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Tom Monagham
Ann Arbor is a city in the state of Michigan, with 124 thousand inhabitants, where Domino’s Farms is located.
Perhaps the right place to view one of the best collections of Wright designs, it is open to the public and entry is free.
Drawings, models, samples of carpets, windows, doors, photographs, original sketches, writings and correspondence of Wright are on display, among hundreds of other diverse items, all of which are interesting and help us get an idea of the master’s continuous activity.
All elements that bring us closer to the magical career of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Surely the most valuable are the lithographs from the publication “Wasmuth Portfolio” published in Berlin in 1910, which depicts the details of many of Wright’s early modern projects.
Domino’s Farms
“Wasmuth” publication from Berlin, 1910
1910 was a difficult year for Wright, he separated from his wife, Catherine Lee Tobin, Kitty, and moved away from his 6 children. He said his marriage “had an expiration date,” and he decided to go to Europe with his client Edwin Cheney’s wife.
He met both (plus his wife) when in 1903 Wright built a house in Oak Park for the couple, engineer Edwin H Cheney and his wife Mamah Cheney (née Mamah Borthwick).
The Cheney House, dating from 1903, is located at 520 North East Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois.
It has a clear layout, a brick house, one of the Prairie Houses, with the living room and bedrooms on a single floor, sheltered by a hipped roof.
It is separated from the main street by a terrace limited by a wall, the windows are located under the wide eaves of the roof and the stone sill that surrounds the house, it has fifty-two windows that sit above the height of the wall attenuating its airtight appearance.
The construction element that is under the window, covering the sill, is called sill, in Arabic al-fasha.
The tops of the windows are composed of iridescent glass (the hue of the light varies according to the angle from which its surface is viewed) and evoke Japanese bamboo curtains of the type that Wright may have encountered in Edward Sylvester Morse’s 1885-86 publication «Japanese Homes and their Surroundings.» (1)
The living rooms, containing the dining room, living room and library, occupy the entire front of the building and open onto the central terrace. In the basement, a large suite was located for both of their parents.
The front door is out of sight, accessed only indirectly by passing beyond the entire front façade and around the side of the house.
A model in design or pattern similar to this house is seen in the house of E. Arthur Davenport (1901), at 559 Ashland Avenue, in River Forest. It was completely restored and visitors are not allowed.
Formal details also seen in the Frank B. Henderson House (1901), one of the few built during his brief association with Webster Tomlinson (1869 – 1942), where Wright was the design partner, and Tomlinson the business manager.
It is located at 301 S. Kenilworth, Elmhurst, Illinois. They do not allow visitors.
Its floor plan is similar to the Warren Hickox House, just as its online living spaces are similar to the Cheney House.
It has more than 80 stained glass windows, similar to the Davenport House and the Fricke House, three brick fireplaces, and many built-ins. It is one of the first designs of the Prairie Houses.
It was listed on the NRHP (National Register of Historic Places) on August 9, 2002.
Another model similar to the previous ones is the 1901 William G. Fricke House located at 540 Fair Oaks Avenue. They do not allow visitors.
It was also the result of his brief partnership with architect Webster Tomlinson.
His client, William G. Fricke, was a partner in a school supply company, Weber Costello & Fricke. The Prairie style is the model that offers you key elements of a different architecture, a stone first level, horizontal bands, overhanging roof eaves, shallow hipped roof and stucco exterior.
The vertical design house gives a good response to a narrow lot. It has windows that are vertically oriented rectangular strips of clear glass interspersed with small square colored panels. (2)
Between 1893 and 1909, Wright had produced 140 works in the Prairie style, and was invited to Berlin to hold a major exhibition of his work. Due to the social rejection caused by his relationship with Mamah Borthwick, and the unstable situation in which his study and jobs were left, many of which had been cancelled, he decided to travel.
I attended one of the master classes that Architect Luis Ferenandez Galiano usually gives, this time at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, dedicated to Wright, he said about it: «…Wright’s prestige declined, along with work orders, of course, no client would risk giving him a commission and having Wright take his wife…»
In 1910 he rented a villa on the outskirts of Florence to prepare the drawings and advise and assist in the publication process of his monograph.
Wright’s professional work was recognized and his active connection to modern North American architecture caused enormous interest. Together with the art book editor Ernst Wasmuth (1845-1897) (3) who five years earlier had edited the works of Viennese Modernism by Joseph María Olbrich (1867 – 1908), he began the enormous task of creating a Portfolio, which would be Wright’s letter of introduction in Europe.
The so-called Wasmuth Portfolio was a luxurious publication about his work made in two volumes, with 100 lithographic plates in 64 x 41 cm format, which constituted and constitutes one of the most transcendent legacies of 20th century architecture. Its title “Designs for Buildings Executed and by Frank Lloyd Wright” (Ausgefuhrte Bauten Entwurfe und von Frank Lloyd Wright) was made in Berlin and published in 1910. (4)
Never before had Wright published his works, now they would publish his projects from 1893 to 1909 in the United States.
His book published in German had enormous influence on Dutch and German architects of the 1920s. Like the one it had on the Dutch modernist architect Willem Marinus Dudok (1884 – 1974) who, in his work on the Hilversum Town Hall of 1931, not only designed the building, but also its interior, including the carpets, the furniture and even the gavel for the mayor’s meeting, or in Henrik Berlage (1856 – 1934), Theo van Doesburg (1883 – 1931), and to a lesser extent Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969), Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965) or Mies van der Rohe (1886 – 1969).
From the studio, both his son Lloyd Wright and his draftsman Taylor Woolley (1884 – 1965) (5) sent him plans and photographs of the projects. The drawings they sent him are sheets made with a Chinese ink pen.
Some drawings that had been used in the project stages, executed by the architect Marion Mahony (1871 – 1961), were redone. Their color representations would be adapted and compiled using the lithographic printing system. Even the relative position of the drawings on each sheet turned each representation into a work of art in itself.
The plates were numbered and had concise texts describing each work and project. Wright personally supervised for a year the execution of the lithographic drawings that had to be redone based on Mahony’s color originals, which is why he had Taylor Woolley transferred to Florence.
The drawings are sent to Germany, and published in Berlin the same year. The preface of the publication ends with the following text: “…the drawings presented here were expressly drawn for the publication in 1911.”
These publications have practically disappeared, Wright takes most of the original drawings to Japan and they will disappear there.
The Portfolio for Wright had several objectives, that of disseminating his work and expanding his client portfolio, while at the same time being able to found the principles of his organic architecture.
Initially, it was planned to publish 1,000 copies, which had to be reduced to 650 due to budgetary reasons, 150 were distributed in Europe and 500 were sent to his office in Taliesin. After the Taliesin fire, only 35 specimens and some loose sheets could be rescued.
There were also 25 larger “de luxe” copies published on paper and a cover with gold typography. In 1911, a German edition known as ‘Small Wasmuth’ and an even smaller Japanese edition were published.
Wright gained a notable reputation in Europe, the US and Australia for the works it contained and for his conceptual manifesto in spreading modern architecture.
Special attention is paid to the Dutch group “De Stijl” founded by Theo van Doesburg in 1917 and inspired by Wright’s most abstract images, such as the perspective of the Yahara Boathouse of the “University of Wisconsin Boat Club” in Madison from 1902/05; the perspective of the Larkin Company administration Building in Buffalo, New York, 1903/05; and presentation with illustrations from the Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago, Illinois, 1906/09
Mies van der Rohe would state, “…Wright’s work presents an architectural world of unexpected strength, clarity of language, and disconcerting richness of form.”
In 1937, Mies van Der Rohe was appointed to direct the Chicago School of Architecture. In Illinois he met Wright, it is known that he had a cordiality with Mies that he had not had with either Le Corbusier (Charles Édouard Jeanneret) or Walter Gropius, perhaps because both had not acknowledged being influenced by Wright like so many others, and we already know what Wright thought of himself, that he was the best architect in the United States and according to his statement in a famous TV report «perhaps one of the best in the world.» history».
Wright may have said to Mies, “Herr Mies, you are the best of them all.” Wright sincerely appreciated the Barcelona pavilion «despite the ridiculous poles» and saw Mies‘ «neoplastic» architecture as a continuation of his own, and much richer «than that of the white cubes.»
When he returned to Oak Park in 1911, the scandals that had occurred during his trip to Europe had not ceased, so the situation was not suitable to restart his career. What was written in the newspapers had been established in society: “How could he leave so many children without the warmth of a father and his wife stranded?” and his justification «that he never felt the call of fatherhood and that being the head of the family only strangled and undermined his creative streak» made things worse. “I felt like I was drying up inside.”
Wright left his children with his mother and Mamah left her two children with his father. And they were leaving for Europe to start a new life away from the gossip and insidious comments of the Oak Park neighborhood, which did not forgive a betrayal of that caliber.
During her stay in Florence, Mamah came into contact with the intellectual circles of the time and met Ellen Key, a feminist thinker with whom she established a solid friendship and whose works she would dedicate herself to translating. (6)
Upon his return, his mother offered him a large 200-hectare piece of land that she had in Spring Green in the Wisconsin Valley, an area in which she had already built a «Romeo and Juliet» windmill (1895), and the Hillside private school (1902).
There he would begin to build his own studio-house-farm, which he called “Taliesin I”, a new architectural stage would begin there.
It was while he was building Midway Gardens, in Chicago, Illinois (1913/24) that he learned of the destruction of Taliesin and the brutal death of Mamah, her children, and 4 others, a total of 7 people were killed.
Wright lost what he loved most, his loved ones, the people who accompanied him, his house, the loss of the volumes kept in the Portfolio were almost total. (7)
Notes
1
Morse deals with all aspects of the traditional Japanese house, from its general plan and major structural features to ceremonial and traditional details such as tatami mats (which determine the size of the house), lamps, hibachi (braziers), fusuma and shoji screens, candelabras, pillows, and tokonoma (places where art objects or flowers are displayed).
300 drawings show details of both the construction and the architectural ornamentation, which is its hallmark.
2
William Fricke House
3
The Ernst Wasmuth publishing house (Ernst Wasmuth Verlag GmbH & Co) was founded in 1872 in Berlin, its key themes were architecture, archaeology, art and design. (wasmuth-verlag .de). On May 1, 1872, Ernst Wasmuth opened a bookstore dedicated to architecture in Berlin, and soon a publishing house.
Some of the books he published became classics, including the works of Hermann Muthesius and Frank Lloyd Wright. He also published two magazines Der Städtebau (Urban Development) and Architektur des XX. Jahrhunderts (20th Century Architecture). Between 1905 and 1928 he annually published the Handbook of the History of German Art (Der Dehio) by Georg Dehio.
His son Günter Wasmuth founded the Monatshefte für Baukunst (Monthly Architectural Bulletins) in 1914, edited by the urban planner and author Werner Hegemann. During an Allied bombing in 1943, the publishing house and its archive were completely destroyed. After the war, Günther Wasmuth reestablished the business in Tübingen, 30 km from Stuttgart.
The publishing house continued to focus on the fields of architecture, art and archaeology, to which it added scientific works and illustrated books. Günther Wasmuth died in 1974, since 1990 Ernst J. Wasmuth has been the company’s CEO.
4
Portfolio, information and data from https://rapulopulo.blogspot.com/
The Wasmuth Portfolio was produced by the editor Ernst Wasmuth, from Berlin, and was Wright’s first publication, as he had never previously published any of the works designed or built in his twenty years of activity in the United States.
It contains perspective plans and lines of the buildings he designed between 1893 and 1909. His book, published in German, is believed to have influenced Dutch and German architects of the 1920s; A notable example is the work of the modernist architect Willem Marinus Dudok (1867 – 1908), who in 1935 received the RIBA Gold Medal, and in 1955 the AIA Gold Medal.
The publication consisted of two folders of drawings and texts from Wright’s projects. The title was Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe (Made Constructions and Sketches) and was published in Berlin in 1910, it contained 40 plates. In 1962, the MOMA in New York held an exhibition and the following year reissued the Portfolio, which we can admire in the best museums in the world.
Wright used to say “that you should not begin to draw until the idea was fully formed in your imagination.” His projects, according to his collaborators, “were resolved through plans, elevations and sections, with perspective being a verification system.” He drew everything with all the details, he did not want “involuntary errors” to occur in his works. I worked alongside each of the artists.
5
Taylor A. Woolley (1884 – 1965), before studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, worked at the Salt Lake City studio Ware & Treganza, then worked as a draftsman for Frank Lloyd Wright at the Prairie School architecture.
Beginning in 1909, he traveled with Wright to Florence and Fiesole to work with Lloyd Wright, Wright’s son. He worked at Oak Park, and in the early stages of Taliesin I.
He graduated as an architect in 1910 in Utah, and from 1911 he introduced the Prairie style in his native state. An example is the house he made for attorney William W. Ray, a home on a long, narrow lot that sloped at its southern end toward Red Butte Creek.
The project consists of a two-story main block to which two buildings are added: on the façade facing the street, a one-story office with a hipped roof and on the rear (south) façade, a one-story porch with a hipped roof.
The house was based on one of Wright’s most imitated residential designs, «A Fireproof House for $5,000,» published in the April 1907 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
He built other houses on Yale Avenue in Salt Lake City.
In 1915 he worked in the studio of Francis Barry Byrne and Walter Burley Griffin. In 1917 he returned to Salt Lake City and became associated with his brother-in-law in the company Miller, Woolley and Evans, where he remained until 1922.
He retired in 1950 having served from 1933 to 1941 as state architect for the state of Utah and as president of the Salt Lake Chapter of the AIA.
6
Ellen Karolina Sofia Key (1849 – 1926) was a Swedish writer and feminist with expertise in the fields of family life, ethics, and education. One of her fundamental works was Love and Marriage (1903), in which she defended the idea that women could achieve their maximum development as human beings through motherhood, but at the same time she highlighted the need for the protection of the State economically and politically since the economic dependence of the years of upbringing were the cause of female subordination.
7
Paul Hendrickson narrates in his book “Plagued By Fire: the Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright”, the most human and close facets of Wright.
And the horror!
On August 15, 1914, while Wright was in Chicago, Taliesin employee Julian Carlton, driven mad by his madness, and surely fueled by an altercation he had had with one of Wright’s assistants, for which he would be fired, set fire to the house, and with an ax killed Mamah, her children, ages 8 and 12, and 4 employees who were in the dining room, other collaborators. de Wright, Billy Weston, David and Fritz were able to escape and call for help.
Writes Paul Hendrickson: «The architect was away and returned hastily… his train journey was exhausting… the message they had given him was brief to avoid greater evils: «Taliesin, consumed by flames.» When he arrived, completely alienated and incredulous, he sat down in front of the piano and began to play Bach.
«The flames were put out as best they could, but the losses were very large, including a part of the Asian art collection that the artist had bought. Without her lover and with her house damaged, which she called “the bungalow of love,” Wright had to get back on her feet. They say that he was never the same, that his character became more sullen and that his life was much more introspective. “He suffered from sleep disorders and frequent nightmares.”
The murderer, Carlton, hidden in a fireproof chamber in the house, took hydrochloric acid, which destroyed his esophagus, and as a prisoner he died of hunger, unable to eat food. The ax was found at the sinister crime scene, he pleaded not guilty. His wife was exonerated.
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Arq. Hugo Alberto Kliczkowski Juritz
Onlybook.es/blog
Hugoklico.blogspot.com
continued part 6 http://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-6/
previous part 4 http://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-4-romeo-y-julieta-y-otras-obras/
part 3 http://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-3-exposiciones/
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