Wright Chat

Don M. Stromquist House "Crystalwood" Bountiful, Utah 1959:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elusiveblu ... 7205/show/

The colorful history:

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%2 ... RtS429.htm

I wonder what made Mr Wright go "up" in some of these late designs. To those who have visited such houses, do they suffer at all from a lack of the intimacy afforded by the lower, flat-roofed spaces of earlier Usonians ?

S

What I wonder is if the windows following the pitched roof instead of the horizontal line cause a disquieting effect. The photos of Teater interiors make the floor look as if it's sloped.

In regards to the Teater and Stromquist windows, I always have had the feeling that Wright was playing around with the geological seismic events which created the great mountain ranges. He saved this motif for mountainous sites. No quiet prairie horizon line in Wyoming or Utah...

Ah -- that explains it no doubt. Perhaps the soaring ceilings too ?


S

Maybe there is doubt SDR. Didn't Teater show up first for a client on the California coast?

Doug

Could you possibly be thinking of the Boomer House in Arizona, which was originally designed as a California beach, view bungalow?

Anyway, there is no shortage of seismic activity in California, and it is surprisingly mountainous along certain parts of the coastline. Do you know the original location?

And a correction of a previous post of mine: I just realized that Teater is in Idaho, not Wyoming. Note the angled fenestration similar to that at Stromquist:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_OLJ1m43rLvk/Swn1M ... ustDet.jpg

As it exists today:

http://www.jetsetmodern.com/whiting.htm

(Boomer has a steeply canted roof -- but no sign of sloping mullions or muntins.)

In Blair the glazing is a large-scaled window grid virtually identical to those of Stromquist and Teater, except that its horizontals are . . . horizontal. It resides in Wyoming on a relatively flat site, with hills in the background. The very next commission in Storrer is Teater. So, Mr Wright may have recognized a lacking in Blair -- and an opportunity at Teater to improve upon it, inspired by the mountainous location ? In Stromquist he apparently decided to repeat the performance -- having been satisfied with the invention at Teater ?

Ablin, which immediately precedes Stromquist, has a gabled roof and a full-wall glass termination in which a pair of long muntins parallel the roof planes above.

SDR

There is another client who received the Teater scheme, nearly identical, but I cannot remember the name. I believe it came before Teater, but I am traveling in our little Airstream trailer with no space for my references. It is in "FLW Complete Works, Vol 3 1943 - 1959".

Also interesting to see the original scheme for Stromquist as a long narrow house, only the living room similar to the built version, but having the same window framing idea. It is in the Monographs.

Doug

Good memory!

The other studio, with date also from 1952, was the Elizabeth Banning-Moorehead Studio, nearly identical to Teater, but to be located in "Marin County, California." The plans were in Aaron Green's possession until 1991, when he sent them to the FLlW Archives. There is some confusion around the projects.

See page 294 for the EB-M Studio and 324 for the Teater Studio in Complete Works Wright 1943-1959.

Thanks Peter, but it fails me a lot these days. Archie Teater was among several who received a dusted off plan thinking it was all original. As I recall the presentation perspective drawing was the same for both, with modifications to the surrounding landscape.

As an aside, there is a collection (maybe twenty) of Archie Teater's paintings at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota displayed nicely along one of the passageways in the "subway" level, if anyone is visiting.

Doug

Stromquist:



plan and photo © W A Storrer






Mayhem -- or the predictable "growth" of a crystal ?


S

dkottum wrote:Thanks Peter, but it fails me a lot these days. Archie Teater was among several who received a dusted off plan thinking it was all original. As I recall the presentation perspective drawing was the same for both, with modifications to the surrounding landscape.

As an aside, there is a collection (maybe twenty) of Archie Teater's paintings at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota displayed nicely along one of the passageways in the "subway" level, if anyone is visiting.

Doug

The way I understand the explanation from Pfeiffer, the Archie Teater name and location was erased from the plans and Elizabeth Banning-Moorehead Studio Marin County was inserted instead. But it shows up a couple of pages before Teater. Strange... Could it be that Teater was in the works for some time, and they needed a quick drawing to appease the California client, knowing that it would or could be altered?

SDR wrote:
Mayhem -- or the predictable "growth" of a crystal ?


S

A little of both?

Pfieffer writes in reference to the unrealized Elizabeth Banning-Morehead Studio: "Careful scrutiny of the title blocks revealed that the titles had been changed from that of the Archie Teater Studio (project 5211)"

From Jet Set Modern article:

"The idea to approach Frank Lloyd Wright to design their studio came from Pat Teater, who was raised by her grandmother in Oak Park. Pat had been a student at the Abraham Lincoln Center, founded by Wright’s famous Unitarian minister uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Indeed, she claimed to have been in Uncle Jenkin’s last class, before he died in 1918. Pat mentioned this connection when she wrote to Wright in October of 1951, asking him to design their studio. Though it is hard today to imagine an architect of Wright’s stature accepting a commission as small as the Teater studio (he was paid $1,500), it was common practice for Wright. Indeed, it could be argued that designing small, inexpensive, dwellings was more important to him than creating larger, more elaborate projects like the Guggenheim Museum. The Teaters were clearly delighted when Wright agreed to design their studio, and were thrilled when they saw his design. “Such excitement we have never had!�, wrote Pat."

So, October 1951 was the date in which the Teaters engaged the services of Wright...

Is the house currently occupied? thanks