Stinson Library photos

[PrairieMod]

Always in Wright's shadow, it's time to give "poor Walter" his due. Check out a new post on Walter Burley Griffin's Stinson Memorial Library.



How much did Walter influence Frank? The Beachy House and Dana House seem to have several qualities that appear very "Griffinesque." The Emery House (designed around the same time as its neighbor, the Henderson house, seems much more daring and forward thinking. How much credit should Griffin be given for the development of the "Prairie Style"?

[Roderick Grant]

The Stinson Library is a wonderful building, and more should be published about Griffin's work. Too bad Stinson is off the beaten path, like the fascinating Duncan House by Bruce Goff, also hiding somewhere in southern Illinois. Griffin's influence on Beachy is obvious, but I don't see much at Dana that could be attributed to him. What specifically do you see? Griffin was like Schindler in that his own aesthetic was so strong, that, even as a "pencil in the hand of a master" he could not suppress his own creativity. But as to cross-pollination, I think that FLW and WBG had little to no effect on one another. The single point at which they almost meet, the four-square plan, differs enough from one to the other to make too much of a connection credible. Their detailing, fenestration, use of materials and scale were completely different.

[PrairieMod]

Maybe it's a wrong assumption, but specifically the way the roof is handled appears similar to many of Griffin's other treatments. Maybe it would be better to attribute it to a more Japanese influence on both Wright and Griffin. Wasn't Griffin the lead draftsman on that house?

[Roderick Grant]

I'm not sure if Griffin was the lead on Dana, but since he was the most important employee in the Oak Park office at the time, he probably was. The one Dana attribute that might call to mind WBG is the use of gabled roofs instead of FLW's usual hipped. But the detailing of the Dana roof is much more elegant than WBG's Beachy roof. And I think Beachy is undeniably Griffin. The Dana commission overall is such a unique design, so complex, costly and unlike everything else (even though it is the progeny of Hickox like so many other designs) that it's hard to be certain about authorship of details. At least for me.

[PSTraveler]

You may be interested to see some photos I recently took of Griffin's Ricker House in Grinnell, Iowa. It's not quite as out of the way as the Anna library, especially since Sullivan's famous bank is in the same town. However, it was several years after my first visit to the bank that I learned of the Ricker House's existence. Grinnell College now owns the house, so I believe it will be well taken care of. There's a link on my site to their pages about the house.



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