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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania >>ORDER 2011 CONFERENCE VIDEOS Frank Lloyd Wright may have disparaged his East Coast contemporaries as hopelessly locked in the past or bedazzled by the latest fashions from Europe, but he was no stranger to the East and maintained a network of clients, benefactors, and members of the popular and professional press who contributed to the success of his long career. This year’s conference examines “Frank Lloyd Wright and the East Coast” by focusing on his professional activity in the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia and New York City. These regions are the sites of two works, Beth Sholom Synagogue and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (both completed in 1959), that are glorious summations of a lifetime of thought about architectural space and the making of places that bring people together. In addition to these landmarks, Wright also realized more modest residential commissions throughout the region, applying the principles of the Usonian house and Broadacre City, his model for urban development. Examples include the multi-family Suntop Homes (1938-1939) in Ardmore, outside Philadelphia; the planned community, Usonia Homes (begun 1945), in Pleasantville, NewYork; and numerous other Usonian houses built in the decade after World War II. East Coast centers of publishing and high culture were essential to Wright’s energetic promotion of his work through exhibitions and publications, and he cultivated the support of writers and other opinion shapers. In February 1901, Ladies’ Home Journal,published in Philadelphia, introduced his “Home in a Prairie Town” to households across America. At mid-century he enjoyed the support of Elizabeth Gordon, the influential editor-in-chief of House Beautiful, published in New York, where his former apprentice John deKoven Hill served as architecture editor.Wright’s ties to leading professional journals based in New York included Architectural Record, which published some of his most important statements on architecture, and two publications of the Time, Inc. empire: Architectural Forum, addressed to architects;and House and Home, marketed to home builders. Time featured him on its cover in January 1938. East Coast writers and curators who interpreted Wright’s achievements for the public included Lewis Mumford, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.,and Arthur Drexler. Their views continue to underlie the way we speak about Wright today. The importance of New York to Wright was such that from 1954 to a few months before his death in 1959 he maintained a suite in the city at the Plaza Hotel. Philadelphia provides a splendid vantage point for considering Wright’s legacy through the work of his former employees and apprentices, including Alden B. Dow. Antonin Raymond, a Czech architect, and his wife Noemi, who had both worked with Wright on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo established their own version of the Taliesin Fellowship in New Hope for a brief time before World War II. A more enduring application of Wright’s views of architecture as an expression of a way of life is the Bryn Gweled Homesteads(1939-1960), a thriving cooperative community founded by Quakers with many of the houses designed by Robert F. Bishop and Paul Beidler, both former Taliesin apprentices. “Frank Lloyd Wright and the East Coast” will explore these themes through a program of presentations, panel discussions, and tours.
Modifying Buildings and Their Sites: Additions, Subtractions, Adjacencies Cincinnati, Ohio Few buildings stand frozen in time, and the works of Frank Lloyd Wright are no exception. Changes of use or taste, financial exigencies, and structural problems lead owners to modify their buildings. Wright kept his own homes, Taliesin and Taliesin West, in a permanent state of construction and on occasion accepted commissions to modify previously designed buildings. Whether by Wright or others, the presence of significant changes to his buildings and landscapes raises questions for the way we value and interpret them and inspires the theme of this year’s conference, “Modifying Wright’s Buildings and Their Sites: Additions, Subtractions, Adjacencies.” From interior modifications, such as R. M. Schindler’s interventions at the Freeman House in the 1920s and 1930s, to exterior construction, such as the tower Gwathmey Siegel & Associates added to the Guggenheim Museum in 1992 and the wing Kubala Washatko Architects recently completed at the First Unitarian Society of Madison Meeting House, “Additions” allow us to see Wright’s buildings in a new context, be it positive, problematic or somewhere in the middle. The topic of “Subtractions” is a particularly sensitive matter in restoration projects, such as Graycliff (early 2000s) and the Westcott House (completed 2005), and includes both the loss of original building fabric and landscape features due to the vicissitudes of history and strategic removals in order to tie a site to a particular date of significance. Significant and site-specific“Adjacencies” have been completed in Chicago and Buffalo, namely Rafael Viñoly’s Booth School of Business across the street from the Robie House, Toshiko Mori’s visitor center at the Darwin Martin House and Fortaleza Hall at Johnson Wax, Racine, Wisconsin. At the Westcott House, Springfield, Ohio, the preservation of context and adjacency issues will be explored during a short presentation combined with touring the house. Cincinnati, Queen City of the West, will offer a unique historical backdrop for this year’s conference. Not only are there three Usonian homes designed during his lifetime, but Wright also delivered an important speech during the Depression in Cincinnati’s Netherland Plaza Hotel, the very site of our 2010 conference. After his 1932 speech to more than 600 members of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, Wright met Abrom (Abe) Dombar, a University of Cincinnati architecture student who left academia and became one of Wright’s first apprentices. Benjamin, Abe’s younger brother, also became an apprentice at Taliesin and together the brothers returned to Cincinnati, designing dozens of area homes, some of which will be seen while touring. In addition, conference participants will enjoy an in-depth exploration of the restored Westcott House in Springfield.
Wright in the Drafting Room: Drawings for the Built and the Unbuilt Buffalo, New York It is fitting that the 20th anniversary of The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy is being celebrated in Buffalo, NY, where the impulse toward the formation of such an organization was first felt 24 years ago. Buffalo has provided the Conservancy with two indelible landmarks: the first, its logo, the Larkin Administration Building, which serves as a tragic reminder of why we must exist and persist as an organization; and the second is embodied in the concurrent, nearly-completed restorations of the Darwin D. Martin House and the Martin summer house, Graycliff - projects that have gone inexorably forward since the early 1990s despite the city’s long-depressed economy. The theme of the annual meeting, “Wright in the Drafting Room: Drawings for the Built and the Unbuilt,” represents a departure from the themes of previous years -- “From Private to Public” (Chicago, 2007), “Art, Craft and Industry,” (Detroit, 2006); “The Modern Metropolis,” (White Plains and NYC, 2002) -- in order that we may recognize Wright’s achievement in an entirely different way. During a career that extended over 70 years Frank Lloyd Wright designed more than 1,000 buildings of which approximately 480 were realized. The remaining unrealized commissions, for which Wright produced thousands of drawings, are the main focus of our 2009 conference. Given the esteem that Wright enjoys as one of the greatest architects in history, it follows that his unbuilt designs represent a treasure trove of considerable interest and value, but to whom and for what purposes? Among the many interested constituencies are preservationists, architectural historians, architects, archivists, dealers, collectors, curators, homeowners and those who favor building Wright’s unbuilt designs. The Conservancy aspires to bring together representatives of these many points of view in a stimulating dialogue calculated to deepen our appreciation of Wright’s work through a close critical examination of its least known major asset. The theme of Wright’s unbuilt work, then, is a celebration and an exploration of this unique and fascinating body of material.
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Roots of Sustainability Western Pennsylvania The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy 2008 annual conference convened September 18-21 in Western Pennsylvania. The area’s rushing waterfalls, scenic byways and architecturally significant landmarks make this an ideal setting for the theme of the conference, “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Roots of Sustainability.” It is more than likely that Wright never uttered the word “sustainable” while grounding his work in nature, but he frequently arrived at solutions of a sustainable nature. Wright was also attached to principles that foreshadowed suburban sprawl and run directly counter to the goals of today’s sustainability movement. In truth, Wright was too interested in pure artistry and the possibilities of new materials and technologies, to be preoccupied with the narrow confines of sustainable design, yet his “green architecture” achievements are remarkable. All of which provokes us to ask – just what is Frank Lloyd Wright’s relationship to sustainability.
Frank Lloyd Wright: From Private to Public Chicago, IL & Racine, WI Approximately 90 percent of the extant Wright-designed structures were originally private single-family residences. About 10 percent of the extant original works were designed as public buildings for institutional, commercial, religious or multiple-family use. Within the last 40 years, 32 private single-family homes, large and small, have been converted to historic house museums, and six to overnight stay houses, making public buildings now almost 20 percent of Wright’s extant work. The turnover from the private to the public sector reflects a measure of the continuing growth of interest in Wright’s work and the preservation of our cultural heritage through conservation of our built environment. However, when Wright houses are converted into public museums they no longer function as private residences as Wright originally intended. The theme of the Conservancy’s 2007 Annual Conference, “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Private to Public,” is intended to stimulate thought on the full gamut of Wright’s architecture, exploring preservation, conservation and visitation issues at both private and public buildings, while also examining the problems, responsibilities and obligations surrounding the conversion of a private building into a public site. Brochures available for the following conferences: 2011 Conference 2010 Conference 2009 Conference 2008 Conference 2007 Conference 2006 Conference 2005 Conference 2004 Conference 2003 Conference 2002 Conference 2001 Conference |
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