Wright Chat

for sale
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1207- ... 8899_zpid/

William and Geraldine Deknatel were early apprentices, listed as arriving in October of 1932.

thanks for posting this paul - he did another house on the lake in Glencoe which has been sitting empty for a few years - this house is incredible!

Super-yummy . . .

No butt glazing, just large pieces of glass and minimal corner detail. The concrete-colored carpet is nice . . .

SDR

Rail-less stone balcony. How did they pull that off. Love it.
Did I see bush hammered stone stairs?

I'm not seeing a stone balcony...?

So nice!

It's great to see a house minus the staging. Nobody's bad taste interfering with the lovely architecture.

Is this architect well known?

From google: Deknatel (1907-1973) is listed as one of two architects studied in a book by the Graham Foundation, "Architecture in Context: The Avant-Garde in Chicago's Suburbs, Paul Schweikher and William Ferguson Deknatel" (book, 1984).

From The Wright Library, online. Two mentions of Deknatel working to save the Robie House. .

Excepts from FLWBC, 2007: The Robie House was initially threatened in 1941 when the Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) decided to tear it down in favor of a new building that would better suit their needs. CTS had owned and operated the Robie House since 1926, using it primarily as a dormitory, a function never intended by Frank Lloyd Wright. Several sources note that Wright involved himself in saving the building at this time, and that other leading international architects (including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Walter Peterhans) and museum directors rallied to keep the Robie House standing. A successful committee to preserve the Robie House was led by Chicago area architect William F. Deknatel.That same year, a round-table discussion group, led by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and composed of prominent American professors and curators of architecture, met to organize support for the preservation of historic architectural monuments, noting the possible demolition of the Robie house as a “catastrophe� and issuing a call to action.
The proposed 1941 demolition was forestalled, possibly interrupted in part by America’s involvement in WWII and the resulting impact on the availability of building materials. However, the perilous future of the Robie House continued to evoke strong responses from well-known academics, curators, and architects over the following years. In correspondence to Chicago architect Alfred Shaw from 1951, architect and curator Philip Johnson expressed his concern, as well as that of MoMA Director of Collections Alfred Barr, over a rumor that CTS was again attempting to destroy the Robie House.
In 1957, the Chicago Theological Seminary once more publicly proposed tearing down the Robie House. (See 1957 photos and scrapbook) Ironically, this news came on the tail of the Robie House being recognized in Architectural Record as the most significant house of the previous fifty years by an esteemed panel of architects. Upon learning of then-CTS president McGiffert’s plans to replace the Robie House with a new dormitory, architects and Chicago aldermen alike were propelled to action. These included G.E. Kidder-Smith, who sent out telegrams to “important politicians, historians, college presidents, architects, etc.� to rally support, and Leon Despres, Hyde Park Alderman who subsequently organized a committee on preserving historic architecture, headed by chief officer of the Art Institute of Chicago, Daniel Catton Rich. In a recent oral history Despres notes that Tom Stauffer, a professor and architectural historian, was instrumental in rallying support as well, as he “got architects in western Europe to telephone and cable and write about what a terrible thing this was that Chicago was destroying the Robie House.� Again, Frank Lloyd Wright revisited the Robie House in order to bring widespread attention to its fate and several committees were formed to mobilize action. Again William Deknatel became involved in committee work to save the Robie House, in addition to the architectural historian William S. McDonald, who chaired the newly formed Committee to Preserve the Robie House. An “alert committee� was also formed as a joint effort between the AIA and the Society of Architectural Historians with Earl H. Reed, chairman of the AIA Committee for the Preservation of Historic Buildings, as head. Additional action to save the Robie House from destruction came from Charles Nitschke, architect and editor of the Architectural Record, who encouraged a letter-writing campaign, and Vincent Scully’s architecture students at Yale, who also contributed to letter-writing campaigns. William Hartmann, architect with Skidmore Owing and Merill, worked with Deknatel and contacted I.M. Pei, who was working for Webb and Knapp at the time. Ultimately, William Zeckendorf of Webb and Knapp bought the Robie House in December, saving it from demolition.

I find it rather ironic that an urban real estate developer, a species not well liked by Wright, was the savior of the Robie House.

William Zeckendorf, Sr. (1905 – September 30, 1976) was a prominent American real estate developer. Through his development company Webb and Knapp – for which he began working in 1938 and which he purchased in 1949 – he developed a significant portion of the New York City urban landscape. Architects I. M. Pei and Le Corbusier have worked for Zeckendorf on many of his projects.

Stone terrace without visible enclosure, off living room (photo 2). The stone interior stairs in photo 14 may have the same gray carpet seen elsewhere -- covering flagstone or some other surface ?

SDR

Thanks for posting the link, Paul. The house is beautifully detailed; I especially like the integration of the glass and screen door muntins with the latchsets...understated and elegant. The casework is as SDR notes "yummy". The living room space is stunning.

Not sure if it is my having become used to Wright's "invisible" glass to ceiling detail at Sweeton, but the wood mullion at the tops of the transom glass in pics 12 and 13 feel heavy to me and seem to interrupt the flow of the interior ceiling to the exterior soffit.

The designer makes a crown out of his wall termination, an unusual move for this kind of architecture. It seems that he has sacrificed the indoor-outdoor ceiling flow for something else: a sense of enclosure to the interior spaces, perhaps ?

And (visible in photo 11) there seems to be a linear element -- continuous lighting ? -- integrated into that crown. We want to see night-time photos . . .

SDR

apparently still for sale.

Realtor Listing
http://www.premierlistingshowcase.com/o ... ex_idx.php

With the taxes at a mere $63,612/year - how could anyone pass this up!


David

Gorgeous - if only I had an extra $4M laying around ...

Is This the Greatest Modernist Home for Sale in Chicagoland?


David

Beautiful house. It would appear that some of the corner windows were rebuilt to eliminate mitered glass, however. In Chicagoland, that may be prudent, but it is still an unfortunate compromise.