Use of Frank Lloyd Wright's Name with Massaro / Charoudi

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:34 am

The Massaro / Charoudi House is generally mentioned as being designed by Frank Lloyd Wright which is inaccurate. It is accurate to say inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright or based upon a design by Frank Lloyd Wright. Can Massaro just make that claim without permission of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation? Apparently no fees were paid the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for the architect to base the working drawings on the FLW design.

KevinW · Post by **KevinW** » Sat Nov 20, 2010 8:38 am

well I think the house should not be able to use the reference based on that horrible stone work alone. I cannot believe the Foundation isnt all over this...
My friend Earl Nisbet apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright in the early 1950's. Quality well respected apprentice, left on good terms. Recently he attempted to sell some original abstraction art work on Ebay. In his description, he simply mentioned that he was a FLW apprentice. The artwork was actually quite beautiful. When the foundation found out, they made Ebay remove the listing because he used the name Frank Lloyd Wright. Can you believe this?....OH and 100% of the winning bid was going to Taliesin Preservation....
More that one apprentice that I have known has mentioned that Wright encouraged them to use his name to help them in their careers.

Rood · Post by **Rood** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 4:17 pm

Wright, where it belongs
PASSIONS
A new house is believed to be the first since the architect's death to rise on its intended site.
June 09, 2005|Diane Haithman | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Colleagues describe Joe Massaro as a can-do kind of guy.

When he heard that 11-acre Petre Island in Lake Mahopac was for sale, the 58-year-old retired contractor spent five months going back and forth to the island by motorboat looking for the owner, leaving notes and dodging dogs protecting the property. When Massaro finally found the owner, he traded him the island for a home on the lake that Massaro and his wife, Barbara, owned.

That characteristic persistence would serve him well when he discovered the island came with an added perk: Frank Lloyd Wright had made preliminary drawings in 1950 for a house on the island for a previous owner, and Massaro made it his mission to built it.

When the 5,000-square-foot single-story, four-bedroom home constructed of glass, concrete and mahogany wood is completed this fall, Wright experts believe it will be the only Wright home design built after his death in the location for which it was intended.

A.K. Charoudi, the owner of Petre Island when Wright drew the plans, had completed the project's guest cottage but ran out of money before the main house could be constructed. Dod Charoudi, A.K.'s son, provided Massaro with the drawings.

The home's most dramatic feature is a 28-foot cantilevered section jutting over the lake, so low that it practically rests on the water. This cantilever is believed to be the largest that Wright ever designed -- almost double the size of the 15-foot cantilevers that distinguish Wright's most famous home design, Fallingwater, near Mill Run, Pa., with multiple levels looming over a waterfall.

Of about 1,100 designs the prolific architect created, only about half were built during his lifetime. A number of unbuilt Wright designs, both residences and public buildings, have been constructed since the architect's death in 1959.

According to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, established in 1940 as the repository of the life work of Wright, only those designs built under the auspices of the foundation's Original Unbuilt Program, completed by architects trained at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, can be designated a Frank Lloyd Wright Design.

Massaro engaged in a brief legal battle with the foundation, and neither side is at liberty to provide details. But the upshot is that Massaro will have to call his house "inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright" rather than a Frank Lloyd Wright Design.

"We just couldn't get together," observes Massaro. "But I think they made a big mistake."

*

sjnorris · Post by **sjnorris** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 5:36 pm

For Sale

http://www.privateislandsonline.com/petra-island.htm

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Sun May 01, 2011 10:23 am

Gross misstatements from the ad that are fraudulent:

"...featuring two houses designed by famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright".

"The main residence was built in 2008 from one of Wright's final plans, and is considered by some to be one of the most spectacular designs of his career."

I understand that Frank Lloyd Wright's name is trademarked. I cannot believe that his name is being allowed to be used for commercial purposes like this. The FLW Foundation tracks down people hawking unauthorized cheap FLW trinkets. I cannot imagine that they will let this nonsense stand.

Deke · Post by **Deke** » Sun May 01, 2011 8:28 pm

FLW name is trademarked, but a trademark only applies to commercial uses. The trademark holder can slap it on anything whether or not FLW had anything to do with the product. Or they can use the name to endorse another product (like Dockers did). The trademark does not extend to all uses and the Charoudi house was at least based on a FLW design. How faithful to the original design is a matter of debate, but even structures built but altered in Wright's lifetime are called FLW designs.

Deke

JPB_1971 · Post by **JPB_1971** » Mon May 02, 2011 10:38 am

Leibermeister:

Agree with you 100% on the horrible masonry work...in some spots it looks like that stone veneer stuff used to trim tract homes...in other spots where the "desert masonry" style was used it appears that way too few stones were sunk into the forms, so that it appears like a concrete wall with a stone floating in the field here and there.

It would be interesting to know how many of the sites of his unbuilt works remain undeveloped and otherwise available to construct w/o the need to demolish existing structures.

Deke · Post by **Deke** » Mon May 02, 2011 11:53 am

Is the original site all that important? I can see orientation and general topography to be important in some works, but many designs were reused in various locales for various clients. Even desert masonry was specified for homes far from the desert southwest.

Deke

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:21 pm

The original site for the Masieri Memorial would have been essential to its construction, and that site did remain undeveloped for many years, but I think that now it has a building on it.

outside in · Post by **outside in** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:27 pm

yes, Roderick, just as the site for the The Massaro / Charoudi House was important for the design, but now it has a building on it!

peterm · Post by **peterm** » Mon May 02, 2011 3:43 pm

Aside from the obvious bad masonry work at Massaro/Charoudi, what are the other areas where people have noticed the completed house deviating from the Wright design?

outside in · Post by **outside in** » Mon May 02, 2011 4:21 pm

how shall i start - there were finishes applied to different rooms that were not consistent to the overall design, i.e., a "decorator" approach wherein each room had its own "personality", for one. Secondly, the proportions of the Living Room are horrible - a bowling alley with sill heights inappropriately set. It's almost as if Wright was still working out the house when the design suddenly stopped, leaving bad proportions, etc. that Wright would have undoubtedly corrected in the working drawing stage. Finally, and I don't know how to describe it - there is no "spirit" there - just a series of disjointed rooms assembled inside an exterior form.

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:18 pm

The completed building has the character of a schematic design, at the 15% point of an architect's services, that was then finished by a mediocre architect and then built by a mediocre contractor without an architect's involvement. The detailing and resolution of the design are dreadful. The design has none of the refinement, elegance, and visual richness of a Frank Lloyd Wright Building. There is much more to architecture than a schematic design. At best the finished building is a crude cartoon of a Frank Lloyd Wright Architectural Work.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Mon May 02, 2011 10:53 pm

That seems about right. Perhaps, for a change, someone will acquire the property and make some real improvements, bringing it closer to the Wrightian ideal rather than further away. There's nowhere to go but "up" ? At least it's on the right site !

SDR

JPB_1971 · Post by **JPB_1971** » Tue May 03, 2011 10:45 am

Does anyone know if what (at least they look this way to me materials-wise) appears to be poured concrete skylights in one of the photos are original to the design? The choice of materials here and its use in this context is oddly evocative of Lautner for some reason rather than Wright. I would think Wright would have trimmed them in wood to continue the ceiling materials treatment.