Wright goes to Arkansas

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 10:48 am

Most if not all of the woodwork ? This project represents one step in the continuum whose end is whole-cloth recreation of the architect's work.

To confirm that the fireplace is being correctly recreated, see photo on page 5 of this thread . . .

SDR

DRN · Post by **DRN** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 11:44 am

The Bachman-Wilson house was completely disassembled with only its finish carpentry, millwork, casework, steel stair, hardware, fixtures, and glass relocated. All masonry, roof and floor framing, slabs, plumbing, mechanical, and electric stayed in Millstone NJ.

By contrast, the somewhat related Gordon house, was moved in the same manner, but with a significant portion of the wood framed second floor moved fully intact and reset on the new masonry structure.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:02 pm

There is nothing unusual about this sort of thing. The Pope House, being mostly of wood, was able to be taken apart and moved about with ease, though the brick and concrete elements were undoubtedly new each time. The parts of Northome moved for the recreation at the Met were mainly wood trim and art glass. Since each piece of wood trim had to be refined slightly to fit together as seamlessly as original, the entire scale was reduced by 1/4" per foot. What Tom Monaghan bought of David Henken's salvage of the Usonian Exhibition House consisted of perfs, plywood panels and a few bricks.

There is nothing wrong with that approach. They are not relocating Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. These are building products that are easily replaced without losing any of the original intent. When materials that are no longer available have to be obtained, it is a problem. The cost to fabricate the wisteria tile for the DD Martin fireplace restoration is going to be greater than the original cost of the entire estate.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:04 pm

It helped that Gordon was moved "down the street," so to speak. Hauling Bachman-Wilson half way across the country would have been too challenging. There really was no other way to do it.

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 5:59 pm

2 stick close to Wright home

David

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 12:41 pm

Reconstructing the Frank Lloyd Wright House at Crystal Bridges - [1:10]

David

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:02 pm

@ :23 seconds gives an answer to the roof framing.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:43 pm

Eight screenshots from the video:

1

I'll call this the south side of the house. We see the partially completed roof framing. Paired 2-by lumber appears to capture the mahogany window-wall posts.

2

Looking west. Paired rafters, with pitched upper edges, capture a (new) 2-by rafter, which will be the visible portion of the roof structure.

3

The north side. Posts between windows support the lower rafter -- which here supports the paired rafters above.

4

South. The 1970 addition beyond the kitchen, at right, has apparently been eliminated in the reconstruction.

5

North side of the living room. Mahogany finish panels are inserted between the visible rafters.

6

Looking east. The south-wall posts are notched to carry the visible rafter.

7

Looking east, above . . .

8

and below.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:58 pm

Storrer's plan (1993) has north at the carport end of the house; his text says "The structure is angled 45 degrees east of north" . . . whatever that means. The finished wood is mahogany, a substitution for cypress.

Storrer posits a progenitor design, for Ellinwood (1941), and suggests the McCallum project of 1938 as an earlier genesis. He mentions the living-room balconies at Penfield andTurkel, and says "The south end of Turkel is a Usonian Automatic block version of the Wilson house."

Early supervision was by Morton Delson; the house was completed without Taliesin supervision.

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 8:42 pm

Thanks for doing that. The captions are helpful too.
Getting a inside look at this is rare.
Wonder what the section of those long southside columns are... 2x18?
Wonder exactly how they're pinned.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 9:24 pm

Mmm. Perhaps more like 2", or even 3" ? (If so, they'd have to be notched to the thickness of the visible rafters, where they are captured by the upper rafter pair.) If I had the relevant Monograph I'd probably find some drawings. Those columns aren't so deep all the way to the slab, are they ?

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 6:57 am

I think they are. Slide #6: I think you can see the column depth through the windows. Overall dimension of those members looks roughly something like 2in x 18in x 20ft.
Wonder how they're secured at the slab? Must have something to do with the famous zinc strip but seems like that connection might need something more.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:25 am

I'm far from being an engineer. I know concepts, that's it really. And the framing here, like in so many of his structures, makes me scratch my head. I would not have thought that structural wood could be used with such a seemingly low slenderness ratio. The weak axis is perpendicular to the 18" dimension. If the column really is 20' high it appears to be braced at 15'. So that leaves a 15' length of 2" thickness that is only reinforced by the wooden glass framing. It's almost as if he's using the glass structurally to stiffen those columns. But glass can't take that kind of force right?

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:24 am

Viewing photographs on the Crystal Bridges Web site ... the unbraced length of those columns doesn't seem all that impossible.

It seems the Crystal Bridges Web site stopped posting the photographic record of the reconstruction of this house. That's a shame.
Where did this Youtube clip come from?

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:58 pm

Tom wrote:Where did this Youtube clip come from?

It was put on Youtube by Crystal Bridges Museum.

David