Ennis-Brown-Nesbitt

[SDR]

Flagstones, as at Fallingwater (and at what Wright residence before that, other than Taliesin itself) ? Was that the original specification ? I'm nonplussed . . .

S

[Reidy]

The drawing I've seen says "shale" for the long hallway. Presumably the main rooms were wood.

[Roderick Grant]

Shale, flagstone ... just not white marble.

[SDR]

A mixture of lithic materials, one stridently gridded and another randomized and "natural," seems both unWrightian and unfortunate. So does white marble.

Were all the ground-floor rooms at the Martin house clad in tiny square tiles ? The kitchen there, like the walls, was intended to be white (?) glass.

S

[JimM]

A mixture of lithic materials, one stridently gridded and another randomized and "natural," seems both unWrightian and unfortunate. So does white marble.

Were all the ground-floor rooms at the Martin house clad in tiny square tiles ? The kitchen there, like the walls, was intended to be white (?) glass.

S

Except for the kitchen, the entire first floor is a 3/4" reddish-brown tile specified as "a dull red". The kitchen is linoleum tile, magnesite is used in the basement and on the second floort. The Barton house has wood floors throughout.

This "modern" house with reinforced concrete floors and almost six feet cantilevered soffits employing 28' long x 18" steel beams.... is all set on a rubble stone foundation. The many piers have common red brick cores faced with the slender, yellow-brown Roman vitreous brick; joints recessed 1/2" and gilded on the interior.

[SDR]

I was amazed and amused after coming across this Martin kitchen elevation and the note floating in its center.





It sounds like this last wasn't carried out ? I wonder what experience led Wright to confidently specify glass for the walls and floors of the kitchen . . .

S

[Duncan]

I have seen white glass paneled walls in both kitchens and bathrooms in early 20th c. buildings. It's a good material, and easier to clean than tiles,. Even more common are glass floor tiles. The bathroom floors in my 1925 house are 1" white glass hexagonal tiles. The tiles are as good as they were a century ago, although the grout has greyed.

If you google "glass kitchen walls" you will find scores of modern applications of glass backsplashes in kitchens, Much easier to keep clean than tiles as joints can be few and far between.

[SDR]

Huh. Sort of the equivalent of white porcelain-enameled (?) steel panels employed as exterior cladding, as in certain service stations or fast-food emporia of the last century. (White Tower,anyone ? Established in Milwaukee in 1926.) I have seen white (or green) opaque glass on interior surfaces, and your white glass tiles. Now I want to know if the Martin kitchen was originally equipped with glass flooring of one sort or another . . .

S

[Roderick Grant]

Weren't the tiny hex tiles, so popular in public restrooms at one time, outlawed because they contained that terrible poison lead? I think it was an overreaction to ban them. I don't know about others, but I was never tempted to sprawl on a public restroom floor and lick the tiles for a lead high.

[SDR]

Heh. I wasn't aware of that. Shades of the more recent phenomenon of asbestos-containing flooring being ripped out--in historically significant buildings, no less. (Much) more asbestos is released (and expensively contained) during such demolition than would ever be released from the intact floors. Bah . . .

S