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Rood
Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Posts: 424
Location: Goodyear, AZ 85338
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 Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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DRN wrote: "Wright's site plan as posted by SDR is oriented with North/South to the sides of the page and East/West to the top and bottom of the page. I just can't see from the satellite photo though, if there are any remains. I would expect the masonry of the fireplaces or the concrete drawing vault to remain in some form."
Please note: None of the fireplaces shown on the drawings were built. Simple portable kerosene heaters were used to warm the structures during the cold of winter. A few historic photographs show small chimneys poking through the walls of each box-board cabin.
No concrete drawing vault was built, either. The only concrete on site existed near the crest of the hill in the structure built to test the San Marcos Hotel blocks. It's visible in the photo on page 159 of the book: An American Architecture, c. 1955. |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
Posts: 8035
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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Two images from "An American Architecture" not previously exhibited here:
. . . and the other two of the four "An American Architecture" photos:
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Wrighter
Joined: 09 Sep 2005
Posts: 311
Location: St. Louis, MO
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I am consoled by the thought that today any building design may have far-reaching effect on the record, and because our machine -- publicity -- as easily gives it, as an idea of form, to the mind's eye of all the world. For an instance, "Ocatillo" with no help or suggestion from me was published in German and Dutch magazines two months after it was nearly finished. It has appeared in magazines all over the world. Thank the machine for that: for this universal ubiquity. Or curse it as the case may be. |
SDR, thanks for this great passage of Wright's, though I’d gloss it slightly differently. I’m not reading the contrast here as strictly between built and unbuilt. Rather, the contrast appears to be between influence and lack of influence. That is, Wright appears to be talking about the impact or influence of a design, and he speaks with direct reference to the publicity of a particular design via mass media, which he calls "the machine."
The way I read it, the publicity becomes itself a kind of “building” of the idea, so that it lives as if actually built in the minds of others. In other words, the publicity “machine” takes the place of the machines of construction. Using the 'tools' of print, television, photography, the publicity provides its own kind of “building”—giving the structure the semblance of physical reality, and thus perhaps a greater influence than an unbuilt design might have had before the publicity machine existed. (I’m thinking here of the way Wright used the media to publicize designs like the Arizona state capital and the Illinois mile-high project).
Regarding the larger notion of the value of unbuilt or built design, or destruction of built design, certainly Wright could be stoic about a building’s destruction, like the Larkin building and Ocatillo here. But didn’t he fight to save Robie? And certainly he could be determined in getting a design built in the first place (The Guggenheim, for example). |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
Posts: 8035
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, yes, he certainly persevered in getting things built -- the bedrock of his reputation. Yet, as you say, the Idea (as he called it) was more important even than the built reality -- I believe. And he appears grateful for the modern print-propagation "machine" (including the modern miracle of photography) in spreading his work abroad and about. "The record" (as he has it) of the Idea is the vital item in securing his place in the pantheon of architects.
SDR |
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Tom
Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Posts: 903
Location: Black Mountain, NC
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Wow.Never knew that a mock up fragment of San Marcos was built. Is that the only photograph? |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
Posts: 8035
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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Why, no . . . it isn't.
From Sweeney's "Wright in Hollywood":
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Tom
Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Posts: 903
Location: Black Mountain, NC
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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Ah Ha, I ordered Sweeney's book late last week! Thanks for the sneak preview.
Man, what a project that woulda been. |
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Tom
Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Posts: 903
Location: Black Mountain, NC
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:38 am Post subject: |
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| (SDR: Off topic. I found Storrers' Companion in the library. An exhaustive effort . I ran across the entry for the Arnold Friedman House in Pecos New Mexico. The photograph of this house seems sub par with Wright's work in general. The entry of this house in the Monograph (M7/81) is more intensive and reveals a stronger effort. But in Pfieffers book, "The Masterworks" the house is included. I have not seen this book, have you? Is the Friedman house really a masterwork?) |
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DRN
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 1552
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:40 am Post subject: |
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continuing the off topic...It is interesting to note the Friedman house is illustrated in "The Masterworks" via drawings only, no photos of the as-built house. I find the house to be interesting as a built version of a 1920's "cabin in the woods" concept, but it is not one of my favorites. I should note that I have not visited the house, so my views might be changed were I to experience it first hand. How it was selected, I'm not sure...BBP's preference, perhaps? It does seem a bit out of its league when compared to the other projects documented the book.
On a similar note, I questioned the inclusion of the Mossberg house in South Bend. A great house to be sure, but not quite a masterwork. |
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Rood
Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Posts: 424
Location: Goodyear, AZ 85338
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Tom wrote: | | (SDR: Off topic. Is the Friedman house really a masterwork?) |
I've never been inside, but a friend and I once stopped at the Friedman House late at night ... to find the house completely dark, except for a dim light in the caretaker's apartment. Wishing to see the house by the light of day we slung our sleeping bags on the floor of the master bedroom patio, got up at first light, walked around the house (including the inner courtyard), then left before anyone knew any different.
From what we could see, the house was in good condition. Though most windows were boarded-up, from the outside the structure presents a rough-sawn western version of a Frank Lloyd Wright building... something like Como Orchards, perhaps, or early Taliesin West. Unfortunately, the many acres of grounds in front of the house were being heavily overused by range cattle, and the effect was of a house surrounded by a barren landscape. With snow covering the grounds, the view might be much more pleasant in winter, when the owners were usually in residence.
However, John DeKoven Hill told me that in a casual sort of way it's rather luxurious inside, not soft and precious, as is often seen (ad nauseam) in Architectural Digest photos of luxury dwellings, but in the more rugged, western farmhouse tradition. One trenchant example: the living room carpet is sewn from the hides of range cattle.
About ten years ago, on my way north I drove by the house, again. I don't know who lived there then, but access was definitely limited ... fences, locked gates, thick hedges blocking a view from the road, etc. |
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Tom
Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Posts: 903
Location: Black Mountain, NC
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Camping at the Friedman house in New Mexico: great.
I wish the owners of this place would let it be photographed and published. |
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Roderick Grant
Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 3947
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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| To me, Friedman's least interesting aspect is the "inverted ice cream cone" quality of the roof over the living room. The interior, unlike that of the similar Davis House, is quite nice, based on the limited views I've seen published. But it's no masterpiece. |
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SDR
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
Posts: 8035
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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The relevant documents:
From Larkin and Pfeiffer, "FLLW: The Masterpieces":
William A Storrer's "FLLW Companion":
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HOJO
Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 20
Location: Belgium
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| Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Rood wrote: |
I've never been inside, but a friend and I once stopped at the Friedman House late at night ... to find the house completely dark, except for a dim light in the caretaker's apartment. Wishing to see the house by the light of day we slung our sleeping bags on the floor of the master bedroom patio, got up at first light, walked around the house (including the inner courtyard), then left before anyone knew any different.
From what we could see, the house was in good condition. Though most windows were boarded-up, from the outside the structure presents a rough-sawn western version of a Frank Lloyd Wright building... something like Como Orchards, perhaps, or early Taliesin West. Unfortunately, the many acres of grounds in front of the house were being heavily overused by range cattle, and the effect was of a house surrounded by a barren landscape. With snow covering the grounds, the view might be much more pleasant in winter, when the owners were usually in residence.
However, John DeKoven Hill told me that in a casual sort of way it's rather luxurious inside, not soft and precious, as is often seen (ad nauseam) in Architectural Digest photos of luxury dwellings, but in the more rugged, western farmhouse tradition. One trenchant example: the living room carpet is sewn from the hides of range cattle.
About ten years ago, on my way north I drove by the house, again. I don't know who lived there then, but access was definitely limited ... fences, locked gates, thick hedges blocking a view from the road, etc. |
Has anybody perhaps any photos of Friedman to share ? |
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Rood
Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Posts: 424
Location: Goodyear, AZ 85338
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