Little Hotel on the Prairie

by Ashley Takacs, special to the Weekly Wright-up

The Park Inn, then and now.

While the Martin House Restoration Corporation approaches its final phases of work on Jewett Parkway, another community of preservationists is embarking on a similar journey halfway across the country. Residents of Mason City, Iowa have formed Wright on the Park Inc., an organization overseeing the work of restoring Wright’s last surviving hotel, the Park Inn.

The group hopes to open the Prairie style hotel to guests in 2011 – a tall order, considering that the building, completed in 1909, has been in a state of neglect for over two decades. Mason City preservationists first made national headlines in 2004 when the City Council offered the building on eBay for $10 million to anyone who promised to restore it. When that failed to draw interest, Wright on the Park stepped in, and the city signed over the deed.

The $18 million complete interior and exterior renovation started early in August, thanks to numerous grants and local coordination. The task includes a comprehensive restoration of the brick and terra-cotta façade, replacement of the art glass skylights and a complete interior reconstruction – in the early 70’s, much of the space had been converted to apartments or altered to accommodate various businesses (including a strip club).

Of more than 500 completed Wright building, only six were hotels. The Park Inn’s massing suggests that it served as a prototype for Midway Gardens in Chicago, and the famed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, both of which have since been destroyed. Perhaps even more significantly, adjoined to the hotel is the City National Bank, one of two remaining Wright-designed banks. Wright on the Park has purchased the bank, and eventually plans to reunite it with its neighbor.

For anyone interested in spending a night at the Park Inn, make sure to book early. Once completed, there will be a scant 20 suites. And Wright enthusiasts who cannot imagine a weekend without their hairdryer and cable television needn’t worry: the historic gem will be restored to its original splendor, while providing modern amenities that will appeal to today's travelers.

Click HERE for more on the Park Inn and City National Bank.

Shaw Festival

Wasmuth portfolio, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

With approximately half of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs never executed, it's often interesting to contemplate his unbuilt compositions in concert with built work of the same period. In the case of the Darwin D. Martin House, one such example that continually intrigues me is the C. Thaxter Shaw House that Wright designed for the Westmount district of Montreal in 1906. The more one looks at the Martin and Shaw designs, the more parallels emerge. I would go so far as to say that the Shaw House was to be the Martin House's Canadian cousin.

Though destined to remain in the realm of "paper architecture," the Shaw House is tantalizingly documented in the Wasmuth portfolio through a perspective and plan. These announce some of the major similarities between Shaw and Martin: their pier construction, extending, hipped roofs, bands of art glass windows, and "outrigger" garden walls. One of the main differences is that the Shaw plan is more rigorously symmetrical than the Martin plan. Robert McCarter likens the Martin and Shaw plans to that of the Imperial Hotel, one of Wright's most formal and symmetrical plans (Frank Lloyd Wright, p. 146). This strict symmetry extends beyond the "unit room" of the Shaw House, but does not in the western half of the Martin House, which hints at the Usonian "L" plans to come.

Although it demonstrates all of the "stock" Prairie characteristics, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Shaw House is how it adapts the Prairie house to a hilly site. Such adaptations were relatively rare (e.g. the Hardy House, Racine, WI, 1906, built on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan); the Prairie House, by definition, is most comfortable on a flat, expansive site. With Shaw, the familiar, interlocking Prairie pavilions cascade down a terraced slope. Twin verandas extend at the lower level, like giant hands anchoring the house and gripping the hillside. But with all its symmetrical formality, the perspective drawing of the Shaw House recalls an imposing Roman structure such as the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, an austere, ceremonious presence in the design which may well have dissuaded Shaw from committing to build the house.

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives

This compare-and-contrast exercise extends also to the interiors and furnishings of the Martin and Shaw houses. An exquisite presentation drawing of the proposed Shaw living room shows many affinities with the Martin living room and its Wright-designed furnishings: a wisteria-patterned tile mosaic on the fireplace, a sofa with book storage built into the arms, a baby grand piano design, also with built-in book storage (though the Wright-designed piano was not built for the Martins either), and globe-in-square light sconces clustered around the piers. If executed, the tout ensemble of the Shaw living room would have been at least as aesthetically rich as the Martins.'

C. Thaxter Shaw shied away from the new house Wright designed for him, giving the architect the consolation prize of remodeling his existing townhouse. But even here, certain echoes of the Martin commission are evident. A drawing for the remodeled Shaw dining room shows a custom dining table incorporating planting stanchions - extensions of the legs near the corners, and an alcove designated for a cast of the Nike of Samothrace (one of Wright's favorite classical casts, often prescribed for Prairie period buildings). Sound familiar?

Clearly, Wright and his studio had no qualms about "recycling" certain interior and furniture design elements from one commission to the next - all in the spirit of testing and consolidating the Prairie vocabulary of design. Part of what makes the Martin House commission so unique is that its Canadian counterpart was never realized.

The Guggenheim "From Within"

This week, I had the distinct pleasure of touring the Guggenheim Museum with Curatorial Assistant for Architecture and Design, Maria Nicanor, to see the exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. The museum-wide exhibit focuses on sixty-four of Wright's key projects - built and unbuilt - culminating in his final, major built work, the Guggenheim itself. But the iconic package of the newly-restored building, which now re-incorporates certain details on Wright's wish-list, such as real ivy in the interior planters, becomes the omnipresent centerpiece (or perhaps "spiral-piece?") of the show.

The show faced the challenge of any major architectural exhibition: what you might call "drawing fatigue." Architectural drawings can present challenges of abstract obscurity to the general visitor - though the Guggenheim has been presenting such challenges in various media since its founding as a definitive collection of "nonobjective" art. The curatorial team for Within Outward combat this obscurity with a number of models, both old and new, traditional and digital, that help illustrate Wright's design concepts from the relatively utilitarian (the Jacobs I Usonian house) to the utterly fantastic (Wright's expansive master plan for Baghdad). The Jacobs I model is a meticulously detailed tour de force, with the various layers of the house "exploded" in a way that emphasizes the modular and automatic nature of the Usonian concept. Other models, created by Situ Studio, offer ghostly abstractions of some of Wright's utopian, unbuilt designs, such as the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective and Planetarium and the Huntington Hartford Sports Club. Some of these make bold use of the unique space of the museum: the Gordon Strong model hugs the slope of the spiral ramp, and the Huntington Hartford model is boldly cantilevered from one of the reinforced concrete buttresses, reflecting the bracket tree fungus inspiration for the saucer-like cantilevers of the Sports Club itself.

These amazing models aside, the exhibition offers a rare, perhaps once-in-a lifetime opportunity to scrutinize over two hundred masterful drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives. These often-reproduced but rarely-exhibited drawings are works of art unto themselves, from the crisp graphic quality of the Wasmuth portfolio renderings, to the radiant color and contrasts of the night views of the Pittsburgh Point Park Civic Center and Lenkurt Electric Company projects. Some of these drawings offer unexpected glimpses of history, as with the panoramic elevations of Taliesin West, drawn on Kraft paper during particularly lean times for the Taliesin Fellowship. One of the most stunning drawings in the exhibition is Wright's perspective of the "Mile High" Illinois building, his colossal skyscraper-to-end-all-skyscrapers proposal. The original drawing is over 95 inches high, its looming scale lost in reproductions. This rendering of one of Wright's most fantastic projects is enhanced further by digital animation that sizes-up various well-known skyscrapers and world monuments with the gargantuan Mile High, then takes the viewer on a dizzying elevator ride to the top of the virtual building, 5,280 feet above Chicago.

Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward is only on view through August 23, so consider hopping that JetBlue flight to New York to catch this rare opportunity for total immersion in the world of Frank Lloyd Wright. The exhibition catalog alone is destined to become one of the great tomes in the Wright Studies bookshelf, but the exhibition invites visitors to explore the rich spaces wrought by Wright's oeuvre, displayed in the Golden-anniversary reliquary of Wright's last - and most audacious - building.

Musings on "Music for a Modern House"

For many who enjoyed the wonderful evening of chamber music provided by the Clavio Trio at the Greatbatch Pavilion last week, the Duo for violin and cello, opus 7, by Zoltán Kodály was the highlight. The vigorous performance by violinist Deborah Greitzer and cellist Linda Jennings was dazzling in the compelling acoustic setting of the Greatbatch Pavilion. "Music for a Modern House" was organized to showcase some of the Clavio Trio's early twentieth century music against the backdrop of Frank Lloyd Wright's early twentieth century Martin House complex. The initial concept was of a broad historical connection between music and architecture. But further contemplation yields more specific parallels between Wright's work and that of composers such as Kodály: they both took inspiration from "other" cultures, using them to energize the products of Western modernism.

Broadly speaking, Wright and Kodály followed a practice that was already familiar to European artists and composers by the beginning of the First World War: mining various cultures seen as outside the classically-based tradition of European historicism for new "raw material" to be refined by the rapidly-shifting paradigms of Western art. In Kodály's case, this mining took him to the rich melodies of Hungarian folk songs - to his own backyard, so to speak. In 1905, the same year that Kodály began visiting remote Hungarian villages to start "collecting" these folk tunes, Frank Lloyd Wright made his first visit to Japan (as the Martin House was still under construction), where he would nourish his already budding love affair with Japanese art and culture.

An important difference between Kodály's and Wright's appropriations is that Kodály turned to what was familiar and close at hand for inspiration, while Wright went further afield. Raised in the Hungarian countryside, Kodály returned there, with an educated ear and eye, to "rediscover" and intellectually appropriate the folk music of the region. It may seem a contradiction in terms for Kodály, Bartók and other composers to treat European folk songs as products of "another" culture, but this was done in the contemporary spirit of re-working such "low" cultural finds into the products of "high" culture (e.g. classical music). Wright, by contrast, went half way around the globe to commune with his favorite source of design inspiration. By 1905, Wright was already familiar with Japanese art and culture by virtue of influential orientalist Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, and by visiting the Ho-o-den, the Japanese national pavilion at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Wright's fascination with all things Japanese was not unique at the turn of the century, but part of the larger trend of "Japonisme" in art and culture that also influenced the work of artists such as Van Gogh. Though Wright would often deny or sublimate the influence of Japanese architecture on his own buildings, he did admit to a certain cross-cultural affinity (especially in regard to the Japanese print), one that he absorbed into his design palette of Sullivanesque ornament, geometric abstraction and the new American vernacular of the Prairie School.

The appropriations of Kodály and Wright may be seen as experiments in the laboratory of modernism. Both seem to assert that the products of Western high culture were in need of aesthetic or expressionistic infusion from elsewhere if they were to avoid decadence and stagnation. Such infusions came from sources as diverse as African sculpture (Picasso), Tahitian culture (Gauguin) and romanticized Medieval Europe (William Morris). While some of these artists may have found novelty to exploit in these cross-cultural sources, I think Wright and Kodály turned to them out of a more comprehensive understanding and reverence for what they found there: truth to the human experience.

Of Elgin Marbles and Art Glass

by Danielle Forsyth
Hamilton College intern and special to the Weekly Wright-up

Sometimes, I feel like a Greek.

In the Art History classes I have had over the years, the teachers and professors would always spend at least one 50-minute class on the infamous Elgin Marbles. I have heard it so many times in the classroom that I can almost give you the story by heart:

Lord Elgin was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799–1803, and he had obtained a controversial permission from the Ottoman authorities to remove marble sculptures, inscriptions, and architectural friezes from the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. From 1801 to 1812, Elgin's agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon. Many thought that Elgin was saving these priceless works from further destruction because for many years the ancient Greek temple laid vacant, exposed to the elements. Others compared Elgin’s actions to vandalism and looting. This sparked a Parliamentary debate which ended with the British Government purchasing Elgin’s entire collection in 1816 and placing it on display in the British Museum, where the marbles are on view to this day in the custom-built Duveen Gallery.

As I am going through file after file representing art glass pieces from the Martin House that have ended up in museums all over the world, I recall the story of the Elgin Marbles and the surprising similarities between them and the art glass: these architectural fragments that are not now - and may never be - where they were intended to be. The museums that obtained Martin House art glass for public display did it through absolutely legitimate means and usually consider them to be “gems” in their collections. Yet, I wonder what gets lost when works of art are taken out of their original context. Does a “Tree of Life” window displayed in a museum, with its white-washed walls and artificial lighting, have the same spirit as when you see its cascading reflection on the ceiling in the reception room in the Martin House?

However discouraged I become, seeing Martin House windows built into the walls of museums, discovering in their online collections that they have the art glass shown upside-down, and cringing at the oversight of details such as the spelling of Isabelle Martin (Isabel, Isabella, you name it), I look to one courageous bunch of activists for inspiration: the Greeks. The persistence of these people, hell-bent on uniting the Parthenon marbles in Athens once again, gives me hope for our own plight here at the Martin House. The Greeks have never given up the effort. In order to prove they were ready to have their marbles back, they built a brand-new Acropolis museum (completed in 2008), equipped to hold all of the artifacts that were ever found on the ancient site. And guess what? They have an empty room for the sole intention of housing those long-lost marbles taken by Lord Elgin.

The Martin House Restoration Corporation realizes that it will never be able to get back all of the nearly 400 pieces of original art glass, no matter how Greek-like it is, and maybe that’s not such bad thing. The Australian kid who is a Frank Lloyd Wright-enthusiast most likely doesn’t have the means to fly out to Buffalo to view the Martin House. He or she can, however, go to the National Gallery of Australia and see a “Tree of Life” window, study it, appreciate it, and maybe keep a mental note that this Martin House would be a cool place to visit someday.

So, with the Greeks cheering me on, I continue my research on the art glass in public collections and do my best to be a good ambassador (un-Elgin-like) to the world’s museums.

altered (1909) "Tree of Life" window from the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

To the Enjoyment of All: The Martin Family Book Collection

by Lauren Tagliaferro
Syracuse University intern and special to the Weekly Wright-up

As many followers of the Martin House well know, Darwin D. Martin was a voracious reader and a self-taught man whose collection of books numbered in the thousands. Considering that he was the kind of man who recorded his height and weight on a regular basis, Martin’s diary is replete with pithy notations on what he had begun reading, what he was finishing up, who he was reading to (which was his wife Isabelle most of the time due to her failing eyesight) and even where he was reading: Martin didn’t even waste time on train cars when riding into the city of Buffalo for work.

Of some 2,000 books in his collection, Martin recorded only 42 titles over a 47 year period in his diary; however, one could consider the titles he mentions a kind of cross-section of the literature he was reading, both for himself and aloud to his family and friends. For the most part, Martin chose to read classic works of fiction, autobiographies of religious subjects and individuals, local histories and Christian Science texts. He also writes later in life that Isabelle has a particular fondness for Dickens, which explains the multitude of the author’s work in their collection. If a certain tome struck a particular chord with Martin, he was sure to make note of it, however brief. He considered in 1906 Tolstoy’s My Religion to be “the greatest book I ever read,” while in December of that year Martin read a rather obscure book on the train - The Parochial School by Jeremiah Crowley, which he described as a “…book on esoteric Catholicism…which greatly moved me.”

Martin also seemed to enjoy reading aloud, both to his wife and particularly to his son, Darwin R. The senior Darwin records several instances in which he and the boy read together. As to be expected, these were mostly adventure stories, such as Kipling’s Captain’s Courageous and Richard Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast, which took father and son over a year to complete. In 1915, he read his son Reverend Kellogg’s Lion Ben of Elm Island, of which Martin proudly claims “He enjoys as I did when a boy.”

The Martins were a literary family in general. Many of the photos in the Martin House collection feature family members reading in quiet repose. Also, Mrs. Martin was a charter member of the Highland Park Literary Club (a sort of literary salon) which often met in the Martins’ home. As Darwin D. and Isabelle get older, Darwin records more and more instances of his reading aloud to her – including some of her favorite Dickens, such as Little Dorrit and David Copperfield, which they read at least twice during their life together.

Indeed, books seemed to remain a comfort and a source of knowledge to Martin even in his last days. One of the last entries in his diary in the months before his death, between the stubborn recordings of day-to-day minutiae, is the entry of March 19, 1934: “Finished ‘Within This Present,’ story of present depression.”

Darwin D. Martin reading to his children, Darwin R. and Dorothy. Photo by Muller, 1912

The Art Glass Chronicles: Dining Room Buffet Windows - Dénouement

As extensive as the documentation of the dining room buffet windows may be, there is no documented resolution to the questions of their design, fabrication and installation. This lack of documented resolution reminds us that telephones were in use at the turn of the century, and this (and so many other) details of finishing the Martin House may have been resolved when Darwin Martin picked up the phone and called his architect - conversations that Wright may have come to dread and, unfortunately for us, are utterly lost to history.

In light of this incomplete record, I will attempt a relatively sober interpretation, based on the available evidence:

Of those who may have had a hand in the design of the windows - Wright's studio or Giannini and Hilgart - I think the design can most likely be credited to Giannini (or Blanche Ostertag, the probable designer of the wisteria fireplace mosaic for the firm of Giannini and Hilgart). The design has none of the hallmarks of Wright's work in art glass: chiefly, a more abstract, geometric and symmetrical rendering of natural forms. Also, the letters suggest that the design of this frieze was soon out of Wright's hands and he then turned to the uphill battle of trying to control the work of others (indicated by his occasional admissions of conflict with Giannini).

Of those who may have executed this design and fabricated the windows - Linden Glass Co. or Giannini and Hilgart - my money again is on Giannini and Hilgart. The more conventional lead caming and painterly use of irregular glass seems in keeping with their known work in similar media. However, another plausible possibility is that some local (Buffalo) stained glass craftsman (Martin's "glass man who never heard of Wright") built the windows based on Giannini and Hilgart's drawing, which Martin - apparently determined to take charge of the languishing project - may have obtained. However, if there's truth in Wright's claim that Giannini and Hilgart lost the drawing (Wright's drawing? their own drawing?), more doubt is cast on this last supposition.

The letters concerning the dining room buffet panels do tell us one thing for sure: their design and execution was a protracted process. This easily explains why we see plate glass in the three window openings in the Fuermann photo of 1907. Essentially, Martin and Wright were so busy hashing-out many other details and open issues of finishing and furnishing the house that some projects ended up simmering on the back burner for years. One can easily imagine (NB docents: this is in the realm of speculation) that the extant art glass frieze of tree trunks and branches was not installed until 1910 or later.

The most timely question of whether the extant panels will be removed and replaced with plate glass during our interior restoration is still an open question. We have clear evidence that a temporary enclosure of plate glass was installed circa 1905 (when the Martins moved into the house), but the letters clearly indicate that Wright intended for these apertures to have some sort of art glass by the time the house was complete (whether he was capable of fulfilling that intention or not).