Issue 249 April 14th 2021

The Headlines

Buffalo Photographer Ventures To Graycliff

Buffalo, NY-based architectural photographer Matthew Digati is back to lead us on a tour of Graycliff, an impressive Frank Lloyd Wright design 20 miles south of Buffalo overlooking Lake Erie.

"Please enjoy the photo gallery that I’ve put together. All the photos are my own and were captured in cooperation with the folks at Graycliff. I also would like to thank Anna Kaplan, Executive Director of Graycliff. Without her help I would not have been able to share these photos and this article with you all."

Read about Matthew's personal journey with Graycliff and see his photos here.

Wright Around Oak Park Returns

The Frank Lloyd Wright Trust has announced their most comprehensive tour, Wright Around Oak Park, is back as an all-inclusive tour. Begin your Oak Park experience with an expanded tour of Wright’s Home and Studio, the birthplace of Wright’s vision for a new American architecture. Step ahead of the crowd and trace Wright’s early years, from his Studio where the Prairie style was conceived, to Oak Park’s beautifully preserved private Prairie homes. Witness the evolution of Wright’s architectural design philosophy in the neighborhood where the architect lived and worked.

Wright Around Oak Park includes an expanded Home and Studio tour, with limited access Studio Balcony, a rest-break with a 25% shopping discount on anything $75.00 or above from the Museum Shop, and expanded historic neighborhood walking tour including ten Wright homes (exterior only). Distance of walking tour: 0.8 mile.

Tours are Saturdays and Sundays from April through October.

Hours: 12 pm Length: 2.5 hours Admission: $65 General, $60 Trust member

More here.

Get Out And About In Oak Park

Speaking of Oak Park, Eric Wagner, President and CEO, Visit Oak Park, reminds us that over the past year, the pandemic has brought tourism to a standstill. This has had a big impact in the Oak Park area, which usually attracts millions of visitors to local attractions like: the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Unity Temple, Hemingway Birthplace Museum, and Brookfield Zoo. Now more than ever, they need your support.

With vaccines giving us all hope that life will start returning to some normalcy this summer, our attractions need locals to buy tickets and visit while they wait for more visitors to be able to return soon.

Oak Park is the birthplace of American architecture. If you’ve never visited, drop by the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, and enjoy a guided tour of where Wright’s Prairie style design got its roots. Take a Wright Around Oak Park Tour to get a deeper glimpse into this genius designer with a walking tour of ten Wright homes in the surrounding historic neighborhood.

If you’ve never attended the annual Wright Plus Housewalk before, this is the year to go. This year’s event was recently rescheduled for September, but you’ll soon be able to purchase tickets. Not only do you get extraordinary access to eight private residences, and two landmark buildings designed by Wright and his contemporaries, but you will also be supporting the great work of the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust.

While any tour of Oak Park usually includes a stop at Wright’s famed Unity Temple, the best way to see his masterpiece right now is a special virtual tour as part of the Vintage Home Show on Saturday, April 24. This special event, hosted by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation and the Oak Park River Forest Chamber of Commerce, features virtual workshops for how to repair, restore, and renovate historic buildings.

If you’re watching the new Ken Burns Hemingway documentary on PBS, taking a tour of Ernest Hemingway’s Birthplace Museum provides a behind the scenes glimpse of this enigmatic author that you just can’t get from watching the documentary.

The majestic Pleasant Home, designed by George Washington Maher, offers three unique tours. Get a glimpse of servant life at the mansion, or take an expanded tour and see all three levels of the home. A new grounds tour will be offered this spring. More about the Oak Park area attractions here.

A New Photography Exhibit Showcases Michigan Modern Architecture

After being closed for almost a year, the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State University in University Center, Michigan, is reopening to the public on April 10 with a new exhibit, Michigan Modern: An Architectural Legacy. On view through June 26, the exhibition will showcase 50 images by photographer James Haefner that highlight the state’s modern architectural design history from 1928 through 2012.

Haefner originally produced the photographs for a 2018 book by author Brian D. Conway that shares the same name as the exhibit. The book — and now the exhibit — showcases work by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Alden B. Dow, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Minoru Yamasaki, and Zaha Hadid. “It is our hope that [this] exhibition of the beautiful color photographs found in Michigan Modern: An Architectural Legacy will continue to inform and inspire those that value great design in their lives and communities,” says Haefner in a press release.

The virtual exhibit will also launch this Saturday. Hosted on the museum’s website, the exhibit will include a 360-degree tour of the physical showcase and a section where visitors can learn more about the museum’s namesake, “Spirit of Detroit” sculptor Marshall Fredrick, and his connection to modern architecture. The virtual offering will also feature photographs — including behind-the-scenes images from one of Haefner’s shoots — not found at the museum. More here.

Pasadena Heritage Takes Over The Historic Edmund Blinn House

After using it for meetings since 1945, the Women’s City Club of Pasadena transferred ownership of the historic Edmund Blinn House to Pasadena Heritage, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the city’s architectural delights. The group will use it as its new headquarters. The Women’s City Club was dissolved in May 2020 and, per its founding mission bylaws, club members chose to transfer the house to Pasadena Heritage for safekeeping, according to a joint press release last week.

The house was designed in 1905 by Chicago architect George Washington Maher, who also designed the Blinn’s home in Chicago, according to the news release. Alongside Frank Lloyd Wright, he was cited as a leading architect of the Prairie School design aesthetic. The Blinn House is the only known Maher home built west of the Mississippi River.

The Blinn House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it’s also a Pasadena Cultural Landmark. The Blinn House Foundation, a separate nonprofit that’s dedicated to overseeing and maintaining the historic integrity of the Blinn House will continue operating and raising funds to keep the house in working order. More here.

Bruce Goff, The Painter

Craig Lee from the Art Institute of Chicago recently posted a blog post reminding us that before he was an architect, Bruce Goff was an artist. While he is best known for his bold and visionary approach to architecture—nearly 150 of his more than 500 project designs were built—Goff also painted creative, abstract studies over his six-decade-long career. He called them “compositions” and often left them untitled. The different medium enabled an artistic expression free from the constraints of architectural design, allowing him to study relationships between form, color, technique, and style among other concerns that connected his three artistic passions: architecture, painting, and music. Read more here.

Way Out and About Wright 2021

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy’s spring tour program embraces a virtual format to showcase six Wright-designed structures dispersed widely across the country – three of which are the only ones built in their respective states. Transcend geography to see five private homes and one church, all in places where it might be more challenging to visit during our in-person events. Tours will couple the beauty of Wright’s designs with the compelling personal narratives of those who occupy, love and work hard to preserve these important buildings. Each tour event will take place live via Zoom, with time for interactive questions and discussion, and a recording will be available to view shortly afterward.

How this event works: There will be two tour sessions each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Each session, featuring a single building, will take place live via Zoom, with time for interactive questions and discussion. A recording will be available to view shortly afterward. Only one registration per household is necessary. Registrants will receive access to an online event hub with links to all live sessions and recordings. If you have any questions or require assistance registering, please email preservation@savewright.org.

Registration rates:

Members $80
Non-Members $130 (includes a one year Friend-level membership)
Students $35

Tour destinations:

Margaret and Patrick Kinney House (Lancaster, Wisconsin; 1951)
Dorothy Ann and Sterling Kinney House (Amarillo, Texas; 1957)
Pilgrim Congregational Church (Redding, California; 1958)*
Shavin House (Chattanooga, Tennessee; 1950)
Sutton House (McCook, Nebraska; 1905) - photo above by Gregory Dowell
Zeigler House (Frankfort, Kentucky; 1910)

Get more info and register here.

About

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