Wright Chat

[Laurie Virr]

SDR makes mention in a previous thread of the car court at Taliesin East. It is an area, the construction of which has long perplexed me.

In the 1990’s I was told that when FLLW originally designed Taliesin 1 he sited it on top of the hill. During construction he realized that it should be of the hill, and as a consequence had many horse drawn cartloads of soil hauled up to create the topography we are all familiar with. There were no footings to the original walls - they were laid on baulks of oak. The combination of the lack of footings, combined with the fact that some subsequent additions to the original house were constructed on the hauled fill has resulted in many of the problems now being confronted by those charged with the restoration work.

I shall leave it to others closer to hand to refute or substantiate the above, but whether it be natural or contrived, the relationship of the complex to the site is masterly, except for the car court. Why, when for 48 years FLLW preached that the site was the progenitor of all Architecture, did he ignore that dictum when constructing the car court? To raise it on posts, after the manner of Mies van der Rohe, or latterly, Glenn Murcutt, is to ignore the site. From below it appears as less then convincing. Why not a stone, or stone faced retaining wall, so that it appears to grow out of the site, as tho it has always been there, like the rest of the building?

Unless the structures above the car court can be stabilized, surely, in time, they will occupy it as rubble, at least for a brief period, until the posts supporting it collapse under the weight?

[Roderick Grant]

In the other thread, I believe it was SDR who wondered why the original approach to Taliesin was changed. That would be because the entrance to the house was moved. Originally, in 1911, the entrance was from the loggia directly into the living room, and the area northwest of the loggia was just a small deadend terrace. The entrance was later moved to the area between the loggia and carport where it is currently, at the time the interior loggia was created where a bedroom had originally been located. I suspect FLW did not want approaching vehicles to pass directly in front of the main entry. Moving it also afforded him the opportunity to create one of the most beautiful aspects of the estate, the stone stairs from the new parking area up to the loggia. But the structure of the new parking area is a conundrum.

I have never heard about the creation of a hill that was not there, and I doubt it's true. It is true that few pre-Taliesin I houses were on sloping ground, Hardy and Stewart being the most obvious exceptions. But I find it hard to believe he manufactured the hill Taliesin was built upon. I would be more inclined to believe that the structural problems Taliesin has are due to FLW's constant state of illiquidity. Look at the place! How do you suppose he paid for such a palatial 37,000 sf country house? The late John Benton, owner of Encyclopedia Britannica, and worth hundreds of millions of dollars, commented to John Geiger that he could never afford to live as lavishly as FLW did. Wright wanted to live on a grand scale, and he got what he wanted however he was able. So it's a bit shabby. So what? One of the unintended consequences of a well-done restoration would be the loss of the extemporaneous nature of the house, and the casual, slip-shod manner in which it was built. It could end up being sterile, and that would be a shame.

[SDR]

Something tells me it's way to[o] late to "sterilize" Taliesin !

I like Jim's suggestion of a recreation of Taliesin I, on some other part of the estate, to capture the purity and coherence of the original.

I'd be interested to hear of other possible reasons for the abandonment of the original southerly approach to the house, than the one articulated above.
Could it be something as simple as the amount of plowing necessary in the winter ?

SDR

[JimM]

I imagine the reasons for the approach change was three fold: one, his desire to expand the living areas without vehicle intrusion, two, and probably the main reason-as car engines and their size grew, the prospect of carbon monoxide fumes wafting down the court would be reason enough. And three, capacity. He was increasingly hosting visitors, and many more cars were being accumulated for and by the Fellowship. The car court also allowed access to his office without entering the residential areas.

A stone wall at the edge would have been a monstrous project-and he probably was only concerned with the effect at the car court level. Mendel Glickman (sp?)engineered the concrete beamed structure. BTW, Wright was away during construction, and I imagine he looked forward to a grand entrance upon his return!

Thanks SDR for the support! If I had the cash, I'd donate it, or at the least recreate it for my self. Just about the most beautiful structure ever built, IMO, if a bit of a broad stroke.

[Laurie Virr]

I can accept, and concur, with all the reasons advanced for why the route to the entrance to the house was changed. It is the construction itself that concerns me. FLLW was ultimately concerned with the appearance of his buildings, that they were wedded to the Earth Line - especially those in which he resided - and yet this structure is diametrically opposed to everything else on the site. As Mr Roderick Grant writes, it is a conundrum.

Frank Lloyd Wright never took a backward step with regard to the size of a project, and it could be a matter of dispute as to whether a retaining wall would have constituted a larger project than the present structure. Would it have been a greater undertaking than some aspects of Taliesin West? What is indisputable is that the existing structure is an engineer's solution to an architectural problem.

[SDR]

Jim: Sounds good to me -- well-reasoned certainly. Noise from autos (and other vehicles), as well as fumes, would have been intrusive to the private
residence. Surveillance from the master's quarters must be balanced, wherever it is sought, by appropriate provision of privacy and security.
"Prospect [versus] Refuge" ?

The romantic and picturesque original southern approach is captured in an early photo where a tall cloth-topped car, c. 1912-15 (?), sits oddly askew
at the top of that drive, within sight, sound (and smell) of the bedrooms.

A more expansive layout from the start (possibly implying a larger site) would have allowed for a generous arrival court in place of the original tight
L-shaped drive; visitors to both private and professional venues at Talesin would have been delivered by motor to their respective entrances, with
exiting traffic trailing through an (expanded) Mid Court, Work Court, and Back Court. Same-level motor arrival for all visitors was sacrificed as a
result of the changeover. . .which (nevertheless) could have been in Wright's mind from the beginning. Would he not have anticipated his practice
being centered at Taliesin, rather than in an office in Madison or Chicago -- or had he really not thought that far ahead, in 1912 ?

Laurie: Picking up just on your last thought, "an engineer's solution to an architectural problem" is a provocative phrase. I would be interested to
hear more from you and others on this . . .!

SDR

[SDR]

The long horizontal of the parapet of the motor court, seen from a distance, seems to equal the height of the Birdwalk and the other spandrel heights of
the residence -- which must have pleased Wright. This sort of thing brings to mind large structures like Monona Terrace, for instance. Whether that was
the effect sought, and whether the allusion is an appropriate one for this rural hilltop baronial compound, are open questions, perhaps.

SDR

[JimM]

[wjsaia]

I ran across this 1939 photo, credited to Robert Carroll “Bob” May, in Curtis Besinger’s Working with Mr. Wright – What It Was Like, taken during construction of the car court structure. Personally, I have never observed the “posts” that have been cited on this thread. I wonder if they might have been fin walls . . . (?) There seems to be a longitudinal beam being formed here in the foreground, and that does suggest that the structure spans between spaced transverse supports rather than being supported continuously as one might think would have been preferred. Also, the orientation of the diamond expanded metal reinforcing suggests continuous longitudinal spans. Yet, Curtis Besinger's caption states this is a partially cantilevered structure. (The same photo appears on Page 195 of The Fellowship ¬ The Untold Story . . ., by Roger Friedland and Howard Zellman, misidentified by those brilliant researchers as a photograph of the construction of the Drafting Studio at Hillside.)




Close-up of Reinforcement (Expanded Metal as Used in Johnson Wax Columns)

I wonder if someone could explain this: the Conservation, Documentation and Master Plan Report for The House, Studio, and Hill Garden and Taliesin National Historical Landmark Property Master Plan of 1993, prepared by Taliesin Architects under the auspices of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for the Getty Grant Program (Reference #88029), shows a north elevation of the Lower “Car” Court. It happens that this area lies just outside of the Study Area of that report, but nonetheless there are many measured drawings included for such portions of Taliesin adjacent to the Study Area. As I explained in the Taliesin Guestrooms thread, many individuals contributed to the effort – Tony Puttnam served as Architect-In-Charge for Taliesin Architects; Keith McPheeters, FAIA was Supervisor of Record Drawings; Charles Montooth, AIA and Paul Wagner, AIA are among others credited for their efforts, along with Bruce Pfeiffer as FLLW Archives Director and Sidney Robinson as Architectural Historian. The Getty grant came in early 1990 and matching funds were developed, but preparation of measured drawings had been started in 1987 and continued up until 1992, so the various room configurations shown are of what existed as of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

First, 3 elevations (supposedly measured drawings prepared around 1990), arranged in sequence running from West to East:


(The parapet is partially broken away so as to view beyond its location.)


(The parapet is partially broken away so as to view beyond its location.)



Lastly, a cross-section (supposedly a measured drawing) through the lower court shows an indication of a continuous masonry support wall and a "partially cantilevered" structure:


(Gene Masselink's print shop was established on the Lower Court level in the element nearest the masonry return where the entrance Fu dog is placed. Access was through the Storage area.)

I do remember hearing, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, that a vehicle had fallen through a section of the Lower Court structure. The solution that I heard was being considered involved removing the truck or car and dropping multiple large half-diameter steel culverts into the hole, over which earth would be dumped and the whole thing then paved over. I wonder if this repair was accomplished in this makeshift way. (Next up for coauthors Friedland and Zellman: Taliesin's Lower Court – The Untold Story of Historical Preservation Gone Bad, Very, Very Bad . . .?)

WJS

[SDR]

Here's a photo found in Pedro Guerrero's book, of the west end of the entrance court. P G says, "A large Chinese ceramic pot graced the top of
the entry stairs, and one of Mr Wright's many expensive automobiles was parked in the drive below. I took this photograph in 1947 standing on the top
of the stairs, looking out toward the terrace of Mr Wright's studio and the hills bordering the Wisconsin River."

The broad scotia molding mentioned by Jim is visible here. What wood would have been used at Taliesin for such exterior trim ?

Note the lack of projecting stones in the piers supporting the terrace(s).

[SDR]

A photograph presented by Wright in his "An American Architecture" (1955).

There just isn't anything "modern" here at all, is there. . .






.

[Laurie Virr]

Thank you all for your contributions to this topic.

Mr Glickman had a fine reputation as a civil engineer, and if he designed the structure supporting the Car Court, that fact adds another layer that envelops this puzzle.

Once again wjs has made a particularly fine contribution to this thread, and it does appear that the structure spans between transverse supports that read as posts from below. The longitudinal beam to be seen in the foreground of the photograph looks as tho it is of the upstand variety, but why would it be in that location when beyond it is a cantilevered section?

Laurie Virr

[Laurie Virr]

I apologize for the typographic error in the above post I meant 'civil' of course.

Laurie Virr

[SDR]

In this tour video, we can see a bit of the structure supporting the car court.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDoDrU3KdM

From about 1:00 to 1:40, the camera is pointed toward the car court as the visitor walks toward the dam and waterfall below. At 1:13 the camera zooms
in on the area in question.

Photos of this side of Taliesin seem difficult to find.

Over the years, long bands of parapet were extended around the north and east sides of the structure(s), echoing the linear appearance of the birdwalk.
The car court boundary wall represents a major portion of this spreading band.

SDR

[wjsaia]

Illustration 91 on Page 101 of Neil Levine’s The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Princeton University Press, 1996:


Taliesin. From Lake (late 1950s)