Issue 302  April 20th 2022

Growing Up Wright

Jim Dublinski recalls the joy and inspiration of growing up in a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in a recent article featured on the Frank Lloyd wright Foundation's blog, The Whirling Arrow.

Jim Dublinski, who lived in the Avery Coonley House from about the age of nine until he was in college, recalls that growing up in Riverside, Ill., was a magical experience.

“The whole town was designed by Frederick Olmstead,” he explained. “So, you’re living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, in the first planned community, designed in the late 1860s. So even walking to school, you walk through these parkways. And you go through this Romanesque village. And on the way home you can walk through the park along the river.”

The Avery Coonley House is an elaborate Prairie style residence with a Coach House, Gardener’s Cottage, and accompanying gardens. The home marks the first time that Wright used “zoned planning.” This approach involves dividing spaces based on their function, and he would use it for the rest of his career.

“Nothing is direct,” Jim said. “You go into these spaces, and you turn left or right. You go into these little hallways that expand into these big rooms. And it’s very welcoming in a way — and also very theatrical.”

Through his windows, he could see the workings of nature, from season to season. Inside the house, patterned light created a world of imagination and wonder.

“When I was growing up, one of the biggest influences was light and how it impacted play during the day. Whether it was shadows from the stained-glass windows or the hallways or the reflective light. It was all very impactful.” Read the entire article here.

Click for more details: franklloydwright.org  

Exploring Wright's "Sacred Spaces" Through Photography Exhibit

Taliesin Preservation, Beth Sholom Preservation Foundation, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy/Fallingwater have joined together to host an exhibition, "Sacred Spaces: Frank Lloyd Wright x Andrew Pielage," which will open at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center on April 30, 2022. A presentation with Pielage will take place on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. The show features images of Wright-designed buildings—ranging from churches and synagogues to homes and civic spaces—and guests will have an opportunity to purchase signed prints from the artist. The show is scheduled to run through Aug. 31, 2022.

Since its founding, Taliesin Preservation has been dedicated to educating and engaging the broader community about Wright's legacy. Its latest endeavor focuses on exploring the architect's work through the lens of sacred space, and how he interpreted this notion through architecture and design.

Andrew Pielage is an architecture and travel photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. The show features over 30 photographs of Pielage's work from a dozen Wright sites, with pieces selected to highlight Wright's use of light, texture, and composition to create sanctified space. The exhibition is curated by Los Angeles-based architectural writer and curator Sam Lubell.

"Like Wright, Pielage has a deep knowledge of sacred tradition, a profound love of nature, and an uncanny ability to take users inside a space and to help them feel that space," said Lubell. "His images reveal that connection, and many resonate with Wright's nature-based and human-based vision of sacred space. We chose images that we thought most definitively clarified Wright's approach to what he considered sacred space, be it a church, a museum, or a home. For example, several shots reveal Wright's ability to draw nature—which Wright considered holy—inside, or his ability to lift the spirit through creating diverse interior landscapes reminiscent of the world around them." More here.

Click for more details: benzinga.com  

"The Women Who Changed Architecture" Features Over 100 Female Architects

The Women Who Changed Architecture, a new book published by Princeton Architectural Press, is a visual and global chronicle of the triumphs, challenges, and impact of over 100 women in architecture, from early practitioners to contemporary leaders. The forward was written by Beverly Willis, whose non-profit architecture foundation is aimed at expanding knowledge about women’s contributions to the built environment and the introduction was written by Amale Andraos, co-founder of the firm WORKac and the former dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

In the forward, Willis writes how “the reluctant acceptance of women in architecture, historically, mirrored the larger societal acceptance of women in all areas of work life.” She explains that support from women in the field “came from an unexpected source, Frank Lloyd Wright,” whose religious beliefs supported women’s right to vote. From there, Wright opened the Taliesin Fellowship, an architecture school where 20 to 25% of its attendees were women and Wright himself would joke, “a Girl is a Fellow Here.” Willis contends that despite the opportunities opened to women in World War II, and their success in fields such as architecture and engineering, “most women are woefully underrepresented in architectural history books…. This book is a big step towards correcting the misrepresentation that celebrated women architects do not exist. In reality, there is an amazing number of them.” More here.

Click for more details: untappedcities.com  

E. Fay Jones Designed Places For People To Think Their Best Thoughts

Euine Fay Jones was an American architect and designer. An apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright during his professional career, Jones was the only one of Wright's disciples to have received the AIA Gold Medal, the highest honor awarded by the American Institute of Architects. Thorncrown Chapel, designed by Jones won five design awards and was named by American Institute of Architects (AIA) as the fourth–best building of the twentieth century. In this article, Bill Caldwell, the retired librarian at The Joplin Globe, gives an insight to Jones' motivations as an architect.

In 1949, serendipity struck as he met Frank Lloyd Wright at the American Institute of Architects convention in Houston. Wright introduced himself: “I’m an architect.” Jones replied, “I’m an architecture student.” It began a long association and friendship.

He completed a master’s degree at Rice University before going to the University of Oklahoma School of Architecture for two years. The program’s head, Bruce Goff, included Jones in a faculty dinner for Wright during a visit in 1953. The meeting led to an invitation for Jones to attend Taliesin West and a series of summer apprenticeships over the next six years.

Wright encouraged Jones to accept a professorship at Arkansas, saying it was a good place for him to build.

Jones took the advice, and for the next 35 years, he taught at Fayetteville and maintained a small private practice focused on designing homes. Beginning with his own home, which attracted new commissions, his private practice continued steadily until there were more than 200 homes bearing his name.

His designs started to gain national attention in 1961 with two “Homes for Better Living” awards from the AIA. He discussed his holistic vision of architecture through interviews that gained a national audience as his homes won awards, though he remained a soft-spoken, modest man. Read the entire article here.

Click for more details: joplinglobe.com  

Don't Miss The 21st Annual Meeting Of The Walter Burley Griffin Society Of America

After a three-year pause since the last annual meeting of the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America, held in 2019 in Decatur, Illinois, the 21st Annual Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 7, 2022 in Elmhurst, Illinois.

The morning lectures include four speakers: Preservationist Michael Allen will talk about the National Building Arts Center (NBAC) near St. Louis at Sauget, Illinois, of which he is now the president (members will remember his talk at the Edwardsville meeting of 2017, as well as his tour of downtown St. Louis the next morning); preservationist Mary Brush will explain the complex task of restoring the exterior of Bruce Goff ’s Bachman house in Chicago, a remodeling of an existing building; Aaron Holverson of the Rockford firm of Studio GWA describes the digital recording of Solid Rock and subsequent as-built drawings created from those scans, a project funded by the Griffin Society; and Paul Kruty recounts the Griffin family’s years in Elmhurst, Walter’s maturing in this suburb, and his work in Elmhurst from 1900 to 1914 (two of his surviving buildings are on the afternoon tour). He will also outline the afternoon’s activities, which include open houses at Griffin’s Emery and Sloane houses and Wright’s Henderson house.

Find out more here.

Click for more details: wbgriffinsociety.org