Buffalo part 2
see part 1 https://onlybook.es/blog/wright-brenham-sullivan/
«This translation from Spanish (the original text) to English is not professional. I used Google Translate, so there may be linguistic errors that I ask you to overlook. I have often been asked to share my texts in English, which is why I decided to try. I appreciate your patience, and if you see anything that can be improved and would like to let me know, I would be grateful. In the meantime, with all its imperfections, here are the lines I have written». Hugo Kliczkowski Juritz
I had an early breakfast and had over 2 hours before my 11am appointment to visit the Martin house.
Darwin Martín was one of the directors of the Larkin company who did the most to help Wright build the company’s administrative building. Over the years they became friends. Since it was early, I went to see where the demolished building was.
Location Larkin Street between Swan and Seneca. Buffalo. On map S 093. (1)
Larkin, or what remains, which is just a 2 meter wall and little more.
From that building that in 1906 amazed by its spaciousness, and services, AA, radiant heating, built-in furniture. etc Now it is a vulgar parking lot, nothing of everything it offered saved it from destruction in 1950.
I translate the panel, the yellow dot at the bottom right indicates that “you are here».
I went up a staircase that I didn’t see any sense in, and a panel with photos that said:
“Photograph courtesy of the Buffalo History Museum Frank Lloyd Wright designed the administration building for the Larkin company beginning in 1903. He was hired to design the structure after Larkin principals William R. Heath and Darwin D. Martin urged company owner, John D. Larkin, to do so. The building housed the offices of the large mail-order company, which began as a soap manufacturer but grew into a more diversified company». (Like an AMAZON today).
“The building’s design is considered one of the most significant structures ever built in North America».
«…since it became the model of modern architecture and the machine age».
“The building articulated its various functions in ways that expressed its internal organization, including its corner stairs and its tall, nostril-like air inlets».
«Placing these amenity functions on the exterior walls of the building allowed a central skylight to flood the work spaces with natural light».
«The ghost fence pillar adjacent to this panel was built on the existing foundation left from the fence surrounding the building and is intended to define the scale of the structure as well as orient the viewer”.
“The structure was largely demolished during 1950, after the company’s failed attempts to shift from the mail-order business to retail establishments, then popularized by automobile-driven consumers».
I translate what is written on the panels
“Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect of this revolutionary building built in 1903″.
«Its skillful design incorporated modern technology developed in the early 20th century».
«Wright used machine-made objects to define the function of the structure and the beauty of its materials».
«This made the Larkin Building one of the first icons of modern architecture, and thus played an important role in the development of the modern world by defining an image for architecture in the machine age».
«Innovative construction methods allowed Wright to synthesize modern technology into a coherent interpretation of the Industrial Revolution..«.
“The structure was demolished in 1950 with the exception of the brick fence pillar (adjacent to this panel) and significant portions of the foundation and basement. The pillar incorporates the main materials of the building’s exterior».
The Darwin Martín House complex
The Darwin Martín House complex was built in 1907, they have an organization with guides to exhibit this work, they offer tours, objects, old photos of daily life there and projections. There is a short tour, limiting the areas to visit (25 usa, students 10 usa) or a longer one of 45 usa, 75 minutes, where you can also see the Barton house and the greenhouse.
I pointed to the one that showed the most.
As usual for me, I mixed up the reservation date, it was for Saturday and I went on Friday, for Wright, this would be just a minor detail.
Martin was a senior executive at Larkin Soap, his house is in a very elegant and well-kept neighborhood, the Parkside district, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1876.
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 – 1903) was an architect, landscape designer, journalist and botanist, recognized for designing urban parks such as Central Park and Prospect Park, both in New York.
He designed a system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York; the Niagara Falls Reserve, in Niagara Falls; Mont-Royal Park in Montreal; the Emerald Necklace, in Boston, Massachusetts; Cherokee Park (and parkway system) in Louisville, Kentucky; as well as Jackson Park, Washington Park and Midway Plaisance for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago; part of Detroit Belle Isle Park; the United States Capitol Gardens; and George Washington Vanderbilt II’s building, the Biltmore Estate, in North Carolina.
In Brooklyn, Massachusetts, he designed the campus of Stanford University.
As a journalist he had an active and interesting activity.
In 1850, he traveled to England to visit public gardens, especially those created by Joseph Paxton in Birkenhead Park (2), which led to the publication of an important book in 1852, “Walks and Conversations of an American Farmer in England.”
The New York Daily Times (now the New York Times) commissioned him to study “The Economy and Slaves», for which he made a trip from 1852 to 1857 through the south of the country. His conclusion was that the practice of slavery was not only morally odious, but that it was expensive and economically ineffective.
Olmest married his brother’s widow, Mary Cleveland, in 1859 and adopted his brother’s three children.
The architect Andrew Jackson Downing proposed in his magazine The Horticulturist to develop Central Park, an idea that, due to his tragic and sudden death, could not continue, and in his name Olmsted and Vans carried it forward.
Olmsted and the architect Calvert Vaux won the competition to design it in 1858.
In 1865, the two created Olmsted, Vaux and Company.
When Olmsted returned to New York, together they designed Brooklyn’s Prospect Park from 1865 to 1873, the New York and Milwaukee park system, and the Niagara Reserve at Niagara Falls.Suffering from dementia, Olmsted lived at McLean Hospital, which he had landscaped for several years, and remained there until his death in 1903.
After Olmsted’s death, his sons John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. continued the work of his company, as the Olmsted Brothers, until 1950.
Tour of the Martin Houses
The Darwin D. Martin House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903 and 1906.
You can (and should) visit it from Monday to Thursday from 10 am to 3 pm. and from Friday to Sunday from 9:30 am to 3 pm, during the Tour you visit:
–Casa Martin (including the second floor)
-Pergola
-Conservatory
-Carriage House
en octubre de 1904
Distance from Buffalo Exchange Amtrak station. 9 km.
Information is obtained at martinhouse.org
125 Jewett Parkway. Buffalo, NY 14214
Phone 716.856.3858. 877.377.3858. info@martinhouse.org
The City of Buffalo features several of Wright’s legendary masterpieces.
1-Martin Houses. 2-Walter V. Davidson and 3-William R. Heath.
Some houses are maintained as private residences, so it is not possible to visit them.
The Martin house is an almost perfect composition
Elaborate in his designs is 13.600 meters of wood moldings of 110 different designs, some of the molding sets consisting of nine separate pieces.
It is very nice, and I recommend visiting the Parkside neighborhood, where Casa Martín is located.
The Martin complex has different constructions in shapes and surfaces, but they are interconnected, with a long pergola 30.48 meters long.
Wright referred to the Martin House in 1904 as “the most perfect house of its kind in the world, functioning as a domestic symphony, true, vital, comfortable”.
I visited her for just over 2 hours:
1- Martin’s main house
2- the Barton house
3- a greenhouse (it is at the end of the pergola)
4- garage
5- the gardener’s cabin
TThe interior spaces of the historic houses are accessible and, as I have written, they are done in small groups, they are guided tours, you can reserve by calling 877-377-3858 or through the tour calendar.
The grounds, pergola and conservatory are open to the public daily from 9am to 4.30pm.
The Greatbatch Pavilion (Visitor Centre, which operates in a modern pavilion), is open from Wednesday to Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., on weekends until 5:30 p.m.
The Martin House Museum Shop is located in the Carriage House, open Wednesday to Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Statler Café is located on Summit Avenue in the north end, they offer food, snacks and drinks. Wednesday to Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday Happy Hour from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
JAM Parkside serves coffee, tea, cakes and toast.
Kostas Restaurant, located on nearby Hertel Avenue, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.
Tour of the Martin House
Buffalo features seven of Wright’s legendary masterpieces.
1- Martin Houses,
2-Walter V. Davidson
3-William R. Heath of Wright
Some houses are maintained as private residences and do not allow visitors.
On the shores of majestic Lake Erie, I took another tour of
4-Graycliff Estate
5-a boathouse,
6-a mausoleum
7-a service station.
For more information: martinhouse.org
The Martin House 125 Jewett Parkway. Buffalo, NY 14214
Administration. address
143 Jewett Parkway. Buffalo, NY 14214
Tel 716.856.3858. 877.377.3858. info@martinhouse.org
Photo tour
In front of the Martin house, passing cars and the lady, “You can’t take photos inside”. Then I asked her if she was a collaborator of the foundation, and if she was proud of her role as a house, and she gestured «because I was a neighbor, I am a real housekeeper».
Darwin D. Martin (1865 – 1935) and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 – 1959).
The Martin House is the result of an exceptional collaboration between Martin and Wright. Martin was a well-known businessman, while Wright was an architect at the time relatively unknown, outside the architectural circles of Chicago and areas of the American Midwest.
In 1902, Martin invited Wright to Buffalo to evaluate and exchange ideas about the design of the administrative headquarters for his Larkin Company, a group of soap-making and mail-order companies. He was also interested in building a home for his wife. Isabelle and her family, Graycliff House.
Martín did not doubt Wright’s genius and commissioned him both projects, the two most important at Wright’s early age, he was 35 years old. Martín trusted Wright with an unlimited budget, Wright designed a complex where the buildings had a direct relationship with the surrounding landscape. It is the interaction between architecture, design and landscape.
Built in the “Prairie style,” it is a multi-residential estate admired for its six complementary buildings, interior and exterior gardens, and an impressive collection of artistically worked glass and furniture designed by Wright and made by cabinetmakers.
Three homes define the composition of the complex:
Darwin D. Martin 1904/05, his sister Delta Martin and her husband George Barton 1903, and the gardener 1909.
These constructions are linked to a pergola, a greenhouse and the garage, Wright insisted on his concept from “domestic symphony.”
The Martin House is the main one and is characterized by its low profile, cruciform floor plan, spatial opening, pronounced horizontality, play of pillars and overhangs, and a rich palette of materials.
Access, turn to the right parallel to the wall, some bricks leave an important joint in centimeters for ventilation of the lower floors.
Well, the lady «takes care of the house» was not attentive enough.
Leaving the house, towards the pergola hallway.
Full-scale reproduction of the original cast-in-stone sculpture of the Comb Sprite from Midway Gardens.
It was the result of collaboration between Frank Lloyd Wright and Alfonso Inanelli. These sculptures adorned the walls of the enormous Midway Gardens complex in Chicago between 1913 and 1929. The Sprite with a comb weighs 137 kilos.
While viewing the reproductions in the Museum Store in the Carriage House, I have seen a reproduction of the sculptures in Midway Gardens, and I remembered that when an assistant went crazy in August 1914 and burned down Taliesin and then hacked to death the Wright’s partner, Mamah Borthwick, their 2 children and 4 collaborators, Wright was away at the time because he was running Midway Gardens in Chicago. If not, he would surely have been another victim of the crazy murderer. I tell the story in the link…
Midway Gardens
Midway Gardens was a huge entertainment center with indoor and outdoor spaces of 33,445 m2, opened in June 1914 and was intended to function as a brewery and a concert and dance hall in which bands such as the Midway Gardens Orchestra performed.
It occupied the site of the former Sans Souci Amusement Park, at the corner of Cottage Grove Avenue and East 60th Street. in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
The large area (equivalent to a city block) offered entertainment to a wide variety of people in a German-style meeting place. The gardens included restaurants, lounges, newsstands, cigar stands, and galleries. When Prohibition was passed, the gardens lost some of their entertainment value.
Edward C. Waller Jr. commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design and construct the gardens in 1914 (Waller Jr.’s father, Edward Waller, had commissioned an apartment building from Wright, the Waller Apartments, from 1895 located at 2840 – 58 W Walnut Street.
Midway Gardens was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, along with sculptors Richard Bock (1865 – 1949) (3) and Alfonso Iannelli (4) in the famous “leprechaun” sculptures that decorated the facility.
Designed to be a European-style concert garden with space for dining, drinking and performances year-round, Midway Gardens hosted popular artists and entertainers.
Waller was never able to finance the construction and maintenance of Midway Gardens and declared bankruptcy in March 1916.
The modernist architecture of the gardens was based on strict geometric shapes. A large central outdoor area, filled with tables and chairs, was surrounded by a series of three-story buildings with indoor spaces for dancing and other activities, as well as cantilevered balconies with projecting roofs.
The building itself was made of yellow brick and stamped cinder blocks. It featured very intricate ornamentation and many geometric sculptures, which Frank Lloyd Wright called “goblins” and which were designed in collaboration with Alfonso Ianelli. Some of these sculptures were saved from demolition and can be found elsewhere.
It was purchased by the Schoenhofen Brewing Company and renamed “Edelweiss Gardens” (after the brewery’s main beer brand).
Wright, who generally exercised strong creative control over his finished projects, was displeased by the aesthetic changes the new owner made to the gardens saying he had added “undesirable features and that the pride of Midway Gardens had been cheapened to suit a bourgeois taste.”
It closed briefly in 1918 during the war years and then during Prohibition. In 1921 it was sold to EC Dietrich Midway Automobile Tire and Supply Company, and renamed «The Midway Dancing Gardens».
In October 1928, it closed definitively and it was decided to demolish it.
In the administration office there was an advertisement to visit the Westcott House, designed in 1908 by Wright, at 85 South Greenmount Ave. Springfield, OHIO 45505. But it is a 5-hour drive away (almost 600 km), I told myself it will be another time. , not in this.
Then (yes, that’s right. I didn’t have lunch) to the Fontana Boathouse.
Then tour Graycliff House (1926/29), the Martin family holiday home.
As costs skyrocketed 30%, and the time of crisis had already begun, Martin told Wright.
He didn’t want to build the side balcony that joined 2 bedrooms, he didn’t need it. Wright responded.
That maybe he didn’t need it, but the house did. The balcony was built.
And finally I went to the Blue Sky Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Today I dedicated 8 hours to “friend Frank”, 8 wonderful hours.
Before leaving Buffalo, heading to Rochester, in the early morning I stopped by to see Willia’s housem R. Heath. Esta en el barrio histórico de Elmwood.
It is from 1904/05. A narrow lot facing a busy street and roundabout. Wright built the house on a platform, tall windows and the walls are high enough to guarantee privacy. It has 7 bedrooms, and visitors are not allowed.
The house and the budget were modest compared to the previous ones.
Wright said “space is the breath of art”, it is not just a phrase, what he says is perceived in his works.
Let us remember that both Martin and Heath were managing partners of Larkin. Martin introduced Wright to Mr. Davidson, owner of Larkin.
Notes
1
William Allin Storrer. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. A complete Catalog. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London. 1427 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637. ISBN 0 226 77623 9.
2
Joseph Paxton (1803 – 1865) was an English architect, illustrator, naturalist, landscaper and gardener, known for his realist and impressionist style and for being the author of the Crystal Palace, built to host the first Great Exhibition held in London in 1851. He was self-taught.
3
Bock’s first work for Frank Lloyd Wright was a frieze for the third floor of the Heller House in 1896. In 1898, Wright asked him to create sculptures for Wright’s house in Oak Park. A few years earlier, Bock had created a statue of Wright’s son John.
From 1903 to 1913, Bock worked almost exclusively with Wright on multiple projects, often making architectural sculptures designed by Wright. Wright enlisted Bock’s help after a previous sculptor, Albert Louis Van den Berghen, was not working as planned for a planned sculpture at the Dana-Thomas House.
Charles E. White, Jr. wrote upon Bock’s arrival at the studio: “Richard Bock, sculptor, who has moved to Oak Park, will occupy the studio balcony. He has decided to put himself under Mr. Wright’s criticism for a while, as his ambition is to become solely an architectural sculptor. He will do work for the Larkin building in Buffalo.”
The two became close friends and their families often spent time together. Wright designed a sculpture studio for Bock in River Forest, Illinois, called “The Gnomes.” The two worked together for more than 20 years. He created two sculptures for the entrance to Wright’s office at his home in Oak Park called «The Boulders,» they are still visible from the street outside Wright’s home and studio.
4
Alfonso Iannelli was an Italian-American sculptor, artist, and industrial designer. Based in Chicago for most of his life, architect John Lloyd Wright saw his work and the two became friends. John introduced Iannelli’s work to his father, Frank Lloyd Wright, who invited him to work with him on his Midway Gardens project in 1914.
Iannelli created several of Midway’s Sprite sculptures for Wright. Wright, however, took credit for the pieces, leading to a bitter split and the ultimate demise of their partnership. Reproductions of the Midway Gardens sprites designed by Wright were later added to the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. He also collaborated with Chicago architect Ernest A. Grunsfeld III and Bruce Goff, Purcell and Elmslie, Barry Byrne.
Partnered with his wife, Margaret, they created Iannelli Studios.
See https://onlybook.es/blog/wright-greycliff-la-casa-de-isabella-martin-y-su-familia-3era-parte/
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1st part. Wright, Richardson, Burnham & Root, Sullivan & Adler, Koolhaas.parte. Wright, Richardson, Burnham & Root, Sullivan & Adler, Koolhaas.
2nd part. Wright, Larkin, complejo Darwin Martin, Midway Gardens.
3rd part. Wright, Graycliff la casa de Isabella Martin y su familia.
4th part. Wright, las casas Heath y Davidson, el Fontana Boat House y el Mausoleum of the blue sky.
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Arq. Hugo Alberto Kliczkowski Juritz
Onlybook.es/blog
Hugoklico.blogspot.com
Salvemos al Parador Ariston de su ruina
http://onlybook.es/blog/el-parador-ariston-
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hugoklico
Architect. Argentinian/Spanish. editor. illustrated book distributor See all hugoklico posts Published on August 9, 2024 Author hugoklico Categories Art Edit
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