are definitely part of the joists and contain continuous rebar from one end to the other.

Above the fins in the drawing there is an upside down note, says something like : "Rods turned down into holes in boulder"
I just don't see those as ornamental - at least not in the sense of the figures applied in the Bogk House for example.
Seems more like structural expression to me - here we go back to an example exposed structure in Wright ..? Those last three joists AND the boulder are helping to resist the main beam's deflection ... as I read it. Not mere ornament.

There is no pier under the terrace btw. What looks like one in the elevation drawings is back more in plane with the house.

I don't remember that site drawing either. I've read somewhere about the ARchives that they continue to add drawings to the files.

[SDR]

Did anyone suggest that the trio of fins were merely decorative ? I missed that.

S

[Tom]

"There are more balconies than one needs (does one ever need a balcony?), and its stone verticals and pale concrete horizontals tie it to the site so that it seems to grow from the rock (fig. 25). One of its finest touches is a section near the northwest terrace that appears to grip the stone and hold the house to the hillside; in fact, it’s not a structural support and carries no load—it’s pure ornament."

from: Frank Lloyd Wright, Rebel Architect, by Timothy Sandefur

I just finished sending Mr. Sandefur a message about this via The Objective Standard. Maybe he responds?
Will let you know.

[Roderick Grant]

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

[Tom]

Absolutely Roderick. Romanticism is deep in Wright.
One reason his work is so magnetic and attractive I think.