Issue 54 July 19th 2017

Special Offer

Keep Calm And Wright On Framed Art Print

You've seen us sign-off past emails with "Keep Calm and Wright On" and now's your chance to pick up this 8"x10" framed print from ShopWrightSociety.com for $33.

This museum-quality print inside a black wooden frame is small enough to easily display in your home or office—but large enough to make a statement.

Remember, Wright Society supporters at our "Supporter Level" receive 10% off using the special discount they received at the time of their contribution. Those supporters at our "Bronze Level" or higher receive 20% off using their special discount code. Should you have any questions, just email bryan[at]wrightsociety.com.

The Headlines

A Look at the A.D. German Warehouse

Atlas Obscura.com spotlights the only building Frank Lloyd Wright designed in his birthplace of Richland Center, Wisconsin: The A.D. German Warehouse. The four-story building was created for grocer Albert Dell German and includes an ornamented concrete frieze on the top and narrow vertical slits running up the brick façade. Read more.

Restoration of Unity Temple Revives Glory of Wright’s "Little Jewel Box"

Chicago Tonight features the recent renovation of the Frank Lloyd Wright Unity Temple. Noting that on the outside, it is a landmark of modernism clad in concrete. And on the inside, Unity Temple has been called one of the most beautiful interior spaces in America. See here.

Wright-Designed Windows Returning to Martin House

Seven stained glass windows by Frank Lloyd Wright are set to be returned to their original home, the Darwin D. Martin House, in early fall 2017. Built between 1903 and 1905 in Buffalo, New York, the Darwin D. Martin House Complex contained a sprawling estate that included a main house, carriage house, gardener’s cottage, conservatory, and pergola. Martin lost his fortune in the Great Depression, leading the house into a decades-long deterioration that would result in some hundreds of its stained glass windows entering private and public collections. The newly restored property, now a museum, will welcome the seven stained glass windows back from Canada's University of Victoria. Read more.

Rent Wright's Kinney House For Your Next Vacation

Time Out reports that Frank Lloyd Wright's Kinney House, is available for rental on PlansMatter, a Minneapolis-based startup focused on vacation rentals of architectural significance. Designed in 1951, Wright used a “diamond module” plan, with parallelogram-shaped rooms made up of 60–degree and 120-degree angles. The three-bedroom, three-bath home in Lancaster, Wisconsin, is still owned by members of the family for whom it was built and is well preserved. Read more.

History Conveniently Forgot This Frank Lloyd Wright Project

In 1928, Frank Lloyd Wright created a conceptual design for the Rosenwald Schools — an educational network, mostly in the segregated south, for African-American children. The unbuilt project proposed a school that emphasized learning through play and physical activity, taught geometry through architecture, and was designed with affordable construction in mind. However, in correspondence Wright reveals that he was limited by the prejudices and stereotypes of his era about African-Americans. Was Wright a product of his time, or should he have been expected to rise above the limiting thoughts of the day? Read more.

Restoring Schindler's Historic Bubeshko Apartments

Rudolph Schindler's historic Bubeshko Apartments were first completed in 1941 for mother and daughter Anastasia and Luby Bubeshko. The original project only had the following requirements from the clients: a home that would provide rental income and offer flexible, accommodating living spaces for its residences. Wanting to sensitively restore the apartment complex to its original architectural spirit, while mindfully updating it for contemporary residents — including themselves, public radio host Madeleine Brand and her husband filmmaker Joe DeMarie, turned to a team comprising of Eric Haas and Chava Danielson of DSH Architecture to do the job. The project was recently honored with a Residential Design Award of Excellence in the 2017 Modernism in America Awards. Read more.

Get A Rare Peek Inside Twin Cities Gems of Prairie School Architecture

Five private homes — gems of Prairie School architecture all at least 100 years old and filled with original details such as woodwork, stained glass and hand-painted murals — will open their doors for an upcoming bus tour as part of a fundraiser for non-profit Preserve Minneapolis. Four of the five houses on the tour were designed by architects Purcell & Elmslie, contemporaries of Frank Lloyd Wright. The tour begins at Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, 4401 Upton Av. S., Minneapolis, Minnesota at 12pm on July 22, 2017. Tickets are $100 and includes a lunch and snack. Proceeds benefit Preserve Minneapolis. Read more.

Flood Topples Fallingwater Statue & Trees

Heavy rains caused Bear Run, the creek flowing beneath Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater, to overflow, toppling a tree that appears to have dislodged a large bronze statue from its place between the creek and a plunge pool beneath the house. Lynda Waggoner, Director of Fallingwater and Vice President of the Conservancy, said workers would try to drain the plunge pool to create a staging area for repairing the wall and move the statue back into place. It was unknown whether the statue was damaged by the tree or its fall into the water. The statue, "Mother and Child I," was designed by sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and placed at the edge of the plunge pool by Wright. Thankfully, the Conservancy said the flooding didn't affect the inside of the house. Read more.

Effingham Public Library Hosts Frank Lloyd Wright Presentation

Architect J. Stewart Roberts will make a presentation at 6 pm Thursday, July 27, 2017 about Frank Lloyd Wright at the Suzette Brumleve Memorial Effingham Public Library in the Workman Room, 200 N. Third Street in Effingham, Illinois. As a practicing architect for the past 39 years, Roberts has focused on the design of buildings for communities, with a concentration in public libraries. He has also had a long-time interest in the work of Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, having studied his life, designs, and visited dozens of his buildings. Registration is required for this program, so go online to EffinghamLibrary.org, call the library at 217-342-2464 ext.1, or email info@effinghamlibrary.org.

BBC Seeks The Effects of Wright's Welsh Heritage

BBC News looks into discovering what role Frank Lloyd Wright's Welsh heritage played in his style and beliefs. Wright's mother was from Ceredigion, so Wales' foremost contemporary architect and Millennium Centre designer Jonathan Adams, traveled to the United States to investigate. He found echoes of Wales throughout the visionary architect's life. The BBC2 documentary, Frank Lloyd Wright: The First Modern Architect, shares interesting biographical details such as Wright's mother, Anna Lloyd Jones, and her family leaving Llandysul, Wales for Wisconsin in 1844 when she was just 5-years-old. They were trying to escape the persecution of their Unitarianism faith and to establish a little piece of Wales in America. It was into this devout Welsh-speaking environment that Wright entered the world in 1867. Adams sees many influences from this background in Wright's work and attitudes. Read more.

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