Hypothetical question

[rightwaswright]

If you had limited God-like powers and could restore only one of the following demolished Wright masterpieces to reality, which one would you choose and why?



Husser Residence

Larkin Building

Midway Gardens

Imperial Hotel

Ocatillo Desert Camp

Pauson Residence

[rightwaswright]

Because it was such a revolutionary building for it's time. And it was beautiful, to boot.

[flwright]

Its a toss-up for me -- Imperial Hotel or Midway Gardens. These are two very large projects that, despite their size, are very detail oriented and different from the other buildings Wright was designing at the time. Wright's ideas are completely different to experience on such a large scale and both commissions allowed Wright an amazing amount of extra freedom and creativity. I am sure Wright learned a lot from these two buildings and later used similar or revised theories in later buildings.

[Roderick Grant]

The Pauson House, because it would involve eliminating the freeway that took its place, and because it's one of the greatest designs of FLW's career. Ocatillo was so simple that it could be replicated without much trouble, and should be, far from the madding crowd so it would survive this time. A perfectly realized Husser House would be very illuminating; the degree of sophistication at that early stage of FLW's career is extraordinary. Then there are the three "big shouldered" buildings that put Wright on the commercial map. The expressionistic trend of his architecture in the 'teens (including German, Bogk and Bach) proved to be a dead end, but Imperial and Midway were endlessly fascinating anyway.

[JimM]

Each of these building are contenders. My first choice has to be the Pauson House. It represented what he did best: simplicity and perfection in residential design where complexities continue to reveal themselves. It addressed site, scale, materials, approach, and interesting detailing representative of the master. While this is true of many of his buildings, this should be at the top of any list if only because it looks really neat.



The large projects all speak for themselves, but Larkin is superior. I never understood the over the top confusion of the Imperial's detailing, and it seems to mirror his personal life at the time more than anything else. Yes, a great building, but even Midway has a clarity of purpose more easily experienced. Nobody enjoyed a party more than Frank, and that is evident in Midway Gardens.



But as great architecture, the Larkin Building is superior to both. That such a young architect assimilated and applied engineering, art, and purpose to such a degree is astonishing. It was the same solution that worked more than 30 years later for Johnson Wax, and predated John Portman by more tha 60! For someone out to break the box, Wright also knew how to perfect it. The movement through the building, the master stroke of the corner stair towers "creating the articulation I wanted", etc. all justify what great architecture should be. Just imagine the multiple purposes it would still provide today but for stupidity and shortsightedness.



It is no accident the Conservancy uses it as their symbol, and is arguably the greatest architectural loss of our time.

[SpringGreen]

Dear Roderick Grant:



I'm curious as to why you wrote this:

the expressionistic trend of his architecture in the 'teens (including German, Bogk and Bach)

What do you think makes these buildings expressionist? I always had a sense that expressionist architecture used more dynamism and monumentality than what you see in Wright's work. Actually, I think Lloyd Wright was one of the better expressionist architects in the US, in the 'teens-twenties, if that gives you a sense of the look of the architecture I'm thinking of.

[Roderick Grant]

Lexically the term "expressionistic" fits the "Sturm Und Drang" of FLW's post Oak Park years perfectly. From the late Prairie years until Willey, FLW was adrift, looking for inspiration that was hard to come by. He had been-there-done-that as far as the Prairie aesthetic was concerned, and he was looking for new avenues of development. In a way, the years from 1910 to 1933 were very much like the 1890s, a time of searching for his voice ... like a middle-aged singer slipping from tenor to baritone. Even the block houses of the 20s led nowhere. Willey was a revelation, and everything after that followed in logical progression. While there is much to be admired about Midway, Imperial, Barnsdall, Ennis, etc., as a template for future development, they did not provide the way. The block houses were superior to the brick buildings, because they employed a system of construction that he was later able to develop into a useful grammar. But Midway, Imperial, German, Back and Bogk are each individualistic and have no progeny.



I don't see the term "expressionistic" applied to Lloyd at all, at any time in his career.

[SpringGreen]

In Lloyd Wright's work, I'm thinking of the forms rather than the underlying social repercussions of Expressionist Architecture. There is a monumentality to Lloyd Wright's early work that struck me when I first saw Lloyd Wright: The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr. It's different from his father's, although related certainly (the sureness of his design and understanding of the interrelatedness of the building's form, its function, and its decorative details and furnishings).



His work immediately reminded me of early Gropius, particularly the Sommerfeld House (pictures here and here). I see Lloyd's work in the 20s-30s as having a monumentality of form, the use of chevrons and what appears to be handcrafted, vs. machine made, details, such as in the Sowden house (pictures on this page), or other buildings in shown in the book Lloyd Wright (pictures: his home and studio, and the Samuel-Navarro House).

[Mobius]

Another vote for Pauson.



I wish there were just more photos of it!

[Roderick Grant]

I agree that it would be wonderful to have more photos of Pauson. I saw a color photo once in an issue of GQ some years ago. There was a story about a model which showed her posing on the terrace at the bedroom end of the house. John Geiger also has color slides. Hopefully he will find a way to publish them someday.

[Palli Davis Holubar]

I want to sense the public buildings - But I think the loss of a FLW home is deeper felt. The Pauson House must have been a marvel of sculptural simplicity. As a midwesterner, the desert landscape would give me a different take on the sense of shelter...those sharp-edged tapered rubble masses and the redwood horizontal lines, those tall sliver windows...What is shelter in the desert? I think that building, the intimacy of the home, could teach me well. Palli

[therman7g]

That sure is a neat house.



http://www.guerrerophoto.com/wright-arc ... erior1.htm

[Ed Jarolin]

After looking at those photos, none of which I'd seen before, my

vote would have to be cast for the Pauson House. What a great loss

this was.

[JimM]

[quote="therman7g"]That sure is a neat house.



What a wonderful picture. And what a surprise, showing a seldom seen angle as opposed to the common living room "prow" view.



That house looked even better than I had imagined.