Any of you ever been inside a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?

I've never been inside one (there aren't any in Arkansas), but if anyone here has been - I'd love to hear your recollections. I'm a big admirer of Wright's architecture. :)

The Frank Lloyd Wright House is one of the best in the country.

eom

Ive been inside his house and studio in Oak Park, Taliesen East, Fallingwater, and the Robie House.

Im pretty tall and I had some problems with the excessively low clearances in some of the spaces....particularly in Taliesen.

The thing about Taliesen and esp. Fallingwater was how playfull and just hyped-up the spatial interactions where. There are all sorts of neat tricks and interlocks going on in Wrights work. These houses are just a joy to explore.

The modern architect who has really really been influenced by Wright has to be Richard Meier, as you see simiar spatial tricks and interlockings going on in Meiers work....people see Meier as more a follower of Corbusier, but Wright is really the big influence I think.

Unlike Meier, though, Wrights use of natural materials and finishes give his work a very warm feeling inside.

Visit the Getty next time you are in LA ... simply spectacular (OK, and a little bit anal)

The Getty is pretty amazing in detail and individual bullding, yet it seems to lack something to give it coherence. Hard to put my finger on it.

Including his home in Oak Park, IL.

Went once. Made me dizzy. Never went back.

Stupid, stupid building.

It's an awesome space for exhibiting art, which is, after all, its purpose. Also, it has private unisex toilets with lockable doors. A rarity in New York or anywhere else nowadays.

went there a few years back to see the reopening of the Impressionist wing and did the obligatory walk down the spiral first.

There was a Rauschenberg on the wall as I passed, and it was just a huge splattering of color, so walked on by. When I got to the other side, I looked back, and from that distance, the Rauschenberg made absolute, perfect sense. There was a beautiful harmony in those strokes and colors, and it was almost hypnotic.

(Always give art a second chance.)

I don't know if Wright knew that would happen on occasion, but it's the kind of thing that happens with his buildings.

Houses our courts and county offices. It seems like a space building from a 1950's movie. Has skylights throughout and sort of feels like your outdoors when you are indoors. Marin just renovated it.

edited to add one more:

Been there many times, usually not for pleasant activities.

beause I don't believe I ever saw that place during the rainy season without dozens of buckets and garbage cans collecting rainwater. Gee, being inside that cool building was like being out in the rain, or under a waterfall. Hey, maybe 'Fallingwater' was the inspiration and those skylights were supposed to leak.

in the Laurel Highlands in Western Pennsylvania. It is built on top of a waterfall. I haven't been there in years, but it is located in the middle of a forest. I remember all of the furniture and the overall scale of the interior of the home to be made for people of short stature.....

It's really beautiful.

I think he was somewhere between 5'6" and 5'8".

... the tour guide said that Wright didn't much appreciate tall people... claimed Wright said such people were "made with excess material." :)

The only Wright building I've been in is the Guggenheim.

from falling into the ravine.

He never understood the importance of a good foundation and tended to experiment along those lines too.

Fallingwater was very beautiful and a remarkable design, but I couldn't get past just how damn small the beds were! I almost stopped the tour and asked the guide if the house was inhabited by dwarves.

I've been to Oak Park and I went to a party in a Wright house in Pleasantville, NY. Been to the Guggenheim and the Unity Church. I have been to Fallingwater 6 or 7 times (I like to backpack in that area). I think Fallingwater is my favorite man-made place on earth.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php3?tip_AttractionNo==2486

There are 10 FLW buildings in Minnesota
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1469/flw_mn.html

you have to build your own shelter when you go into the
arizona project and it has a component where you have to
wear tuxedos and go to huge houses to parties. They want
you to learn how to be comfortable in all situations.

Its an amazing program. He's about ready to graduate.

Did you know the actress Anne Baxter was his niece?

http://www.mononaterrace.com/inspired/lifework.html

Its in Madison and was only built in '97. When I was in there I didn't know that it was by Wright, especially because its new construction. I remember that the large open spaces that make a convention center a convention center were beautiful even when empty. That and the view of the lake was not bad at all!

At University of Chicago.

It was beautiful. It was also a maintenance nightmare according to the guide. The roof chronically leaked, and has since it was built. Wright made beautiful works of art that were not necessarily very successful as buildings.

-Ben

Long time ago. Used to love Wright, but not so much anymore. Remember HH as being too dark, too angular. Rang my claustrobells pretty loudly, too, IIRC.

which is on Woodlawn Plantation. Went to both places on a field trip (4th or 5th grade). THe one thing I still remember is the very 'cramped' hallway.

http://www.delmars.com/flwtrip/pope1a.htm

http://www.popeleighey1940.org/

It doesn't look so radical nowdays.

The Dana House in Springfield, IL, and the Unitarian Universalist Church in Oak Park. I love Frank Lloyd Wright, and I hope to be able to see more of his houses. On edit: I forgot about the Robie House. I went there about six years ago.

But before World War II, his parents couldn't get financing for something that unconventional, and after the war his father and Wright had a falling out. So his parents built a Wright-like house designed by someone else instead.

The houses next door and across the street were by Wright though, plus one or two others in the neighborhood. I was in the next-door neighbor's house once, and I thought the living room was pretty cool. But my husband is just as glad he never had to live in a Wright house. He says Wright believed people had a burrowing instinct, and he liked to design narrow corridors and small, dim bedrooms.

And yes, those flat roofs did all start leaking eventually. I've read that Fallingwater isn't holding up too well, either.

His only commercial building.

Kind of drab actually.

curving ramp interior is usually regarded as the inspiration for the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. I think it's a cool building.

Hmmm, hotels aren't considered commercial buildings? Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan?

It's being restored right now, and I can't wait for the grand opening!

Check it out here: www.westcotthouse.org

Unearthly, isn't that a Frank Lloyd Wright design?

has a hotel and a private residence designed by Wright. The hotel is in the process of being restored now.

Herbert Johnson commissioned Wright to building his headquarter's main building in the mid 1930s. I had seen photos of it but it was still quite a trip the first time I was inside.

This is the main lobby with the mushroom columns.


The building's exterior is red glazed brick. So is a lot of the interior, like the curving stairwells between floors. They were so narrow and dimly lit that I always expected to see Emperor Ming appear around the next curve - there was something Flash Gordon about them. Much of the interior is chopped up to accommodate more employees than originally planned, but some spaces are still unmodified, like the large main conference room. All the furnishings there are original right down to the brass and crystal ashtrays.

Here's a drawing of Wright's desk chair design. It doesn't show the tiny wheelies on the legs that jam up and make it easy to tip the chair over. Ergonomic it ain't. I always preferred meeting in people's offices where they had more conventional furniture.



edit: typo

Chicago is close to Oak Park, Illinois, which is home to his home & studio, and the highest concentration of his work, I believe. I have been inside the home/studio/museum many times, since visitors always want to take the tour. I have also been on the walking tour of Oak Park and been on tours of many of the area homes.

Jealous? }(

The Wailuku Golf Course and Spa. The building is a modification of a Frank Lloyd Wright design which was originally created for Marilyn Monroe

They are worth a trip...

I've also made my pilgrimage to Oak Park, IL. :thumbsup:

take an hour drive to Lakeland--he built an entire college campus there. You can freely walk around campus, into the buildings and the chapel, and they have a decent giftshop, etc. The name escapes me now. I easily spent a day there exploring, photographing...

I live in Lakeland and I can tell you that the college and the community are very proud of the FLW designed campus. Here's a link (lots of photos, might be slow to load up for dial-up DU-ers).........

http://www.sidesways.com/fllw/florida-southern.php

Fallingwater
Taliesen West
Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa
FLW Home & Studio, Oak Park
Unity Temple, Oak Park
Grady Gammage Center, Phoenix, AZ
Johnson Wax Building
Guggenheim Museum

+ several privat homes.

The one thing I have learned after learning about his designs, touring through them, and seeing them up close and personal is that the man was a creative genius when it came to architecture, but was a very bad engineer!

The Price Tower in Bartlesville...

and two other houses...

One in Tulsa and the other in Bartlesville.

It was bought and restored by Steelcase in the mid/late '80's. In my previous vocation as an interior designer, I was a corporate guest of Steelcase on one occasion, and our group was given a private tour of the house.

It was an excellent tour in the fact that since it was private, you could sit in the furniture and inspect the details close up. The coolest part was that we were served lunch at a table that FLW designed and had built, and sat in the chairs that accompanied this table. Lunch was served on china that FLW designed (but not the original china, of course).

Waaaaay cool. As I recall, though, the dining room furniture was not extremely comfy. But it sure did look stunning.

But never enough. Being an architect from chicago and going to college here it is really obligatory. I've been to taliesin east in Spring Green, Wi. along with a restaurant he did near there on the Wisconsin River, Robie House, Johnson Wax, the FL Wright home and studio in Oak Park and a couple of others I don't recall the names of.

I don't want to write a dissertation but I found it a real neat experience. He really knew how to tie it all together as well as provide a very aedicular sense of space which means a warm cozy safe and sheltered feeling similar being in a tent in the rain.