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Yeah, but aren't FLW houses/buildings notorious for being crap quality construction? Leaking, cracking, sinking, and molding?

RNCTX 6y ago
No, just the opposite. His schools have had issues, because the schools were meant to be sandboxes for the students to get real world experience, and try things which may or may not work. The fact that the schools have become landmarks after his death has nothing to do with Wright's design philosophies. If you look at Wright's own house, it incorporates lots of clever ideas in terms of engineering more rugged forms which will hold up over time (like molding profiles that are designed to be coped from multiple directions to keep joints in place, and stained glass patterns that lend themselves to 'hiding' extra reinforcement on one side where the structure will be invisible to the beholder, for example). Here are my pics of his house when I went through it last time I was in Chicago. I tried to get as many such above examples as possible... https://imgur.com/a/ontIR https://imgur.com/a/ontIR
- vidanay 6y ago
  I've always heard that his designs and concepts are great (that's my opinion too), but the actual construction quality was lacking.
gibsonf1 6y ago
Yes, Wright focused most of his attention on expressing his world view with his work, rather than careful systems engineering and detailing of that work for long-term exposure to the elements. The classic story about this is when one of his clients called Wright angrily that water was leaking on his desk, Wright's response was "well then, move your desk" Wright achieved great mastery in terms of his structural engineering - two great examples are his Johnson Wax building with the "mushroom" columns that were radically stronger than any were willing to believe (a destruction test was used to prove it at the time - concrete construction being very new (post Romans that is) [1] and his Falling Water house where he used the mass of the house to provide a counter balance to the great cantilevering terraces and novel new reinforced construction techniques. The contractor for Falling water had no real experience with this new reinforced concrete construction, and apparently did not build according to the detailed plan as they assumed it would simply fall down once forms were removed. Wright had to personally go to the site and knock down the last supporting column of the great cantilevered terrace as no one was willing to be the one to destroy the house. Although it did not collapse, it did sag over the decades because of the construction flaws, and has been recently repaired to have full intended strength [2] In the context of this discussion on ornamentation and philosophy in architecture, that Wright's execution was lacking is somewhat irrelevant. [1] https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/14/frank-lloyd-wright-johnson-wax-administration-building-headquarters-racine-wisconsin-open-plan-office/ https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/14/frank-lloyd-wright-johnson... [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/frank-lloyd-wright-fallingwater https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-...
mynegation 6y ago
I do not know about all FLW buildings but can talk about the ones in SW Pennsylvania - Kentuck Knob and famous Fallingwater. FLW paid a lot of attention to the construction and durability but a lot of bad rep comes from two factors: one, those building in particular were built in the challenging environments: one on the top of the hill, one - built into the side of the hill, over the creeks. Another factor is that a lot of FLW ideas required quality craftsmanship. As an example, Kentuck Knob has a row of sunlights on one side of the building. As far as I remember they were not made properly at first and caused problems with water leaking in. But to me, none of this matters. Kentuck Knob is just such a lovely building, and Fallingwater... Fallingwater is a breathtaking masterpiece, there are no words to describe this feeling. During my first visit, I turned around to give it one last look and literally wept.

RNCTX 6y ago

No, just the opposite. His schools have had issues, because the schools were meant to be sandboxes for the students to get real world experience, and try things which may or may not work. The fact that the schools have become landmarks after his death has nothing to do with Wright's design philosophies. If you look at Wright's own house, it incorporates lots of clever ideas in terms of engineering more rugged forms which will hold up over time (like molding profiles that are designed to be coped from multiple directions to keep joints in place, and stained glass patterns that lend themselves to 'hiding' extra reinforcement on one side where the structure will be invisible to the beholder, for example). Here are my pics of his house when I went through it last time I was in Chicago. I tried to get as many such above examples as possible... https://imgur.com/a/ontIR https://imgur.com/a/ontIR

vidanay 6y ago
I've always heard that his designs and concepts are great (that's my opinion too), but the actual construction quality was lacking.

gibsonf1 6y ago

Yes, Wright focused most of his attention on expressing his world view with his work, rather than careful systems engineering and detailing of that work for long-term exposure to the elements. The classic story about this is when one of his clients called Wright angrily that water was leaking on his desk, Wright's response was "well then, move your desk" Wright achieved great mastery in terms of his structural engineering - two great examples are his Johnson Wax building with the "mushroom" columns that were radically stronger than any were willing to believe (a destruction test was used to prove it at the time - concrete construction being very new (post Romans that is) [1] and his Falling Water house where he used the mass of the house to provide a counter balance to the great cantilevering terraces and novel new reinforced construction techniques. The contractor for Falling water had no real experience with this new reinforced concrete construction, and apparently did not build according to the detailed plan as they assumed it would simply fall down once forms were removed. Wright had to personally go to the site and knock down the last supporting column of the great cantilevered terrace as no one was willing to be the one to destroy the house. Although it did not collapse, it did sag over the decades because of the construction flaws, and has been recently repaired to have full intended strength [2] In the context of this discussion on ornamentation and philosophy in architecture, that Wright's execution was lacking is somewhat irrelevant. [1] https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/14/frank-lloyd-wright-johnson-wax-administration-building-headquarters-racine-wisconsin-open-plan-office/ https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/14/frank-lloyd-wright-johnson... [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/frank-lloyd-wright-fallingwater https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-...

mynegation 6y ago

I do not know about all FLW buildings but can talk about the ones in SW Pennsylvania - Kentuck Knob and famous Fallingwater. FLW paid a lot of attention to the construction and durability but a lot of bad rep comes from two factors: one, those building in particular were built in the challenging environments: one on the top of the hill, one - built into the side of the hill, over the creeks. Another factor is that a lot of FLW ideas required quality craftsmanship. As an example, Kentuck Knob has a row of sunlights on one side of the building. As far as I remember they were not made properly at first and caused problems with water leaking in. But to me, none of this matters. Kentuck Knob is just such a lovely building, and Fallingwater... Fallingwater is a breathtaking masterpiece, there are no words to describe this feeling. During my first visit, I turned around to give it one last look and literally wept.