Wright Chat

Wright probably would have rejected the commission. Casinos don't have windows... However, had he taken it on, the broadloom would have been fabulous. Imagine the cocktail dresses, the water features, the largest carport known to man at the entrance. Leaking skylights and table games don't mix well either. He would have had fun with raised pits for the pit bosses. The Biltmore would give some clues as to how he might have approached the task. Holdem anyone? By the way my wife read this and said I have too much time on my hands. She also suggested that I add a smilley.

Casinos don't have windows...

Ah, but there are always the Johnson Wax, Larking bldg examples--hardly any windows on the ground floors.



I don't think that Mr. Wright could match the casino-like rug in Monona Terrace, though.

On the plus side, a rug like that would eliminate the need for windows, and possibly electricity as well.

In 1961, Bruce Goff designed the Viva Hotel and Casino for a site in Las Vegas. The design would have been the first high-rise hotel on the strip. The design featured an open atrium space, predating John Portman's Atlanta Hyatt Regency by three years.



The exterior concrete walls would have had exposed aggregates of quartz, giving a white iridescent sparkle at all hours. Goff had plans to have Erte design the accessories and wardrobe for the staff. The Viva Hotel and Casino would have set a high design standard for Las Vegas.

May have been nice. But, no one ever accused Las Vegas of having high design standards. It just wouldn't be Vegas. It's all about the glitz. schmaltz. sleeze, vulgarity and poor taste that makes Vegas interesting. This does raise an interesting issue though, the interplay of poor taste and good design, not necessarily mutually exclusive. I have yet to see the newer Vegas as I haven't been there in 10 years or so. I would imagine however, that venues such as the Wynn and the Belagio have some great design elements much of which is executed in poor taste. Vegas is one vast architectural folly anyway which by the very nature of the definition is poor taste. Must visit the casinos in Monaco again; the Europeans have good taste don't they? If only to toss the bones one more time with the prince...

May have been nice. But, no one ever accused Las Vegas of having high design standards. It just wouldn't be Vegas. It's all about the glitz. schmaltz. sleeze, vulgarity and poor taste that makes Vegas interesting. This does raise an interesting issue though, the interplay of poor taste and good design, not necessarily mutually exclusive. I have yet to see the newer Vegas as I haven't been there in 10 years or so. I would imagine however, that venues such as the Wynn and the Belagio have some great design elements much of which is executed in poor taste. Vegas is one vast architectural folly anyway which by the very nature of the definition is poor taste. Must visit the casinos in Monaco again; the Europeans have good taste don't they? If only to toss the bones one more time with the prince...

sorry for the unintentional double post

Some years ago I was taking Charlie Bray, then president of the Johnson Foundation ("Wingspread") to his first game at Wrigley Field. I told him I wondered what a Wright-designed ballpark would look like (Buckminster Fuller designed a replacement for Ebbetts Field in the early 1950s...it looked a bit like what the Astrodome ended up looking like). About three years ago I got my answer: Miller Park, the home of the Milwaukee Brewers, which has a retractable roof. The roof has been plagued by terrible leaking problems, most noticably during the All Star Game Home Run Derby.



Mark Hertzberg

I don't recall specifics, but Wright did design some sports stadium like buildings. I can't remember for whom. I'll have to thumb through my monographs and find out more. Until then, does anyone know? I seem to think it was a basebal field or something like that.

Midway Gardens. They held the Beer Drinking Olympics there the second year it was open.

Wright did design some sports stadium like buildings. I can't remember for whom. I'll have to thumb through my monographs and find out more. Until then, does anyone know?

What comes to my mind is the civic center that FLW designed for Pittsburgh Point Park, late 1940s. I seem to recall one of the sections showed a basketball court. damned if I can find it in a book at the moment, though, sorry.

They held the Beer Drinking Olympics there the second year it was open.

Ah, yes--during the shortlived microbrewery of Mr. Wright's--The Shining Brew.

I thought I saw somewhere that he designed a racetrack, and also a stadium-like exhibition/fantasy structure for the Marin County grounds. The Guggenheim exhibition structure was a very small prototype.

Very pretty Mr. Spring Green, very pretty! I also forgot to add that after Midway Gardens he designed the zigguart for downtown Baghdad which was to be a luge run for the 1958 desert olympics.

If I remember the Broadacre City model correctly, there was a stadium that appeared to comprise several concentric circles ... sort of a 360-degree version of the stadium at Pompeii, or perhaps a flatter rendering of the Automobile Objective.