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Thanks for taking the time

Availability of images

"I am really irritated that the stuffy FLW museum people don't have any pictures of the interior online. Not everyone can go to Chicago to see this. What would it hurt to post a few pictures on the official website?"

They're afraid it would damage book sales. Really. There are, however, many good books which can be seen in libraries throughout the world--FLLW (as he signed himself) is surely the most documented architect.

Randolph Fritz

Your comments about the modern art are too funny, and I frequently find myself uttering similar comments :)

Have you ever read "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut? One of the side characters is a modern artist with a particular painting that is similarly brushed aside until the artist explains the painting...it's pretty cool, as is the whole book - very wierd, very funny, very tragic...good stuff, Vonnegut.

Your comments made me think of it.

http://www.myspace.com/ashvajenny

Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed.com, famous for writing about pyramid scams like Herbalife, wrote an article about Nouveau Riche: http://cockeyed.com/citizen/nouveauriche/nouveau_riche01.shtml

Just thought you might be interested.

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Clicking here will change your life forever.Not really.

Awww, man! We also spent the weekend in Chicago. We attended a wedding at Mart Maryam, the Chaldean Church on West Chase, on Saturday. Otherwise, we just did some hanging around with friends and, of course, shopping.

Sara

that home of FLW kind of puts Mike Brady's home to shame, huh? ;^)

Modern art is so boring and ineffectual (all the real art is being done by professional artists, mostly in the video game and movie industries).

And frank lloyd wright was a real asshole. He was very cruel to his family. After hearing about it I have this life goal of buying a wright house and defacing it, carving ornate detail into all the beams. I think I'll do the place up in steps, like Kramer. I'll mural all the walls with tromp loeil. I'll hang countless garlands and rosaries and flags from every surface until the structure is obscured. I'll suspend Iron maiden posters from the ceilings until the place resembles a heavy metal jungle.

That'll learn 'im

Wow that college looks pretty cool, its never been done before! EVER!

If you'd like to see a Frank Lloyd Wright home in great shape, come to Grand Rapids, MI to see the Meyer May home in the historic district. The Steelcase corporation bought it, restored it, and has it open for tours (I think they are open on Sundays). The campus at Calvin College was designed by one of Wright's students.

By the way, mine is one of those 80 book orders you referenced. It's OK, take your time, I'm not in a big hurry. Thanks for writing this blog--been lurking for a while now and have much enjoyed your writing!--Kristen

I Love modern art. The weirder the better if you ask me. I prefer sculpture and multimedia work. The kind of thing that might look like a pile or junk, or maybe a deep insight into the realities of life these days. But even those single coloured canvasses can be intriguing.

Rivikah

Ohhhh, I did my high school Senior thesis on Frank Lloyd Wright -- visiting Chicago for an immersion in all those house tours is definitely on my "life do" list. I have a beautiful picture of his Fallingwater as my screensaver -- so idylic!

And, I'm getting ready to place my order for a few more of your books too, Gordon, but there's *definitely* no hurry! I only need them in the "whenever you get around to it" timeframe, as long as it's sometime before they all sell out and you're forced to sit on the floor again instead of in that ultra-cool book chair you built :-) Seriously -- give your book-signing hand some time to un-cramp, and wait until you have a fresh supply of "small thin flat stuff that would fit inside a book" lying around. No hurry/no worries!

Carroll

Unity Temple is beautiful - I'm a UU and have a close friend who has preached there several times, and a former minister there.

From talking to the former minister, it can be -- challenging -- to have a church which is so very much an architectural destination. Plus, while some things Wright designed were marvelous and work well - others, not so much. The Sunday school classrooms had the typical Wright "walls that stop a couple of feet short of the ceiling" and this just doesn't work well with classes of children.

The church finally managed to separate the foundation that cares for the building as an architectural thing from the church itself. There still are conflicts - the architectural types want the church available for architecture type activities, and get miffed when the church wants to use their building for church type stuff, like weddings...

On the other hand it is apparently a dream to preach in. It holds an amazing number of people, but the minister is never more than a short distance from anyone because of how the pulpit is placed - sort of out in the congregation. And the flow of how you enter vs how you leave is really cool.

To me the Frank Lloyd Wright houses look alike. Even the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo looks like one of his houses. His style, while interesting, is not nearly as varied as some of the great architects, and his designs do not always stand the test of time. For example the famous house "Falling Waters" near Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, is beginning to fall down. A considerable amount has to be spent to keep it from falling into the creek. And, having visited Falling Waters, I can say the furniture Wright designed for it can be downright uncomfortable to sit in. To me, pictures of the Wright houses is about the way one should study them, not try to live in one of the houses. Frankly, I find almost any church architecture of greater interest than a Frank Lloyd Wright house. ..... Caponer

Preach:

Had the opportunity to spend time in Wingspread (Hib Johnson's home in Racine, WI) as a kid. My Uncle was his handyman and I got to go to work with him whenever I visited. I was awed by Wright's greatnes even then.

Several years back, my wife and I were in London and went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. They had on exhibit the office Wright had designed for Kaufman at his business. It was so breathtaking it brought tears to your eyes.

Wright has always intrigued me. He did have his "issues"; but that aside, you can't refute the utter beauty he saw in his mind and later brought to life through the construction process.

Hey rlp,

Just thought you'd like to know that Wil Wheaton (geeky Ensign Wesley Crusher from Star Trek) gets his rocks off in the same fashion you do by sending HIS books to fans personally, packing them himself (with help from his wife) and mailing them. I thought of you the instant I read this.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/10/this-is-awesome.html
______
Simon

TNPat
Go to dana-thomas.org. It will let you see a really spectacular FLLW home in Springfield, IL. I was fortunate enough to work just down the street years ago, and spent quite a bit of time there, both before and after its restoration in the 90's. And yes, Chicago's a GREAT place to visit.

I don't know much about modern art, but I know that Beckett's plays got gradually shorter and shorter. He distrusted his own motives so much that he thought they tended to corrupt anything he tried to create. The more ambitious any particular piece, the more likely it was corrupt.

In the Smithsonian there is painting that is just a blank, white canvas. I don't read that as pretentious so much as a statement that the author didn't trust himself. Or maybe I'm just pretentious?

Mark Goodyear

As my husband would say "Art is something I cannot do." In other words, if he can make it, it must not be art. Coincidentally, he made this statement while we were checking out a pyramid made of books at the Art Institute. I think it was titled "The Library of Babel" or something like that.

I envy you your trip. Chicago is grand!

i like wright's homes; not his institutional buildings.
i really like his window designs, repetition, and oak park in general.
minimalism, however, i get and embrace and in my own mind deem legitimate. whether distillation or mistrust of one's motives or appreciation for silence and solitude (or making an ecclesiastes-like statement), i can go for a blank canvas and all it artfully says, or doesn't say.

soup

Thanks for the picture of Unity Temple. My vision of a church designed by Wright is the smaller one he did in Redding, CA. It's wood and gorgeous -- feels very warm inside.

http://www.pilgrimchurchredding.org/New/index.htm

Gina

Just a note, the Reinhardt painting is actually not one color, there are at least three. If you look long enough, you can see that the canvas is separated into a grid of blocks. It hums, it's quite bizarre. Odd like the McCracken, which is actually hand painted, although it looks like it's auto-body paint. It's also in proportion to the human body, particularly a leaning body, which for me, has always provided for a fascinatingly simple but powerful experience. McCracken helped me understand things through my body rather than through notions of formal mastery or artistic genius.

I understand the concern or suspicion over these works, as they do not conform to certain notions of art, particularly those coming out of Renaissance ideals. But these artists were working in cultural volatile times, 60's and 70's. I'm relieved to see these ideals questioned. These are the works of beings in culture, and what a gift is to have these objects that can help us understand our cultural milieu.

Best regards on the blog.

JK

When visiting my nephew in Chicago a few years ago, I was thrilled to see Oak Park. We walked through the neighborhood and gulped the rarified air around FLLW's beautiful homes. Sitting in the Unity Temple was also an amazing experience. It's not the place I would want to "go to church," as I would feel very disconnected from the larger family because of the unique seating arrangement. But such an amazing space, and beautiful wood and proportions and shapes everywhere.

I have heard that FLLW did not think it appropriate to own much stuff, so his houses don't have a lot of storage. Guess that means I won't be looking to live in one! Also, I heard a very interesting story on NPR recently about his buildings at Florida Southern College. It seems that students did quite a bit of the construction, and some of his plans were not as structurally sound as we might wish. There are places where the rebar has been exposed to the air, causing oxidization, and the concrete is decaying, so the exterior walls of one building are crumbling. Too bad. Even the architectural giant had feet of clay.

http://wisedogsinthelibrary.blogspot.com/