Frank Lloyd Wright – Froebel Decade

Millard House

Frank Lloyd Wright designed four textile block houses in Los Angeles. According to Henry Russell Hitchcock, the 1923 Millard residence is the best. Hitchcock, the preeminent architectural historian of his day, noted it was Wright who conceived of such modernist principles as the open plan, the flat roof, the indoor to outdoor lifestyle, and the organic relationship between building and landscape.

Redwood ceilings and paneling lend warmth to the concealed stairs and corridor leading to the master bedroom.

Most of Wright’s early buildings were oriented horizontally, the Millard house is distinctly vertical, with columns of block reinforcing the upward movement, in response to the shape of the ravine in which it sits.

Filtered, dappled light flows into the house through perforated block walls that act as screens. Wright mixed sand from the site into the cement so the building would be authentically integrated with its location.

The three levels of the house spiral around a central chimney, that ensures one is in touch constantly with the palpable presence of nature through windows, terraces and glass doors. The master bedroom features high ceilings and a tall, slender window framing the view of the arroyo.

The weaving of earth and dwelling, the knitting of body with nature, indoor with outdoor, the weaving of sheltered, intimate space with soaring, liberated space, La Miniatura offers the opportunity to experience one’s humanity in ways most houses and their architects have never even conceptualized.

On the lower level, the original kitchen has been updated with contemporary appliances. It is adjacent to the dining room.

The dining room opens onto a patio and garden.

Wright was exceptionally pleased with La Miniatura. In his autobiography, he wrote, “The whole mass and texture of the home made the eucalyptus trees more beautiful, they in turn made the house walls more so.”

Source: Millard House

Frank Lloyd Wright persuaded Alice Millard to trade a flat lot she had purchased nearby for far more uneven terrain that inspired his vision of a sunken garden.

“My eye had fallen on a ravine nearby in which stood two beautiful eucalyptus trees,” Wright later wrote. “The house would rise tall out of the ravine gardens.”

The two eucalyptus trees are still there, forming a cathedral more than 100 feet high over a lily pond in the gully. As he envisioned it, “Balconies and retraces would lead down to the ravine from the front of the house.”

Creative Ideas

The Concept and the Plan

“Conceive the buildings in imagination, not first on paper but in the mind, thoroughly, before touching paper. Let the building, living in imagination, develop gradually, taking more and more definite form before committing it to the drafting board. When the thing sufficiently lives for you then start to plan it with instruments, not before. To draw during the conception or sketch, as we say, experimenting with practical adjustments to scale, is well enough if the concept is clear enough to be firmly held meantime. But it is best always thus to cultivate the imagination from within. Construct and complete the building so far as you can before going to work on it with T square and triangle. Working with triangle and T square should be only to modify or extend or intensify or test the conception; finally to correlate the parts in detail.”

“If original concept is lost as the drawing proceeds, throw away all and begin afresh. To throw away a concept entirely to make way for a fresh one, that is a faculty of the mind not easily cultivated. Few architects have that capacity. It is perhaps a gift, but may be attained by practice. What I am trying to express is the fact that the plan is the gist of all truly creative matter and must gradually mature as such.”

“In the logic of the plan what we call standardization is seen to be fundamental groundwork in architecture. All things in nature exhibit this tendency to crystallize; to form mathematically and then to conform, as we may easily see. There is the fluid, elastic period of becoming, as in the plan, when possibilities are infinite. New effects may then originate from the idea or principle that conceives. Once form is achieved, however, that possibility is dead so for as it is a positive creative flux”.

From The Architectural Record, January, February, 1928

The secret is to conceive the building in the mind, not on paper, until it is complete in the mind.

This book has the secret of creative ideas in Mr. Wright’s own words.

How and from where does the idea come?

Mr. Wright said, “You won’t find me sitting at a drawing board trying to design something.”

Mr. Wright said go and do other work. As you learn how to receive and allow the solution to develop in your mind, you can solve any problem.

There has long been a need for a compact volume which would survey the immense range of Frank Lloyd Wright’s lifework. This book has been designed to fill that need. The achievement of the master architect is here presented in his own words and works – the text complemented by more than 150 illustrations, a rich abundance of drawings, photographs, plans and sketches from the early 1890’s to 1959. In addition, the book includes the first comprehensive list of Frank Lloyd Wright’s executed buildings now standing, keyed to a map of the United States.

Design

Intimate Triangle: Architecture of Crystals, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Froebel Kindergarten

Motivated by Frank Lloyd Wright’s credit to the early childhood influence of Froebel Kindergarten on his architectural design, Rubin illuminates the evolution of the Froebel Kindergarten and the intriguing connections to some of the greatest talents in the arts and sciences of the twentieth century.

In his autobiography, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote about the significance of playing with these blocks designed by Friedrich Froebel.

“For several years I sat at the little Kindergarten table and played with the cube, the sphere and the triangle. These smooth wooden maple blocks . . . All are in my fingers to this day”

This book is for anyone interested in early childhood education or the creative forces behind the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Froebel Kindergarten by Jeanne Spielman Rubin

Hardy House

Wright designed the Hardy house facing Lake Michigan in 1905. It is the first instance where Wright designed a two story space, which is expressed on the exterior.

A central fireplace and the two story living room and dining room are in the middle with bedrooms at each end.

hardylakeview — Large terraces open the interior into the landscape.

Eugene Szymczak became the seventh steward of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, Wisconsin on September 16, 2012.

Post-restoration — Hardy House Rehabilitation

Cherokee Red

Calling red “the color of creation”, Frank Lloyd Wright proposed that the Guggenheim Museum be constructed with red marble walls, long slim pottery red bricks, and weathered green copper banding.

Early sketches by Frank Lloyd Wright imagine the Guggenheim Museum in various shades of red. Photo Credit: FLLW FDN # 4305.745 © 2009 The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona

Frank Lloyd Wright was known for using a brownish red he called Cherokee Red

Cherokee Red was not one exact color but a whole range of reddish hues made with iron oxide, some dark and some more vivid.

Cherokee Red harmonizes interior rooms with the natural colors of brick and wood.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature Cherokee Red concrete floors extend beyond the walls and become steps and outdoor decks.

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. — 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.

Taliesin

Frank Lloyd Wright said, “The outside of any building may now come inside and the inside go outside, each seems as part of the other.”

With so many layers of experimentation at Taliesin there are many inspiring ideas: borrowed views, seamless connection between the inside and outside, building and garden complementing each other so that the combination has more impact than either element alone.

The use of local natural materials grounded the place in its location, and great design executed in inexpensive materials made spaces more accessible. Wright chose yellow limestone for the house from a quarry of outcropping ledges on a nearby hill. Stones were laid in long, thin ledges, evoking the natural way that they were found in the quarry. Plaster for the interior walls was mixed with sienna, giving a golden hue. The outside plaster walls were similar, but mixed with cement. Windows were placed so that sun could come through openings in every room at every point of the day.

Pools of water placed near the house reflect light and to mirror the sky.

Building a Dream

Follow the story of how Sara and Melvyn Maxwell Smith came to work with Frank Lloyd Wright on the creation of their home.

frank-lloyd-wright_12 — During a 1951 visit, Wright called this home “My Little Gem”.

Buy new from Taliesin

Author Kathryn Watterson takes readers inside the Smiths’ adventure of working and building with Wright to create their home in Bloomfield Hills, MI (1946). Their story “is a fairy tale with blueprints, a unique blend of architecture and affection, of serendipity and staying the course.” Length: 250 pages. Beautifully illustrated with both black and white and color photographs.

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Smith House

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.

Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House

Usonia

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.

The Reisley house has a particularly fine carports, a word Wright created for this low cost innovation of his Usonian homes. — Wright created the word carport for this low cost innovation of his Usonian homes.

The Friedman House — 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.

Usonia, New York: Building a Community with Frank Lloyd Wright

Jacobs House

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.

JacobsSitePlan — 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.

Visit the Jacobs House