School teachers Sara Stein Smith and Melvyn Maxwell Smith met Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in 1941 and commissioned a custom home. The Smith House is an excellent example of Wright’s Usonian ideal.
Wright’s characteristic design principles include connection to the landscape, a strong horizontal emphasis created by dramatic roof projections, and the interplay between interior and exterior spaces.
Privacy from the street is provided by limiting the glazing to narrow bands of clerestory windows.
Frank Lloyd Wright planned circular one acre housing plots surrounded by playgrounds, swimming pools, gardens, ball courts and community centers.
Each single family house on this 100 acres at Mount Pleasant, New York was designed or approved by Wright following his Usonian architectural style.
Wright created the word carport for this low cost innovation of his Usonian homes.The development by Wright of the use of the circle, culminated in his Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Wright wrote an article in 1935 for the Architectural Record describing the emerging technologies behind his vision for this new utopia. It would be a feat of modern technology, built upon some of America’s greatest strengths:
The motor car: general mobilization of the human being.
Radio, telephone and telegraph: electrical communication becoming complete.
Standardized machine production: machine invention plus scientific discovery.
Who needed to rush into the city for work, commerce or entertainment, when the wonders of radio and telephone made things like telecommuting and remote concerts available? People could retreat to something that was not quite urban, and not quite rural.
Frank Lloyd Wright described his architectural style as “organic”, in harmony with nature.
Wright provided the Jacobs with an open floor plan, laid out on a grid of two by four foot units.
The term carport was coined by Frank Lloyd Wright. In describing the carport, he said: “A car is not a horse, and it doesn’t need a barn. Cars are built well enough now so that they do not require elaborate shelter.”
The two wings of the Jacobs House houses extend to embrace the garden. The more public living room on one side and the more private bedrooms on the other meet at a service core comprising kitchen, bath and hearth.
The masonry “core” of the house defines a small cellar which, in addition to laundry space, contains two small boilers serving the radiant heating system that circulates water through the eight inch concrete floor slab resting on packed sand. Above the cellar are the bathroom, the open kitchen, and a fireplace, the focus of the living room.
The ceiling of the bedroom wing drops down to 7.5 feet from the 11.5 foot ceilings of the kitchen and bathroom and the 9.5 foot height of the living room and gallery.
“We can never make the living room big enough, the fireplace important enough, or the sense of relationship between exterior, interior and environment close enough, or get enough of these good things I’ve just mentioned. A Usonian house is always hungry for the ground, lives by it, becoming an integral feature of it.” — Frank Lloyd Wright. “Frank Lloyd Wright”, The Architectural Forum, January, 1948, Vol 88 Number 1. p71.
The direct relationship of the eating area to the kitchen eliminates a separate dining room.
Like many contemporary social reformers, Wright believed in the moral and political values exemplified by home ownership and believed that well designed, tasteful dwellings would produce a happier, more harmonious and enlightened society.
Wright set out in 1936 to build a number of Usonian houses, well designed, low cost dwellings, set on concrete slabs with piping for radiant heat beneath.
The materials of the Usonian house were to be recognized as nature’s own: wood, stone, or baked clay in the form of bricks, and glass curtain walls, clerestories, and casement windows sheltered under overhanging soffits.
“There in a beautiful forest was a solid, high rock ledge rising beside a waterfall, and the natural thing seemed to be to cantilever the house from that rock bank over the falling water.” Frank Lloyd Wright in an interview with Hugh Downs, 1954.
A most sublime integration of architecture and nature, Fallingwater nestled among the rocky woodlands of Pennsylvania is the focal point for every discussion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s inspired siting, use of organic materials, and employment of decorative motifs derived from nature and translated into glass, stone, and wood.
The construction began in 1936 was finished in 1939. The building is revolutionary and iconic for its bold horizontal and vertical lines built over a running waterfall.
To create a unified and organic composition, two colors were used throughout: a light ochre for the concrete and his signature Cherokee red for the steel.
Wright was nearing seventy, his youth and his early fame long gone, when he got the commission to design the house. It was the Depression, and Wright had no work in sight. Into his orbit stepped Edgar J. Kaufmann, a philanthropist with the burning ambition to build a world famous work of architecture. The two men collaborated to produce an extraordinary building of lasting architectural significance, that brought international fame to them both and confirmed Wright’s position as the greatest architect of the twentieth century.
Fallingwater Rising shows how E. J. Kaufmann’s house became not just Wright’s masterpiece but a fundamental icon of American life. One of the pleasures of the book is its rich evocation of the upper crust society of Pittsburgh; Carnegie, Frick, the Mellons. A society that was socially reactionary but luxury loving and baronial in its tastes. Key figures include Frida Kahlo, Albert Einstein, Henry R. Luce, William Randolph Hearst, Ayn Rand, and Franklin Roosevelt.
Fallingwater is the only major Wright designed house to open to the public with its furnishings, artwork, and setting intact.
Built in 1924 for Charles Ennis and his wife Mabel, the Ennis House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built by his son, architect Lloyd Wright.
The house is the last and largest of four “textile block” houses in Los Angeles area, which feature patterned and perforated concrete blocks that give a unique textural appearance to both their exteriors and interiors. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a custom pattern for each of the houses built with concrete blocks.
The concrete was a combination of gravel, granite and sand from the site, mixed with water and then hand cast in aluminum molds to create a block 16 inches wide, 16 inches tall and 3 1/2 inches thick.
It was an experiment in the functional and artistic possibilities of concrete, which was still considered a new material, especially for home construction. The phrase “textile block” came from the way vertical and horizontal steel rods were woven through channels in the concrete to keep the blocks knitted together and held in position.
“One gets to experience the changes of light throughout the day and how that impacts interior spaces on a large scale. By walking a few feet, one can be in a completely different environment.”
“My grandfather designed homes to be occupied by people. His homes are works of art. He created the space, but the space becomes a creative force and uplifts when it is lived in every day.” Eric Lloyd Wright
By the time he designed the Ennis house in 1923, Frank Lloyd Wright had lived and worked in Tokyo and built several houses in Los Angeles. He was more cosmopolitan and less afraid of sunlight. The Ennis House is monumental with double and triple height rooms.
Between 1909 and 1959, Wright designed a total of 38 structures up and down the West Coast, from Seattle to Southern California. These include the Marin County Civic Center and Hollyhock House in Los Angeles.
Floral designer Marco Appelfeller and photographer Hing Ang team up to create a floral universe beyond dreams.
Stories from Greek mythology, fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and other classics are brought to life in a magical fantasy world of flowers.
Flora Mythica is a masterpiece testifying of craftsmanship and creativity. Text in English and German.
An ancient Breton myth of an island, which sank into the sea and rose out of the water on clear mornings, inspired this prelude by Claude Debussy.
Ian Barton Stewart plays this prelude with a selection of his paintings connected with water and the sea, which he has chosen to resonate with the music.
A remarkable, rammed earth building in the Pilbara region of Western Australia has been judged by architectural pundits around the world as one of the best new buildings on the planet.
The Great Wall of Western Australia encloses twelve earth covered residences, created to provide short term accommodation for a cattle station during mustering season.
With 450mm thick rammed earth facade and the sand dune forming their roofs, the residences have the best thermal mass available, making them naturally cool in the subtropical climate.
The design represents a new approach to remote North Western Australia architecture, moving away from the sun baked, corrugated metal shelters to naturally cooled architectural earth formations. The walls have the characteristic of being partially porous to absorb and release humidity.
“The evaporation of water out of the walls keeps the walls cool and lowers the overall temperatures.”
Rammed earth derived from a local clay pan, from gravel and water from the nearby river, kept it an inexpensive building, that does not require maintenance, termite control or painting.
A brilliant and response to building in one of the harshest climates, making it more inherent in the landscape and low in embodied energy.
A reflective place from where you can see the ghost gums and the river and the very spiritual landscape of this part of the country.
Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a visionary sculptor and landscape garden designer whose innovative playgrounds and playground equipment designs are a fusion of earth sculpture and interactive play.
Isamu Noguchi’s recently restored Atlanta Playscapes serves as a model for playgrounds of the future.
“I think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious, and evocative; thus educational.” Isamu Noguchi
The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum has reopened in New York after a renovation. Noguchi viewed the earth itself as the original sculpture medium. He felt that the ground embodies the spirit of creativity that inspired early humans and suggested a way for them to get control of their spiritual existence, to arrange your inner landscape you must sculpt your outer landscape.
Playgrounds and playground equipment designed by Noguchi were works of art meant to be interactive, suggest activities without precisely demanding them, lead to a physical but creative use of each structure, and invite all levels of participation. Photo by Kevin Noble
Many distinguished educators, child welfare specialists and civic groups had seen the model for the United Nations Playground had hailed it as the only creative step made in the field in decades.
This 1952 design for the United Nations Playground was part garden, part surrealist sculpture and part bas relief on a monumental scale. A jungle gym is an enormous basket, that encourages the most complex ascents and all but obviates falls. The playground becomes a place for endless exploration, of endless opportunity for changing play.
His last playground design in New York City’s Riverside Park was the fullest evocation of a playground as an art form, an inviting creative play space that would provide not just interactivity but beauty and a place to sit for people of all ages.
Riverside Park design that included a large collection of small scale furniture to be fixed in place. Noguchi wanted to create a tiny public realm that would inspire children to use their imaginations. Photo by of Kevin Noble
Private garden of 3½ acres in Georgian New Town, Edinburgh. Shrubs, trees and beds offer an atmosphere of tranquillity for residents, subject to payment of an annual subscription.
Scotland’s Gardens is a registered charity. Created in 1931, we raise funds for other worthy charities by facilitating the opening of large and small gardens of horticultural interest throughout Scotland to the public.
Moray Place is perhaps Edinburgh’s most sought after New Town address and a fine example of Georgian architecture. Situated within easy walking distance of the city centre, Moray Place is a beautiful, quiet, circular terrace arranged around tranquil private central gardens. There are further terraced gardens on the banks of the Water of Leith. Residents can apply for access to both of these.
The Earl of Moray, had plans drawn up in 1822 to develop his estates, Northwest of the New Town sloping down to the Water of Leith. The terrace houses around Moray Place were built between 1822 and 1830 to the design of James Gillespie Graham.
The original character of the Georgian era New Town, with its cobbled roads, pillars, and sandstone block facades is preserved today by building codes that stipulate even the wrought iron railings must be painted a specific colour – black. New Town residences were built along an integrated and harmonious plan, with residences set near pleasant communal gardens and attractive views. Edinburgh’s New Town is a marvel of urban planning, combining elegant architecture with spacious and comfortable housing.
Karl Froebel lived at 20 Moray Place, Edinburgh. Karl Froebel was one of the five nephews of Friedrich Froebel, who were educated at the school founded in 1816 at Griesham.
Karl Froebel was in Manchester for a while before moving to Edinburgh to open a school with his wife Johanna Kustner Froebel. Clementine (wife of Sir Winston Churchill and a life peeress in her own right) was educated first at home, then briefly at the Edinburgh school run by Karl Froebel. (Soames, M. (2002). Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage London, Doubleday)
London, Doubleday)