Issue 273 September 29th 2021

The Headlines

SAMARA Survey Wins National Architectural Honors

Architecture students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis MO have placed third in the National Park Service’s 2021 Charles E. Peterson Prize Competition.

Presented annually by the Park Service’s Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) — in coordination with The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, the American Institute of Architects and the Association for Preservation Technology International — the Peterson Prize celebrates the best measured drawings prepared to HDP standards and donated to HDP by students.

The Sam Fox School team, which will receive a $2,000 award, was recognized for its digital survey of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic SAMARA House in West Lafayette, Ind. Completed in 1956 for Purdue professor John Christian and his wife, Catherine, the house takes its name from the winged seeds found in pinecones, which Wright spotted while visiting the heavily wooded property. The natural motif is reflected throughout the home’s design elements, including its clerestory windows and interior furnishings, which also were designed by Wright. Read more here.

Exploring Louis Sullivan’s Idea

A new book that builds on a 2010 exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center shows the power of Sullivan’s work and why we need to preserve what remains. Only 21 Louis Sullivan-designed structures still exist in Chicago — a tragedy for an architect who has been called the “father of modernism” and served as a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and others associated with the Prairie School. Luckily, historians continue to provide us with a look into the architect’s work. More than a decade after the close of an exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center, a book of the same name — Louis Sullivan’s Idea, by its curators Tim Samuelson and Chris Ware — is being released by the University of Minnesota Press.

The book also coincides with a new show on the architect’s work, “Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright,” at Wrightwood 659, and the release of another related book: Reconstructing the Garrick: Adler & Sullivan’s Lost Masterpiece by John Vinci. Read more here.

Richard Neutra’s Architectural Vanishing Act

Alex Ross of The New Yorker writes an interesting and thorough article about architect and one-time Wright associate Richard Neutra and his architectural legacy in California.

"Can an aggressively modern house become indivisible from its surroundings? Neutra contemplated that challenge throughout his career, which extended from novice efforts in Germany, in the early nineteen-twenties, until his death, in 1970. The Health House, majestically at odds with its environment, doesn’t quite hit the mark. But if you venture a few miles to the southeast, into Silver Lake, you can see Neutra in a stealthier, suppler mode. In the early twentieth century, the neighborhood was settled by avant-garde artists, radical activists, and bohemians. Neutra joined the throng in 1932, building himself a studio-residence, the Neutra VDL House, by the Silver Lake Reservoir. Between 1948 and 1962, he built nine more houses a block to the south, in an area now called the Neutra Colony. " Read the entire article and see the photos here.

Ben Dombar-Designed House For Sale

A 1965 Midcentury Modern home, named "Good Living," located in Wyoming, OH that was designed by architect Benjamin Dombar is on the market. Dombar spent seven years living and working alongside Frank Lloyd Wright and the design and detailing of this hemicycle house reveals that background.

The 5,500-square-foot home contains four bedrooms, plus a study, three full and two half baths and a two-car carport. There is also a laundry room, attached greenhouse, treetop decks, a great room and two family rooms.

Possibly the best part of all, the home sits on 2.5 acres of land in a quiet cul-de-sac. The home is priced at $1,100,000. For more info about the property, follow the link.

Exploring Sacred Spaces In Wright’s Architecture

Beth Sholom Preservation Foundation, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin Preservation, and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy/Fallingwater have joined together to produce Sacred Spaces: Frank Lloyd Wright x Andrew Pielage, an exhibition of 30 photographs of Wright’s religious and spiritually oriented buildings taken by Andrew Pielage. Curated by Sam Lubell, executive editor of Metropolis, the exhibition will be on view at the Wright-designed Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, before traveling to other Wright sites around the country, including Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin; Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona; and Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Read more about it here.

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