Issue Feb 7th 2024  February 7th 2024

All Lit Up Like A Japanese Lantern At Wright's Pope-Leighey House

By 1941, the year Pope-Leighey House was completed, Frank Lloyd Wright had studied Japan for almost a half-century. He had become a serious collector of woodblock prints--even writing a book on the subject--and had won acclaim for his design of the Tokyo Imperial Hotel, one of the few buildings to survive the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. On this special tour, visitors will discover how the famous American architect incorporated his love of Japanese art, architecture, and philosophy into Usonian homes, and how this East Asian influence shines in Wright’s Pope-Leighey House.

About the Tour Guide: Kristi Jamrisko Gross is Lead Guide at Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House and also works as a museum educator for the Office of Historic Alexandria, VA. She holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Maryland, where she wrote her thesis on Dutch–Japanese material culture exchange in the 1600s. Prior to graduate school, she taught English in rural Japan through the JET Program and worked as a science and nuclear policy analyst at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC.

All Lit Up Like a Japanese Lantern: The Japanese Aesthetic in Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House, Apr. 06, 2024 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House 9000 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, Virginia 22309. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students. Email woodlawn@savingplaces.org or phone 703-780-4000.

Click for more details: alexandrialivingmagazine.com  

Out and About Wright: New Hampshire & Massachusetts Modern

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy invites you to explore contrasting visions of Modernism in New England with the Conservancy. See two vastly differing manifestations of Wright’s Usonian principles, the Zimmerman House & the Kalil House, juxtaposed in Manchester, New Hampshire. In the northern suburbs of Boston, an area strongly influenced by European Modernism, tour houses by Walter Gropius, Paul Rudolph, Sarah Harkness, Walter Bogner & more.

All tours and programs are subject to change.

Online registration will open to Conservancy members at the Benefactor level & above via email on January 29, and to all Conservancy members via email on February 5. Join or renew your membership for early access and member rates. Any remaining spaces will be made available to the public via this page on February 19. Rates increase for all tickets on February 28. If you have questions or require assistance registering, email events@savewright.org or call 312.663.5500. It is anticipated that AIA credits will be available.

Click for more details: savewright.org  

Events Will Remember Legacy Of El Dorado's Fay Jones

In recognition of what would have been the 103rd birthday of its namesake, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design will host special events Wednesday in Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville campus.

As part of the special day, David Salmela, a Minnesota-based architect, and David McKee, a Fayetteville-based architect, will be honored as the inaugural recipients of the Fay Jones School Legacy Medal in Architecture. This award has been conceived to honor and extend the legacy of the school’s namesake, the architect E. Fay Jones, and his work in Arkansas, the greater region, the United States and internationally. 

“Fay Jones’ life was characterized by a spirit of generosity, a dedication to the place and people of his upbringing, deep relationships with his clients and their commissions, and a commitment to the practice and discipline of architecture,” said Peter MacKeith, dean of the school. “His work, mainly achieved at the scale of residential and small sacred commissions, is characterized by an attentiveness to the particulars of siting and environmental circumstances, and to the specifics of constructed space, configured natural light and the crafting of natural materials.

“In identifying inaugural recipients for the Fay Jones School Legacy Medals, we sought architects practicing within Arkansas and outside the state whose careers and body of work resonate with these aspects of Fay Jones’ life and work. Each in their own way, the work of both David Salmela and David McKee resonates and sustains the Fay Jones legacy,” MacKeith said.

The medals will be awarded during a 4:30 p.m. ceremony held in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, with a program that will include a short presentation by Salmela and remarks by McKee. Salmela and his son, Kai Salmela, whose design practice is Salmela Architects in Duluth, Minnesota, both will be in attendance, as will members of McKee’s family.

Jones, FAIA, was born Jan. 31, 1921, in Pine Bluff and grew up in El Dorado. He later attended the earliest architecture classes offered at the U of A, in the architecture program founded by John G. Williams. Jones graduated in the first class of architecture students and eventually returned to teach for 35 years and serve as the school’s first dean.

In his professional practice, he designed 135 houses and 15 chapels and churches across the country, most of which were in Arkansas. He was a recipient of the American Institute of Architect's highest honor, the AIA Gold Medal, in 1990. He died August 30, 2004, at age 83. 

Click for more details: magnoliareporter.com  

The ABCs Of Midcentury Modern Architecture In Palm Springs

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style homes occupy an important place in the development of midcentury modern design. Characterized by their sprawling horizontality and deeply cantilevered roofs providing protection from the sun, Wright’s houses championed indoor-outdoor living and helped to civilize the brave new world of automobile-dominated suburbia. His distinctly American sensibility tuned to the natural settings of his homes, first in the upper Midwest and later in the desert southwest of Scottsdale, where he moved from Wisconsin in 1937. Although Wright’s name is not associated with any building in the Coachella Valley, his son Lloyd Wright spent the decade after World War II designing most of the buildings on the 400-acre campus of  the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, aka the Institute of Mentalphysics, in a style strongly influenced by his father’s organic architecture.

This primer on the postwar design movement that came to define the architectural landscape of Palm Springs will give you a more-than-minimal grasp of midcentury modern architecture. Modernism Week unfolds over a fortnight in February, preceded by a tantalizing week of programming in the fall, and the Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center offers year-round programming.

The lexicon is designed to assure you a passing grade in any Midcentury Mod  Arch 101 course and to empower you to answer questions, whether about who’s who among midcentury modern architects, the movement’s forebears, or the pros and cons of slab construction.

Click for more details: palmspringslife.com