Flight of Fancy to Focus on Frank
Watch out for Di’s column in a forthcoming issue of Real Estate Lifestyle in Noosa Today about her favourite architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.
I have just returned from a tour de force of the USA, studying buildings and their illustrious designers, the architects of the 20th century. People like Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Santiago Calatrava and the like. But the headliner has to be, is and always will be Frank Lloyd Wright.
I ended up seeing 10 of his most iconic buildings, including his own houses and offices and I think I can now tell you that the more I saw and learnt about him, the more I was in awe of his genius and the less I liked the man, who displayed, amongst other traits, unbelievable arrogance and an alarming, total disregard for almost everybody, but especially his clients – and his family. He also had an enormous ego, well before it was warranted, and even when it was, a bit of restraint would have been in order!
His artistic and technical brilliance are clearly evident in every building, but even more evident is his utter control over every building, more like a stranglehold, as he demanded and commanded how every minute aspect of the building was to be dealt with. Furniture, the placement of furniture, the light fittings, the window treatments, nothing was left to the discretion of the owner, it was all up to Mr Wright, as he was called.
I don’t think there are many people that wouldn’t at least be aware of the name Falling Water, considered by everyone in the know to be Wright’s masterpiece, beyond compare. Having been there, I have to say that it is nothing short of pure architectural wonderment which is also an incredible engineering feat, considering it was designed and built in the 1930s. The main house literally sits over a stream (falling water), which was the singular focal point of the site, in rural Pennsylvania. The owners, the Kaufmann family, specifically asked the architect to design a house to enable them to watch the stream from their living quarters. Here is a classic example of both Wright’s arrogance (completely ignoring the client’s exacting brief), but also his genius, by designing and constructing a house that totally defies logic and challenges every building and engineering law, even to this day.
Wright ignored (funny that) the engineers’ concerns about the design and refused to follow their advice as to how to construct the cantilevered levels of the house. The house has, over the years,dropped alarmingly, by about 13 inches (330mm!) and a massive restoration programme was undertaken in the early 2000s to try and “pull up” the house back to its original level.
It cost millions of dollars and necessitated the entire floor, all wall decoration, all built in furniture and all walls and windows, to be taken out, piece by piece, photographed, numbered, labelled and removed from the site by massive cranes, to allow post-tension wiring to be installed into the slabs. This was all overseen by the Wright Foundation under meticulous and scrupulous supervision – after all,we’re dealing with a world-renowned masterpiece that can never be re-built (the entire structure doesn’t comply with any present day building code, from ceiling heights, balustrading, fire regulations, etc). The end result was that they were able to raise the floor by just one inch (25mm). Can you believe it?
Good architecture, like good interior design, will always withstand the test of time and Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy remains a powerful and influential force in the world of design.