Plaster Wall with Brick Below

[pharding]

Is anyone here aware of an example of a Frank Lloyd Wright Building, preferably in the Prairie Period, with interior plaster over interior brick below? Photographs would be great. Thanks.

[SDR]

Making a quick study of the photographic record, I do not find a single instance in the early work in which, when brick and plaster occur in the same plane, the two materials are not separated by a horizontal strip or molding of wood. Numerous examples of brick fireplaces always exhibit this characteristic, no matter at what datum the transition occurs.

There are few if any places where a low wall of brick -- like a wainscote panel -- is surmounted by plaster; the Coonley living room fireplace has brick wings that extend a few feet on either side of the main mass. They are capped with wood, above which is plaster. At the Martin house the brick is in the form of full-height piers. The grand-daddy of the effect mentioned above appears on the exterior of the Winslow house, where the first-story brick facade is capped with a stone crown molding -- above which occurs the modeled plaster frieze.

S D R

[SDR]

The single most commonly seen detail in Prairie-period Wright is a simple flat band of wood, 3 1/2" or 4" wide, sometimes wider, running horizontally at the top of a brick fireplace and extending beyond, sometimes all the way around the room at door-head height, above which is the bottom of the plaster ceiling turned down to form the top portion of the wall. This is often recessed from the wood band to create a niche, shelf, or light trough.

Surprisingly, I do not find a wainscote-height brick wall . . . anywhere. The Coonley playhouse has brick piers of that height, surmounted by blocky projecting caps above which are simple fat stained-wood columns. Outdoors, stone caps brick; inside, it is wood that performs that function -- in residential work, at least.

S

[Laurie Virr]

Surely the fundamental principle of all architectural detailing is that two different materials should never meet in the same plane, be it horizontal or vertical.
This is because it is impossible to get a satisfactory joint between them.

An age old tenet, this should be self evident, but at worst should be taught in Architecture 101. Its expression is made manifest in traditional detailing, where the joint between a door frame and a plaster wall surface, for example, is covered with the abomination we call an architrave.

One of the great virtues of the Usonian houses, in comparison with those of the Prairie era, is that FLLW dispensed with such detailing. Instead of a plethora of rough work, redeemed by the application of trim, he demanded that the workmanship and detailing be such that trim was not necessary.

[SDR]

Here are some examples of Mr Wright's dealing with brick, wood, and plaster in interior spaces.

Coonley

Up- and down-lighting is concealed behind the upper trim band


Dana

D Martin

May

C E Brown

Stockman

Coonley Playhouse

Midway Gardens

[SDR]

One detail we might expect from a Craftsman-era architect would be a rowlock course, perhaps coped (as if to the weather), as a cap to a brick wall, inside or out. Above this would be a slightly recessed plane of plaster, stucco, or wood siding. Mr Wright was no Craftsman architect, however (as he would be the first to tell us), and he stayed well away from such "crude effects." Note the generous applications of wood trim -- albeit of chaste and machine-friendly rectangular section -- in most of the above examples.

By the time Wright got to the point in his career where a tidy rowlock course seemed the right way to finish a brick wall (as opposed to stone copings) he was no longer using much plaster. And I don't think such a wall appears on the interior of any Usonian-era house, anyway . . . exceptions gratefully received, of course.

S D R

[Roderick Grant]

The May House living room photo above shows a trifling bit of brick and plaster adjacent without wood trim separating them. It would never happen in the same plane. Each material in a FLW interior seems to be resolved, and the wood or stone trim that separates different materials is also resolved ... except for one instance: In the Bogk House, wood ceiling trim (with recessed lights) wraps around the living room, up the stairs to the dining room, hangs a left and slams into the kitchen wall (M4/113,119). This particular wood trim doesn't separate different materials, it just plaster on either side, but I've always found this detail puzzling (so has Barbara Elsner).

[SDR]

[SDR]

Wright here skirts disaster: in many places his brick and plaster are in that dastardly co-planar condition, rescued only by a single band of dark-stained hardwood covering the join. Whew !

Perhaps by 1916 he's tiring of these wood-molding games . . . ?

S

[SDR]

Perhaps Barbara Elsner failed to note that the light-molding begins in a way similar to its termination, as revealed in the photo below ?

These Futagawa photos from the early 'seventies may reveal him at a time when he was too polite to edit he subjects' furnishings and effects . . .

[pharding]

Thanks SDR. That is quite helpful to see the pattern. In a few days I'll post why I posed the question.

[SDR]

It was a pleasurable exploration -- as are all such endeavors when Wright's work is the subject. Of course I look forward to seeing what you're up to. . .


S

[egads]

pharding, always with the strip tease.

[Palli Davis Holubar]

As another aside- those of you who have been in the Bogk Residence: What is the material of the open work panels covering the top of the curtain treatment. wood, metal? Has anyone seen the detail sheet? Wright?

[Reidy]

Wood as I recall, but I wouldn't venture what kind. They might be part of the Taliesin interior redesign of the 60s.