Briefs
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
The architect would surely be pleased that there is once again a Frank Lloyd Wright hotel in Japan — though he’d probably say: Just the one? (Actually it’s not by Wright but Arata Endo, who seems a tasteful and disciplined disciple.)
Thursday, November 26th, 2020
3D model of Fallingwater by sighty for sale, including a portion of Bear Run, which interestingly gets cuts off even before the bridge that obviously crosses it, making this a model not of the house but of a model of it.
Boy, there are other models too. Here’s an interactive Fallingwater by archimore. It has the interior, even the raised rocks around the fireplace! (Though missing the grand swinging water heater.) The non-Wright dining-table chairs that Mrs Kaufman brought. The portrait of Edgar on the wall! Yet no walkway up to the Guesthouse, and no Guesthouse.
And another Fallingwater by Myles Zhang which does have the Gueshouse and ramp, even the steps into the swimming pool. And a very long stretch of Bear Run. It does have the round red water holer, but no furniture.
Would be good to merge these magnificent efforts to make a more detailed, canonical model.
Sunday, November 15th, 2020
Two more Frank Lloyd Wright films planned by the maker of the new Unity Temple film, the one with the voice.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2020
Seven ceramic sculptures by Japanese artist Jun Kaneko have been set in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY.
Friday, July 31st, 2020
The Smithsonian posts a nice little piece on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Laurent House, designed for the wheelchair-bound client who clearly adored his wonderful home, which is now thankfully a museum.
Friday, November 22nd, 2019
The Smithsonian Magazine excerpts Paul Hendrickson’s Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright. Among the gems:
- “…[Wright’s] 72-year career as an architect and egotist…”
- “…[Wright buildings] come magically out of the American ground looking for the light…”
- “…[Wright,] the old shaman…”
- “…There are certain moments, standing in [Wright homes], if the light is falling right, when it will begin to seem as if Whitman is singing to Emerson, or vice versa…”
Will the author spoil it for me though? Among the crisps are tonal annoyances such as beginning sentences with “Heck,”…
Tuesday, October 15th, 2019
A lovely poster of Frank Lloyd Wright homes “in (nearly) every state” by HomeAdvisor.
Sunday, September 1st, 2019
Andrew Pielage is on a blessed mission to photograph all 431 Frank Lloyd Wright sites.
Wednesday, October 17th, 2018
The 1953 Bergren Residence, on the market for $2m, is a pretty Wrightian Lautner, especially around the fireplace.
Monday, October 8th, 2018
Saturday, May 12th, 2018
Friday, October 13th, 2017
This is a video of a talk by Pamela Jerome on restoring the metalwork on both Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Guggenheim Museum together with a transcript. What an honor, to have worked on both masterpieces.
Sunday, June 11th, 2017
This fresh Los Angelino perspective on Frank Lloyd Wright tries to build the case that the somber Mayan style of the four homes he built in the city reflects the devastation of the mass murder at Taliesin a few years earlier.
Monday, March 9th, 2015
[Dead link]
“Custome [sic] Granite Cuntertops [sic, no joke!] And New Sink Gives This Remodeled Kitchen A Modern Look.” These 8 photos by the proud illiterate builders are the first time I’ve seen such a travesty documented as they dismantle an original Frank Lloyd Wright kitchen and replace it with something that would be nice enough in a regular home but here is gruesome. The homeowner should be prosecuted.
Sunday, August 24th, 2014
Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Tafel
I ploughed through this. It’s the most vivid portrait I’ve seen of the apprenticeship itself. The chronology is a bit confusing at first—perhaps the book design could have made more clear that he’s jumping back and forth between his own beginnings and FLLW’s. The traffic cop encounter with Alexander Woolcott, the travels in the car as FLLW’s driver—great stuff. There could be more from Tafel as an architect—he was there on the great ones, such as Fallingwater and the Johnson Wax HQ.
Sunday, August 10th, 2014
My Father, Frank Lloyd Wright
John Lloyd Wright
Originally entitled My Father, Who Art on Earth, there are gems here that you can’t get from any of the other masses of FLLW books. I welled up when in Venice, when entering St Marks, it reminds John Lloyd of nothing else but his own childhood playroom. Just how great we can get?
Wednesday, June 4th, 2014
Nice intro to Frank Lloyd Wright covering the important bases.
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
Frank Lloyd Wright: The Heroic Years: 1920 – 1932
Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer
A tad hagiographic but this one left me with a good feeling that unlike most Rizzoli books the text actually matters as well. Gorgeous drawings.
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Some advice for Disney from fellow artist Frank Lloyd Wright on February 25, 1939, at 11am in Projection Room IV.
Saturday, September 15th, 2012
Frank Lloyd Wright
Vincent Scully, Jr
As an architectural scholar, Scully writes less about the man than the buildings.
Thursday, September 6th, 2012
Frank Lloyd Wright’s House Beautiful
Dianne Maddex
Maddex has made a career out of recycling and reordering Wright’s own writing, commissioning some nice photos, and presto, another book. It’s coffee-table, as the Amazon reviewers say of her stuff. Nonetheless, I did learn here that the magazine House Beautiful had an ongoing relationship with Wright.
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
The Frank Lloyd Wright archives are moving to New York, reports Arch Daily; paper to Columbia University’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library , models and prototypes to MoMA.
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
Photos by Paul Ringstrom of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Muirhead Farmhouse which I had not heard of until this moment. I just love it. Beautiful brickwork that seems to be just the same as unbeautiful brickwork. Perfect shapes. The slightly outcropping wooden ziggurat on top. Oooh. Also the Sims House.
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Buildings, too, are children of the Earth and Sun.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
Frank Lloyd Wright
If you foolishly ignore beauty, you’ll soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Saturday, September 17th, 2011
My favorite FLLW site is Peter Beers’ Frank Lloyd Wright Road Trip. He’s stayed at the houses wherever you can, and done some benign architectural stalking where the residence remains private.
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
The Natural House
Frank Lloyd Wright
I was moved to read this again almost as soon as I finished it the first time. It feels nice to give the fine compliment of rating it higher the second time around. I can feel his exquisite designs through the prose of the pages, and if that’s so, what more can one ask for?
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Wright-sized Houses
Diane Maddex
I drop to 4 from 4.5 stars, which would be extremely high for this sort of book, because I don’t think Maddex covers FLLW’s underpinnings for sometimes preferring small. Like valuing a difficult site, a successful job of making a small place feel big is better than actual big because it involves magic. True that? Maybe not quite, but if the question even comes up, you’ve done well. All the principles laid out in the book I already knew, but she covers them with examples, and I don’t think there’s another book with the same pretty darn important angle.
Monday, August 29th, 2011
The Natural House
Frank Lloyd Wright
The style shows the influence of Emerson and Nietzsche, which is great—it’s the iconoclast speaking. There is much mention of America and democracy, more than of humanity writ large. And how refreshing—or provocative—his constant unrelenting simple disdain for the ancient Greeks.
Saturday, August 6th, 2011
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: The House and Its History
Donald Hoffmann
What a book to love. It’s a Dover, first off, my favorite publishers. Cheap and important. The cover makes the same-old view dramatic again. And somehow the book feels like the place. How is that possible? Perhaps it’s because the photos are in black and white, so that I feel almost more exposed to the bones of the thing than I did when visiting. The back picture is perfect as well: the guest house living room. What lies between? The entrance loggia. My my my. What can be so cheesy is so perfect and lush. And the hint of the magical steps.
Sunday, July 10th, 2011
50 Favorite Rooms By Frank Lloyd Wright
Diane Maddex
Lovely pics—I’m increasingly believing that Maddex has chosen some of the seminal stuff. It’s a book I return to often, albeit almost exclusively for the pictures.
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
I don’t build a house without predicting the end of the present social order.
Frank Lloyd Wright