Issue 361 June 7th 2023

The Headlines

Happy Birthday Frank Lloyd Wright

On Thursday, June 8, 2023 Nepenthe Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, will celebrate Frank Lloyd Wright’s Birthday with watercolors by William Sutton.

The celebration will include a birthday cake for everyone to share. Original watercolor paintings of Wright’s architecture by Annapolis based architect and watercolorist William (Bill) Sutton will be featured.

For this show, Bill will be exhibiting his watercolors of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture: Pope-Leighey House in Alexandria, VA; Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ; Robert Parker House in Oak Park, IL; and Fallingwater in Mill Run, PA. He will also be signing "special event posters," giclée prints of some of his original works, and books.

Long-time guide Peter Christensen will discuss the history of the Pope-Leighey House.

Celebrate Wright’s Birthday Inside His Only Oregon Designed House

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionize the way we live. He championed concepts of great rooms and indoor-outdoor living. He promoted energy-saving radiant-heat concrete flooring and perfected home silhouettes and materials that mirror the landscape. Many of Wright’s innovations, some a century old, are still favored today. And it’s time to celebrate him.

The world’s most famous architect was born on June 8, 1867. On Saturday, June 10, the only Wright-designed structure built in Oregon, the Gordon House at 869 W. Main Street in Silverton, will open its doors for a birthday party.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., visitors can see the interior of the two-story house with decorative geometric fretwork and walls of glass rising 12 feet to the ceiling ($5 for adults, under 18 are free). Guided, 45-minute tours of the only Wright residence open to the public in the Pacific Northwest are offered throughout the year ($20, thegordonhouse.org).

“All proceeds support the site’s educational and preservation mission,” says Robin Cornuelle of the Gordon House, which was saved from demolition and moved near the Oregon Garden where it was reconstructed and opened to the public in March 2002. Since then, more than 100,000 visitors have explored Wright’s handsome approach to functional, affordable living.

The Palmer House In Ann Arbor Has No Right Angles + Lots Of Charm

The Palmer House is an interesting gem. It's a late-period Frank Lloyd Wright-crafted home, designed on the basis of the equilateral triangle. There are no right angles; no 90-degree corners whatsoever throughout the entire 2,000-square-foot home and features a central entryway with a bedroom area, living room, and carport that extend via three separate wings.

The house was designed in 1950 and built in 1952 for William Palmer and his wife Mary. Palmer was originally from Imlay City and studied economics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Upon graduating, Palmer became an economics professor at the school. He and his wife bought the three adjoining lots where the home is located, about a mile from the U of M campus. The couple was looking for a unique design and commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design the home after seeing another home he had designed in Bloomfield Hills.

The 2,000-square-foot home sits on two heavily-wooded acres in a secluded neighborhood in Ann Arbor, according to the Airbnb listing.

It's available for short-term rental and features three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

It's certainly old-school, but the home simply drips with nostalgia. Several rooms featured built-in cabinetry, a trademark of the late 20th-century designer. The house is also outfitted with plenty of furniture designed by Wright.

Pennsylvania Building ‘Most Loved’ In The U.S.

Buildworld — a U.K.-based website — set out on a mission to find the “most loved” buildings in the world.

In order to do this, researchers first compiled a list of the most famous buildings in every country via manual research. Once this list was complete, researchers then searched each building against Twitter posts to analysis which has the most positive or negative sentiment attached to them. “Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater home in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, is the most revered [in the U.S.] — with 65.1% positive tweets about its design,” reads the study. “Manhattan buildings dominate the top 10, with five, including the Empire State Building (63% positive tweets) and One World Trade Center (51.9% positive tweets), attracting high praise on Twitter for their architecture.”

2023 Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Conference

Join the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy for five days of tours, talks and celebrations in Minneapolis, MN between September 27 – October 1, 2023! Visit four privately-owned Wright-designed buildings, and take in landmarks of modern architecture in the Twin Cities by Wright apprentice John Howe and others, including Purcell & Elmslie, Louis Sullivan, Eliel Saarinen and more. Speakers will explore the significant but little-examined role women played in the creation of Wright’s work.

Registration will open online to the general public on June 8, 2023.

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