Rosenwald School Lecture

[Pat Mahoney]

Jack Quinan will give a lecture at 7pm on Thursday. Nov. 12 at Buffalo's Anderson Gallery on the Darwin Martin financed Rosenwald School. The school was designed by Wright for the Hampton Institute in Norfolk,Virginia in 1927. The lecture is in conjunction with the exhibit : Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo Venture From the Larkin Building to Broadacre City


http://www.ubartgalleries.org/?gallery= ... type=event

http://www.ubartgalleries.org/?gallery= ... &eventID=3

[Palli Davis Holubar]

Wish I could go...

[Pat Mahoney]

Jack gave an insiteful lecture, it appears Rosenwald School was the first desert rubblestone proposed by Wright. Can anyone think an earlier example.

[JimM]

Rosenwald School was the first desert rubblestone proposed by Wright. Can anyone think an earlier example.

Quinan should know, and Wright did use the same "marbled" effect found on the Rosenwald perspective as on the first Taliesin West drawings.

There also appears to be a direct path from Rosenwald to TW. At the time he was just coming out of that '20's over the top geometric thing, still evident in the Rosenwald center mass. TW came along not much later, and there certainly are similarities found in the assumed rubble stone walls and angular framing of the two wings, i.e the drafting room and Garden Room.

Interesting that these similar designs were at opposite ends of the country. Virginia is not quite Arizona as far as site specific design goes!

From what I've had time to look into, there doesn't seem to be an earlier use of rubble stone walls. The only other somewhat ground breaking stone treatment was that used at Taliesin 1, and the similar Cutten project of the same year.

[Pat Mahoney]

The topic of rubble foundations came up in the question period following the lecture. It was noted that Darwin Martin had invested in a subdivision north of Buffalo with a house designed by Ernest Flagg. The house employed a structural mat with rubble foundations and sewer pipes in the slab to distibute forced air heat.

Wright was instructed to review the construction type by Martin in August of 1927. Wright replied that the slab would be to cold. Martin thought the construction method was innovative due to the inexpensive labor required.

Quinan also showed a second version of the design drawn by Wright for Rosenwald that has yet to be published. This scheme is at the Library of Congress and shows a larger context for the design.

[Education Professor]

Interesting info......my dissertation involved the Rosenwald Schools so I am curious to learn more, especially about the yet-to-be-published design....

EP

[Pat Mahoney]

The larger context included an elevated approach with a series of stairs at its outer edge, seems similar to the entry sequence of the Imperial Hotel.
Here is a small image of the drawing from the LOC website.


http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?i ... mb,hec,krb

[Roderick Grant]

Desert rubblestone notwithstanding, Ocotilla had more to do with the evolution of TW's forms than Rosenwald.

[Pat Mahoney]

One of Quinan's points was that this design had been mislabeled for years as designed for La Jolla, Ca. rather than designed by Wright while in La Jolla.

[Palli Davis Holubar]

It was a important commitment of the Rosenwald Foundation schools to build these small schools in the segregated south. Did Quinan explain how Wright was approached by the Chicago Foundation? Was the school Wright designed simply too big for the sites they serviced? In the context of white paint clapboard one room school houses, Wright's design would have give majesty to the Rosenwald endeavor. And I suspect, would have inspired a few children to be architects- perhaps advanced the diversity of the profession ahead of the nation's foot-dragging.
BTW, the Rosenwald Foundation was required by charter to disperse all funds within 25 years after the patriarch died. It is a fascinating & unique story in American Philanthropy.

[Pat Mahoney]

Quinan Explained that Martin was the connection to Rosenwald. Martin and Julius Rosenwald worked on the WWI war effort jointly (dollar a year men). Martin also had connections to Booker T. Washington who had spent time at Hampton.

Quinan also quoted a letter than explained one reason this wasn't built was because Hampton Institute wanted something much larger and more expensive. The design committe was controlled by an establishment architect, that did not favor Wright's involvement even if Martin agreed to pay portions of the construction costs. All in all it was a very informative lecture, one of his best.

[Pat Mahoney]

Wright's design was based on a Rosenwald Ten Teacher School with the addition of a central preformance space, something Wright thought essential to a school.

[Education Professor]

Many thanks for the insightful posts. The historical record does indicate that the connection btw Wright and Rosenwald came through Martin. Rosenwald's design committee was tightly controlled through professors at George Peabody College in Nashville (they published the official Rosenwald design book entitled Community School Plans in the 1920's), and I'm sure they didn't fully appreciate Wright's innovative design.

I'm glad that the La Jolla/Hampton issue was addressed by Quinan. I always found it confusing that a Rosenwald School would be designed for California since the program was almost exclusive to the segregrated South.

Palli, I agree with you that Rosenwald's experiment was very interesting and noble. The Rosenwald Fund helped to improve African American education throughout the segregated South. It provided partial funding for the construction of over 5,000 schools in 15 states from 1917 until the 1930's. The work by the Rosenwald Fund was very influential in school building design, especially with schools built through funding from Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

Additional research is needed into the relationship btw Wright and Rosenwald.....if only time permitted doing so. Thanks for shedding some light on this interesting topic.

EP

[Palli Davis Holubar]

Wright lived a long time and modern American history could be taught through his life: the women's, anti-war, back-to-the-land movements, utopian(?) communities and racial, urban and surburban studies, etc.

There is a wonderful graphic childrens graphic book:

Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Boston Weatherford

An important glimpse of American history and a poignant story about the importance of a building- however humble- and the significance of community (if not publicly funded) education. (I am channeling my father, a kid lit prof, here: history shouldn't wait for the textbooks.)

There is also The Rosenwald Schools of the American South from the series new Perspectives on the History of the South, by Mary S. Hoffschelle.

[M. Guerin]

My remembered impression of Wright's letter re: the Flagg house on Keswick is that Wright thought Flagg was trying to heat the slab. He wasn't. His innovation was to add a blower to a hot air furnace so the furnace wouldn't have to go in a basement. He called for insulating the buried ducts. Wright's comment was something like "I wouldn't want my baby to play on those floors." Curious that he turns around and designs for the Martins a gardener's cottage with a slab. He also wrote something like, "I tried it in California". I'm puzzled over if was was commenting on a slab foundation, a heated slab, or forced air.
DDM was quite taken with Flagg. He suggested his son build a Flagg house next door to the one on Keswick.
Flagg used ferro-concrete very early, so it's likely Wright knew of him. Flagg called his wall "mosaic rubblestone". Had a patent for it (could have been for the system of erecting it). I don't know if the two are identical.
I walk my dog past the Keswick house and enjoy speculating that it is where Wright got the idea for desert masonary.