Riverside Info Tag: FLW

Riverside Info Tag: FLW http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Discussion Forum for Riverside Illinois en Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:55:41 +0000 ChrisHajer on "$1 for a Burnham "fixer upper" house" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/1-for-a-burnham-fixer-upper-house#post-13349 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:04:43 +0000 ChrisHajer 13349@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ If a Burnham is not your style, but you've still up for moving a house, why not a Frank Lloyd Wright Textile house? There are two for sale... <blockquote>Column One: Dramatic, historic and prices slashed, yet no buyers are biting For sale signs are out on two of four textile-block homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright, but both are languishing on the market.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/la-et-0827-wright-houses-20100827-50,0,6829337.story" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/la-et-0827-wright-houses-20100827-50,0,6829337.story</a> <img src="http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-08/frank-lloyd-wright_55786384.jpg" alt="Frank Lloyd Wright Textile House (c) Chicago Tribune" /> There are a more and better pictures here : <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/la-et-0827-wright-houses-pictures,0,2954171.photogallery" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/la-et-0827-wright-houses-pictures,0,2954171.photogallery</a> ChrisHajer on "$1 for a Burnham "fixer upper" house" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/1-for-a-burnham-fixer-upper-house#post-13339 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:34:48 +0000 ChrisHajer 13339@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ One dollar home a tough sell <blockquote>Historic Glenview house was designed by Daniel Burnham's nephew, the village's first president </blockquote> <a href="http://www.triblocal.com/Glenview/detail/211541.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.triblocal.com/Glenview/detail/211541.html</a> The only catch is, you have to move it. Then make it inhabitable. Tim on "Frank LLoyd Wright Lecture in Riverside" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/frank-lloyd-wright-lecture-in-riverside#post-5973 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:37:07 +0000 Tim 5973@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ The Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside, IL is hosting a free lecture on Thursday, December 6th at 7pm at the Riverside Township Hall. The speaker will be restoration architect John Eifler, FAIA. The topic for the evening will be: "Frank Lloyd Wright and His ongoing Search for Innovation in Design". For more information please feel free to visit: <ul><a href="http://www.olmstedsociety.org" rel="nofollow">www.olmstedsociety.org</a></ul> ...for a more detailed account of the speaker and the topic for the evening. For those in the area, this will be a great opportunity to get a glimpse at what is going on with past, present and future restoration projects on several homes by Wright. spatny on "Author of "Loving Frank" at Barbara's Books Oak Park 8/16" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/author-of-loving-frank-at-barbaras-books-oak-park-816#post-5444 Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:56:00 +0000 spatny 5444@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ When they went north they were followed, and the detectives put playing cards against their door to see if they stayed in the same room all night, then Charged Frank with a Mann Act violation. Those were the days... imagine - there would be no Patel Motels if that was enforced nowadays. Talk about selective prosecution - Mr. Wright was the poster boy for it. The Cook from Barbados, Carlton something, who did Mamah and the others in, was found hiding in the furnace - the same one that was in use when I was there. I remember going to look at it. ChrisHajer on "Author of "Loving Frank" at Barbara's Books Oak Park 8/16" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/author-of-loving-frank-at-barbaras-books-oak-park-816#post-5416 Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:59:36 +0000 ChrisHajer 5416@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Loving Frank A novel by Nancy Horan <blockquote>From Publishers Weekly Horan's ambitious first novel is a fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Despite the title, this is not a romance, but a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Frank and Mamah, both married and with children, met when Mamah's husband, Edwin, commissioned Frank to design a house. Their affair became the stuff of headlines when they left their families to live and travel together, going first to Germany, where Mamah found rewarding work doing scholarly translations of Swedish feminist Ellen Key's books. Frank and Mamah eventually settled in Wisconsin, where they were hounded by a scandal-hungry press, with tragic repercussions. Horan puts considerable effort into recreating Frank's vibrant, overwhelming personality, but her primary interest is in Mamah, who pursued her intellectual interests and love for Frank at great personal cost. As is often the case when a life story is novelized, historical fact inconveniently intrudes: Mamah's life is cut short in the most unexpected and violent of ways, leaving the narrative to crawl toward a startlingly quiet conclusion. Nevertheless, this spirited novel brings Mamah the attention she deserves as an intellectual and feminist. (Aug.) Copyright Â© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </blockquote> A list of other events with the author: <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/rc/library/display.pperl?isbn=9780345494993&view=isbn_events" rel="nofollow">http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/rc/library/display.pperl?isbn=9780345494993&view=isbn_events</a> The book is due out August 7th. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Frank-Novel-Nancy-Horan/dp/product-description/0345494997" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Frank-Novel-Nancy-Horan/dp/product-description/0345494997</a> MikeT on "Sullivan bungalows lost to Katrina" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/sullivan-bungalows-lost-to-katrina#post-5379 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:07:28 +0000 MikeT 5379@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Here is a story from a couple years ago about the evanescence of human creations - as well as some interesting comments about Chicago architect Louis Sullivan and the bungalows themselves. Also recall how the Village of Riverside tore down a Sullivan masterpiece in 1960. Village Trustees, like hurricanes, are sometimes blind. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0509080196sep08,0,1273586,print.story?coll=chi-homepagenews-utl" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0509080196sep08,0,1273586,print.story?coll=chi-homepagenews-utl</a> GULF COAST CRISIS: IN MISSISSIPPI Wright-Sullivan gems gutted Twin bungalows--both claimed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan--suffer Katrina's wrath By Michael Martinez and Blair Kamin, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune national correspondent Michael Martinez reported from Ocean Springs, with Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin in Chicago September 8, 2005 OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- A pair of bungalows that provided a tangible link to two of the giants of Chicago architecture, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, thrived for more than a century on this stretch of the Gulf Coast whose marsh grasses and offshore islands evoke a bigger cousin of the Great Lakes. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Now, one of the bungalows is "vaporized," in the words of its owner, and the other is severely damaged. The two were part of a four-building waterfront compound, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, that Sullivan and Wright both claimed to have designed. The destroyed bungalow was for two decades a vacation getaway for Sullivan, renowned for his Carson Pirie Scott store on State Street and his pioneering skyscrapers. A companion servant's quarters a few paces away also was destroyed. Only a concrete pad indicates something sat there. From the bungalow's veranda, Sullivan could gaze through overhanging white wisteria onto the waters of Davis Bayou, drawing inspiration for his urban high-rises from the rural paradise. Now the bungalow is a carpenter's scrap pile, scattered as far as 100 yards away from its original location. Everything is gone except an urn planter, brick foundation pieces and the famous tree where, in a well- known photograph, Sullivan struck his iconic pose looking toward the sea. "This is like somebody coming into Independence Hall and burning the Declaration of Independence. It's irreplaceable," said Paul Minor, 59, a Biloxi personal injury lawyer who meticulously renovated the house after purchasing it in 1986. The only relatively good news is that the two other structures in the district--the second bungalow and a nearby guesthouse--are still standing, but with significant damage. While Wright never lived in any of the buildings, his fingerprints may be on them because he was Sullivan's chief draftsman. The bungalows "are so wrapped up with Sullivan and Wright," said architectural historian Paul Sprague, a former Chicago resident who lives in Florida. "For Sullivan, this was a place he escaped from Chicago. It was a place he renewed himself. He had it for 20 years. As far as the history of architecture is concerned, it plays a part in the evolution of his work." What remains of the Sullivan bungalow is haunting. Like Stonehenge, a chimney rises 15 feet and stands alone. At its feet is the rubble of an architectural gem beloved by Sullivan for its mystical powers--"the paradise, the poem of spring, Louis' other self " is how he wrote about it in his autobiography shortly before he died in 1924. Like sifting through pieces of a broken dream, Minor walked through rubble that included precious materials such as 100- year-old heart pine wood. He had spent a small fortune on such details to restore parts of the interior to duplicate the original design. When he first saw that the "house was vaporized," he said, "I went to my knees." "I truly thought I had the best house ... along the Gulf Coast. This is true Southern living where you take advantage of the serenity and the beauty of the gulf," he said. Added his wife, Sylvia, 58: "The Louis Sullivan house is no more. It's just--floosh!--gone. It's disintegrated." (It has been a tumultuous summer for Paul Minor, who stood trial last month on charges of bribing state judges. He was acquitted of some charges, but the jury couldn't render verdicts on other counts. The federal prosecutor's office hasn't yet announced whether it will seek to re-try Minor.) Late in Sullivan's life, when he was in desperate financial straits, Sullivan wrote that his bungalow was destroyed by a "wayward West Indian hurricane." In fact, he was using hyperbole to describe how he was forced to give up the one-story, shingle-covered home to Chicago terra cotta manufacturer Gustav Hottinger, who had lent him money. This time, the hurricane was real, and it crashed into the compound, which is about 100 yards from the beach. The four structures, clad in cypress shingle siding colored a dull blue, were built in 1890. The bungalow that was not owned by Sullivan was rebuilt in 1897 after a fire. While hardly masterpieces, the bungalows were part of the legacy of two extraordinary architects: Sullivan, renowned for his swirling ornament and for coining the maxim "form ever follows function," and Wright, even more admired for his Prairie Style houses and such dazzling monuments as the corkscrewing Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Their intertwining stories, however, have a trace of bitterness. Early in his career, Wright worked for Sullivan, calling him "Lieber Meister," or "beloved master." But in 1893, Sullivan fired Wright after learning that Wright, his chief draftsman, was designing "bootleg" houses without his permission. Their disagreements even extended to the authorship of the side-by-side bungalows in Ocean Springs--one built as Sullivan's vacation house, the other a getaway for Chicago lumber dealer James Charnley, who also commissioned a masterful Wright-Sullivan house in Chicago's Gold Coast. But architectural historians agree on this much: Sullivan first visited Ocean Springs in 1890 to recover from the exhaustion caused by his work on Chicago's Auditorium Building, 430 S. Michigan Ave., the handsome multipurpose structure that was completed in 1889. "He was completely taken with the Gulf Coast and the beauty of the natural landscape," said Tim Samuelson, a Chicago architectural historian who assisted the renovation of the Sullivan bungalow in the 1980s. "It gave him inspiration. It gave him rest. It fueled him and allowed him to come back to the city and renew his work." After meeting Sullivan in New Orleans in 1890, Charnley and his wife led him to Ocean Springs, according to William Storrer, author of "The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright." They transferred five of their 21 acres to Sullivan, Storrer writes, and asked Sullivan to plan a house for them. Wright later claimed credit for the bungalows, noting that Sullivan's firm, Adler & Sullivan, "refused to build residences" and that the few the firm did design "fell to my lot." The top of the "T" consisted of a full-width veranda that would catch the breeze coming off the Biloxi Bay; the stem of the "T" had a kitchen and, in the more elaborate Charnley bungalow, an octagonal dining room. The houses had broad overhanging eaves that sheltered them from the hot Southern sun. In 1905, Architectural Record magazine described how visitors sitting on the veranda of the Sullivan bungalow could look over "great clusters of white wisteria hanging from the roof" toward a rose garden, trees and "across the stretch of water of the bay glittering with countless gems beyond the prices of the ransom of kings." The post-Katrina scene could not be more different. The Charnley bungalow's sills are knocked three or four feet off its piers. The bungalow exhibits the wending grooves of termite infestation in massive 12-inch-by -12-inch pine sills upon which floor joists sat. Inside, the exotic, whorled designs of burly pine paneling are exposed to open viewing; the paneling covers the walls and ceiling. The roof over the eastern wing has collapsed. An interior floor has buckled, as if it now sits on a massive barrel. The absence of front doors and porch make it look as though the house's teeth were kicked in. For all the damage, local historian and Ocean Springs Record columnist Ray Bellande, 62, thought the Charnley bungalow could be saved as he surveyed the tattered structure. "It could be restored, but it would take a lot of money and a lot of patience," Bellande said. A companion cottage to the Charnley bungalow received less damage. Its front, octagonal-roof entrance was knocked off its foundation, but the remainder was relatively intact, including a shelf loaded with hardback books about Frank Lloyd Wright. ---------- <a href="mailto:mjmartinez@tribune.com">mjmartinez@tribune.com</a> <a href="mailto:bkamin@tribune.com">bkamin@tribune.com</a> Copyright Â© 2007, Chicago Tribune MikeT on "Today's Tribune: Wright architecture puts small College on the map" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/todays-tribune-wright-architecture-puts-small-college-on-the-map#post-5378 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:02:11 +0000 MikeT 5378@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ What I noticed about the following article in today's Tribune: *how Wright's architecture, even when it is in need of repair, puts a nothing college in the news and on the map. The college officials recognize this, too. Since Wright is an artist, this is also further confirmation of the value of art adding value to an urban landscape. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wright_swansonjul09,1,6151660.story?coll=chi-news-hed" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wright_swansonjul09,1,6151660.story?coll=chi-news-hed</a> Campus by Wright failing test of time Architect designed 12 buildings at Florida college, but they've been designated as 'endangered' Advertisement By Stevenson Swanson Tribune national correspondent July 9, 2007 LAKELAND, Fla. -- In the hallway of a science building at Florida Southern College here, silvery ventilation ducts sprout from the floor, rise some 7 feet, take an abrupt 90-degree turn and disappear into the walls of classrooms. It seems a safe bet that Frank Lloyd Wright didn't design them that way. Last month, when the World Monuments Fund released its new watch list of the world's most endangered cultural sites, one of the biggest surprises on the list was Wright's Florida Southern campus. It was a surprise on two counts. In the decades since his death in 1959, Wright's stature as America's greatest architect has become almost universally accepted. How could a Wright project be in such danger that it would merit inclusion on one of the most important lists of imperiled sites? But the very existence of the Wright campus was also startling. Wright designed a college campus? In Florida? Although the project is certainly known to Wright scholars and dedicated Wright buffs, it has been vastly overshadowed by such landmarks as his home and studio in Oak Park, Ill., and Fallingwater, a house built over a stream in western Pennsylvania. Yet Florida Southern boasts the largest single-site collection of the master architect's buildings -- 12 structures, spanning the important later decades of his life that produced Fallingwater and New York's Guggenheim Museum. Far from being disturbed by the monuments fund listing, college officials are thrilled Florida Southern was included. They are in the midst of the first comprehensive study of the condition of the Wright buildings, which will help guide preservation efforts. They believe that recognition by the fund will help the fundraising efforts of the college, which has 1,750 students. "We are a small college with a small treasury and a small endowment, so if we have to raise $40 million or $50 million, that's a major undertaking," said President Anne Kerr in an interview in the Wright-designed administration building. Wright's 21-year involvement with the United Methodist college began in 1938, when then- President Ludd Spivey wired Wright to ask him to design a "great education temple" on 100 acres in this Central Florida city about 30 miles east of Tampa. Wright designed 18 buildings, of which 12 were built, and a network of covered walkways through the site's orange trees. The walkways, with thick columns that suggest tree trunks, link the buildings and protect students from Florida's hot sun and frequent afternoon showers. The most famous building is the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, with a horizontal, trellis-like spire that campus wags call "God's bicycle rack." The chapel, like all the Wright buildings on campus, was built with concrete blocks made with local sand and poured into custom-built molds to create a variety of textile-like patterns. For the chapel alone, Wright designed 46 different molds, according to Mark Tlachac, one of several docents who give tours to about 25,000 visitors a year. As befits a building dedicated to spiritual matters, the chapel reaches skyward, but Wright wanted the other campus buildings to be low to the ground. Each one would appear to emerge from the Earth, like a "child of the sun," he said. 'Uniquely American campus' Wright listed Florida Southern as one of the important projects he thought should be included in a 1950s TV program devoted to his work. Always the loudest tooter of his own horn, he felt that he had designed "the first uniquely American campus," brushing off Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia campus. "Mr. Wright invested a lot in this project," said Jim Rogers, a Florida Southern art history professor and Wright scholar, who noted that the campus was the only multibuilding project of Wright's ever to be built. "He gave far more to it than anyone would have as a business matter. It was an investment in an ideal." With money short, Spivey and Wright recruited the college's students to do much of the early construction. That led to wide variations in quality, according to Jeffrey Baker, an Albany, N.Y., preservation architect who is preparing a master plan of the campus to document Wright's original intentions and how they were altered over the decades. "These textile blocks were an idea he developed in California and never gave up, despite questions about how effective they were," said Baker, whose study is being funded with a $195,000 grant from the Getty Foundation. At Florida Southern, the blocks turned out to be porous, allowing moisture to penetrate and corrode the reinforcing bars. Many of the blocks have to be replaced. Baker pointed out a wall made of the patterned blocks that had been broken open, revealing reinforcing bars that have rusted to dust in places. "You can pull some of these blocks out with your hands," he said, picking at tiny pieces of corroded iron. After Wright's death, the college and Wright's successors at Taliesin, the combination school -architecture firm that carried on his legacy, had a bitter falling-out over money. Taliesin's leaders claimed the college owed them nearly $200,000 for work that Wright and his apprentices had done. Taliesin stopped working for the college, and neither Taliesin nor the college did much to promote the fact that Wright had designed the campus. To make matters worse, one of Wright's students, Nils Schweitzer, set up his own firm and designed buildings for the college, but he adopted a stripped-down modern style that was radically different from Wright's. And college administrators adapted Wright's buildings to modern times by adding air conditioning and safety features as cheaply as possible. "You've got the financial breakup, you've got the apprentice turning on the master, you've got the wrong buildings going up," Rogers said. "It's lucky the campus survived." Kerr said that when she became president three years ago, she quickly realized she had to learn a new skill -- that of being an architectural conservator. Of immediate concern was the state of the covered walkways, which Wright called "esplanades." With the passage of the decades, some of the once-straight cantilevered structures now dip menacingly toward the ground. Kerr said her nightmare was that a walkway would collapse on a student. Major fundraising ahead The 1.5 miles of esplanades are being repaired with funds from a $1.6 million state grant. And a mix of private and public funds is paying for the $700,000 restoration of Wright's Water Dome, a large fountain in the center of the campus. But the serious fundraising lies ahead, after Baker, the preservation architect, completes the master plan this year. That will help the college put a firmer price tag on the restoration work, while the monuments fund listing is expected to help the college argue that the work is vital to preserving a priceless piece of Wright's legacy. "In my heart of hearts, I really do believe we have one of the architectural treasures of the planet," said Rogers, the art historian. "If we can preserve this architectural heritage and pass it on to the next generation in better shape than we found it, we will have done something of real value." - - - Homes destroyed Nearly 20 percent of the 500 structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright have been destroyed because of fire, neglect or development. Most recently, two Ocean Springs, Miss., bungalows were seriously damaged in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Wright said he designed them while working for Louis Sullivan's firm, though some historians attribute them to Sullivan. In 2004, a beach house in Grand Beach, Mich., was torn down, the first demolition of a Wright building in more than 30 years. Since 2001, three Wright houses in Chicago's suburbs -- in Bannockburn, Glencoe and Lisle -- have faced demolition, but preservation-minded buyers have saved them. Sources: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Tribune staff ---------- <a href="mailto:soswanson@tribune.com">soswanson@tribune.com</a> Copyright Â© 2007, Chicago Tribune spatny on "The Life and Work of FLW (videos)" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/the-life-and-work-of-flw-videos#post-5253 Wed, 30 May 2007 11:27:26 +0000 spatny 5253@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Riv library has some tapes. There is one where they take significant buildings of each decade and put transportaion means of that era in the drive way. Imagine how fantastically modern Unity Temple looked compared to the church across Lake Street that was built at the same time, or the Coonley House with a a 1905 car in the drive, or even a Lincoln Continental from 1940 pulloing into the Johnson Wax garage. It's a very nice film and makes you realize how ahead of his time Wright was. They also have a lot of good books on Wright, some of which I donated. ChrisHajer on "The Life and Work of FLW (videos)" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/the-life-and-work-of-flw-videos#post-5252 Tue, 29 May 2007 22:51:00 +0000 ChrisHajer 5252@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ <a href="http://www.pbs.org/flw/buildings/wallace.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/flw/buildings/wallace.html</a> Lots of cool video clips from a 1957 interview done by Mike Wallace. If you have iTunes, you can also listen to the two part interview in its entirety: <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=178806823&s=143441" rel="nofollow">http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=178806823&s=143441</a> Catherine on "Architecture for Riverside" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/architecture-for-riverside/page/2#post-4439 Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:48:01 +0000 Catherine 4439@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Is that the one that is numbered 313, the one with the reddish wood trim? I originally thought it was on Scottswood. THAT is a great looking contemporary solution to fitting in here.