Issue 161 August 7th 2019

The Headlines

Group Exhibition Celebrates Frank Lloyd Wright's Timeless Architecture

American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed more than 1,000 structures during his 70-year career, making him one of the most prolific and celebrated architects of all time. From the Guggenheim Museum in New York to Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, Wright’s buildings are iconic, and some have even been named UNESCO World Heritage sites.

In celebration of his work, Spoke Art gallery and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation have teamed up to present Frank Lloyd Wright: Timeless, a traveling pop-up exhibition featuring limited edition prints inspired by Wright’s architecture. The show features work from over a dozen international artists, who created works in the style of 1930s-era travel posters. Each illustrative design captures Wright’s iconic 20th-century architectural style in vibrant colors and graphic shapes.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Timeless began its tour at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York earlier this month, but you can still catch it at Taliesin Estate in Wisconsin the weekend of Saturday, August 31st, 2019. See some of these fantastic posters here.

UPDATE: Wright's Sondern-Adler House For Sale By No-Reserve Auction

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is reminding us that Wright's Sondern-Adler house, originally listed for sale at $1,650,000, will now be sold by Heritage Auctions in a no-reserve auction, with no minimum starting bid, on August 12, 2019 at Heritage’s Luxury Real Estate Auction.

Built in an L-shape, this 2,965-square-foot Usonian home has earned a double name. One half of the name comes from the first owner, Clarence Sondern, who commissioned a 900-square-foot home by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939. The second half comes from the home’s second owner, who expanded the home by more than 2,000 square feet in 1948, which included another bedroom, additional bathrooms, additional living spaces and a carport. See the photos here.

Can't Afford a Frank Lloyd Wright House? Buy One Built By His Proteges

Frank Lloyd Wright impacted the creative lives of hundreds of people in his lifetime—first at his Studio in Oak Park, IL, and then at the Taliesins in Wisconsin and Arizona. And while this famous architect disavowed copycats slavishly devoted to mimicking his own style, many of his protégés did go on to design some very Wrightian houses. So if you like the look of a Wright building but want to live in something a little more obtainable, plenty of properties abound that will fit that bill. Intrigued? realtor.com® has a list of five homes built by Wright protégés that you can buy right now. See them here.

A Look At The Jiyu Gakuen Girls' School Myonichikan In Tokyo, Japan

Atlas Obscura features an unexpected architectural gem hiding in plain sight in a quiet Tokyo neighborhood. Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan is among the few Wright structures still standing in Japan. The building complex, built with the specific intent of being a Christian girls’ school, was completed in 1921. The U-shaped campus includes a central chapel, classrooms, and an auditorium. The school relocated in the 1930s, and the campus eventually fell into decline. The structures were finally restored between 1999 and 2001. Today, the buildings frequently serve as rental spaces for weddings and other events. The main feature of the campus is the chapel, which looks out onto a large lawn. It’s now a cafe with short tables and custom chairs matching the style of the rest of the building. Up a narrow staircase adjoining the original dining hall is a Frank Lloyd Wright mini-museum, complete with an uncanny—if slightly unsettling—Frank Lloyd Wright marionette. Much of the complex has been left as it was. Some doorways are intentionally shorter than normal to emphasize that they were built for small girls, rather than adults. Save for the cafe, the furniture and fixtures are all original or exacting reproductions. More here.

Garden Party At Wright's Turkel House

Wright's Turkel House opens it's doors for garden party fundraiser. It’s the only house designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Detroit’s city limits. For those who’d love to see inside this Usonian Automatic gem, Aug. 11 is your chance.

There will be a “Light Up the Cabin” garden party fundraiser from 4-7 p.m. Aug. 11 to raise funds for the historic log cabin in nearby Palmer Park. Guests will be a chance to sip on wine, nibble locally-prepared foods, and tour a portion of the Turkel House and its amazing gardens (the owners of the Turkel house also own Blossoms Birmingham and Blossoms Detroit). There will also be a silent auction. Tickets are $75 each and must be purchased in advance. Go to eventbrite.com and search for “Light Up the Cabin 2019.” More here.

House For Sale: Midcentury Modern Hilltop House In Carversville

Philadelphia architect Morris J. Perelman worked “in the nature of materials” in shaping this house in Carversville, Pennsylvania, from wood, local stone, and concrete. The house’s cliff side looks like an extension of the hill it sits on, and the large windows in the cliffside rooms further erase the distinction between the two.

This house’s owners took great pains to be faithful to Perelman’s original vision in restoring it. They were fortunate to have original blueprints and old photos to guide them. From these, and with skilled artisans working on the restoration, they produced a house that may well look even better now than it did when it was first built. See it here.

Virtually Tour The Boynton House

News 8 in Rochester, New York, took a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Boyton Houser with the owner, Jane Parker. Here’s the tour of the house, room by room.

Learning By Doing Part 2: In The Kitchen

For the next several months, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation 2018-2019 Graphic Design Fellow, Meagan Vanderhill, will be exploring the concept of learning by doing. In this article, she tries her hand at cooking and working in the kitchen, much like members of the Fellowship once did.

"Communal dining is a big part of the culture at Taliesin West and has been since the Taliesin Fellowship began with Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright in 1932. Today, students of the School of Architecture at Taliesin, employees of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and residents of Taliesin West continue the tradition of dining together by gathering daily to share lunch and dinner. Sharing meals is important because it allows people to come together to talk about work and life, and create a community of people with shared interests." Read more.

Andrew Pielage Is On Quest To Photograph 400 Frank Lloyd Wright Sites

Andrew Pielage's Frank Lloyd Wright photographic odyssey began in 2011 with a tour of Taliesin West, which opened his eyes to the architecture's relationship to nature and the landscape. Since then, he has documented more than five dozen buildings in eight states. It's a passion project, but he also works as an independent contractor for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and other organizations. For Fallingwater in Pennsylvania — perhaps Wright's best-known private residence (now a museum) — he had unlimited access for 30 days as an artist in residence.

"I've been to some Frank Lloyd Wright sites, and you have eight hours to do it and it doesn't matter about the light. You kind of take what you're given there," he says. "But at Fallingwater I had that luxury to sit back, really observe the design of the structures, and then wait for the light to be correct for what I was wanting. I'm not necessarily photographing architecture, I'm photographing the light, and Wright was a master of collecting that light, bouncing it around, creating fun shadows that change throughout the day."

Pielage says he has enough Wright images to think about coming out with a book in the next couple of years. But that would just be icing on the cake.

"My goal is to photograph them all, plain and simple," he says. "I have a ways to go, but it's not just about the destination, it's about the journey for me." More here.

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