Gladney 2 1924

[Tom]

Checkout the eave construction for the second scheme of Gladney:

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 0950545858

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 0950679184

Scarpa

[Roderick Grant]

Possibly the strangest house FLW ever designed.

[SDR]

https://library.artstor.org/#/search/Wr ... =1;size=24

Yes, Carlo Scarpa would have liked those pleated surfaces.

I have always liked Scheme 2, and this delicately colored rendering. The stepped eaves seem to forecast the Usonian roof detail. Scheme 1 is bizarre but interesting.



S

[Tom]

Interesting remark about the stepped eave.
Makes me wonder if we can locate it's first occurrence.
Would Gladney be it ...?

[Tom]

Keeping Gladney-2 provisionally (until an earlier stepped eave is found) as the first stepped eave project it is interesting to note that the first full Usonian project after that is Wiley-1 which does NOT have stepped eaves.

[SDR]

It should be said that the structuring of the two examples, Gladney II vs Jacobs I, is quite different and exemplifies the difference between all that came before, and the simplified Usonian recipe. Gladney is a study is willful form-making, while the Usonian is more or less straight constructivism, with the form directly owing to a logical structural strategy (stacked 2x4s).

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/285 ... 2504854060

And of course Mr Wright saw immediately, I suspect, that his Usonian eaves could be telescoped in and out---corbeled, if you will---to provide the desired amount of protection, shade (and architectural shadow) to any wall of the house.

S

[DavidC]

Just as the perf boards are a 'reduction' of Wright's earlier stained glass, the Jacobs stepped eave can be looked at as a 'reduction' of the Gladney 2-type eave.


David

[Tom]

... looks like Hoult is the first house in the archives to show the stepped eave.
House on the Mesa and the Stanely Marcus house (around the same time as Hoult) do not.

[SDR]

. . .but, those last two have stepped glass fenestration, a detail eventually put into practice at Walker. For what that's worth.

S

[Tom]

... I think that's a great observation. Marcus seems to be an effort to bring Mesa into reality and practical scale. While Walker, a "modest" Usonian, is the only built instance of that luxurious stepped glazing first conceived with Mesa.

I was looking closely at Marcus last night. Had not realized before that those long sharp knife like cantilevered beams are "aeroshades". They support retractable screens which shade from the Texas sun. In one rendering they cover the entire house. ...

The Avery file on Marcus is worth a look, although frustrating at times for incompleteness and blurred notes.

[SDR]

Until we are able to access new scans of the drawings (will we be able to view them ?) we are at the mercy of the resolution of Bruce's camera---I guess. At least an effort was made, long ago, to record these priceless documents for posterity (as they like to say).

S