Wright Chat

DavidC · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 3182 Location: Oak Ridge, TN

Iowa to assume costs to maintain Frank Lloyd Wright’s Cedar Rock

David

JimM · Joined: 06 Jan 2005 Posts: 1070 Location: Anacortes, WA

I've never seen it from that angle, most photos show the more dramatic living room from below. They stayed in town during the winter; condensation on all those windows obliterated the view! The published precursor (Life?) had even more glass, more Miesian than Wright.

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 8031 Location: San Francisco

Opus 497 ?

One of 15 "Signature Homes" ?

Wright didn't like the name America ?

You learn the most interesting things in these little films. . .

What's with that chain-tethered sink ?

SDR

googieagog · Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:12 pm Post subject:

Cedar Rock is my favorite Wright museum house. It's a great design, amazingly complete and spectacularly maintained. (Some may quibble with the copper cladding added a few years back to the skylight cutouts, but overall it's a good solution for a chronic condensation problem.) That said, I do question how the endowment was invested and used. I doubt the Walters intended the largest chunk to be spent on farmland. If Iowa's DNR wants more open space, that agency should buy it from the endowment.
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Dan

peterm · Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:59 pm Post subject:

Cedar Rock does seem to be in pristine condition. And with all the surrounding nature, it must be an amazing experience...

SDR- I believe in the first video, she says something to the effect: "one of two dozen signature homes that we know of..." Of course, she wasn't necessarily privy to the research thread started here at Wright Chat by "Olgivanna"!

I think the second narrator meant to say that Wright was not fond of the term "Americans" because he (correctly) knew that all people from both the North American and South American continents could be considered "Americans", and that the term was misused and not specific enough to describe the citizens of the United States of America.

Could the opus 497 reference come from a tongue in cheek correspondence between Walters and Wright? In the Lamberson letters, Jack Lamberson and Wright jokingly refer to the house as Oskaloosa's Guggenheim...

And like you, SDR, I too, would like to know what's up with that sink!
Is is some sort of prefabricated unit???

Wrightgeek · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 1548 Location: Westerville, Ohio

peterm and SDR-

Here is a link to a previous thread that discusses the bathrooms at Cedar Rock.

http://savewright.org/wright_chat/viewtopic.php?t=3323&highlight=pullman

Paul Ringstrom · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 2223 Location: Mason City, IA

One of the times I visited Cedar Rock, I noticed that water was running down one of the interior brick walls and puddling on the walnut shelves in the dining area. I asked the tour guide about it and she said they had plans to re-roof. I told I thought that was good news as there are now much better products for waterproofing flat roofs now days that when the house was built. She said that they were not going to use the new products but use the techniques that Wright used originally for historical accuracy. (I, of course, was flabbergasted at that response.) Maybe they have come to their senses subsequently.

This unfortunately another example that reinforces my thoughts that state agencies and universities are not the best stewards for historic properties. We now have several examples to prove that local grassroots organizations seem to be the most capable long-term owners: Graycliff, Martin, Krauss, etc. Also, private owners who offer the property for short-term rental have now been shown to be capable of generating sufficient revenue for upkeep: Penfield, Schwartz, Seth Peterson, etc.

googieagog · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:18 pm Post subject:

Cedar Rock's all-in-one "Sanifab" fixtures were designed by Bertrand Goldberg during the war and manufactured '45-'47. Its dimesnions are 7.5'x2.5' and were intended for widespread use, to be dropped in the framing before hanging the drywall. The intent was that a bathroom could be built in a single day. I suspect that, like the Lustron houses, the building code and trade union people were not happy about it and that's why it quickly disappeared.

Goldberg likely got the idea from Bucky Fuller, who earlier prototyped a one-piece stamped bathroom. Bucky and Wright were mutual fans. It's possible Wright specified the Goldberg fixtures because he wanted to support the company, prefab in general, or Bucky's concept. But I doubt the fixtures were the Walters first choice.
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Dan

Paul Ringstrom · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 2223 Location: Mason City, IA