AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. WILLIAM ALLIN STORRER
Quite possibly one of the biggest architecture-related stories of the year has to be Dr. William Allin Storrer's announcement of his research team's discovery of the 29 previously unknown Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses. Hiding in plain sight for many decades, the houses represent potential missing links in the story of Wright's long career of creating a uniquely American Architecture. Even though Dr. Storrer states that a thorough amount of careful research has gone into documenting each of the "Mysterious 29", the claim of finding previously unknown Frank Lloyd Wright houses has stirred up its share of controversy among other scholars and Wright enthusiasts. In order to shed a little more light on the story, I interviewed Dr. Storrer about the claims, the research and the skepticism.
Eric: What initiated the interest in researching these 29 houses as possibly being designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?
Dr. Storrer: Nothing “initiated” it, when we saw them we realized what we’d found.
It started long before these 29. About 8 years ago Rich Johnson came to me to suggest he had found a Wright house in Evanston no one knew about. I was skeptical but, when I worked in Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s archives prior to writing The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a complete catalog, I remembered something this dean of architectural historians told me. He noted that, at times when Wright was driving him through Evanston, Oak Park, Hyde Park … he’d often point to a building and say, “I did that, but nobody will ever know.”
So I took Rich seriously, and bit by bit we discovered additional buildings. Then Dominique Watts, the third member of our team, had been running down a small lead on a house in Glen Ellyn. He found the William Heald house, attributed by Harry Robinson’s grandson James as a design of his grandfather. Dominique’s investigation turned up too much information that pointed instead to Frank Lloyd Wright as the author of the structure.
William had a brother, James, who also had a house, in River Forest. So we had to look at that. It revealed too much of Lloyd Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright's son), as well as Frank himself, to be Harry. And, you guessed it, right around the corner was William Street, staring us in the face, with 24 Prairie houses (now 25 after further investigation).
But that’s only 26 of “The mysterious 29,” as Blair Kamin, Pulitzer prize-winning architectural critic of the Chicago Tribune called them. The Wilmette house on Gregory had been mis-attributed to Van Bergen; he did only the addition. We found a Chicago Tribune ad for American System-Built Homes featuring the Lewis E. Burleigh Residence (S.203.2)* and the two-story, which shares its footprint with the Wilbert Wynant Residence (S.204.5), next to it.
The other two came because, for long before the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy claimed to find what is the Chester Bragg house (S.202.2), we’d thought it might be a Lloyd Wright. It turns out that it has been much modified, which misled us. A close inspection of historic photos proved its provenance to an American System-Built Homes design and to Bragg, an American System-Built Homes dealer. We looked around the neighborhood and found the two others (why no one else had found them is strange, as their provenance was obvious just from a street viewing).
Eric: Could you describe the methods undertaken by your team in researching the authorship of these houses and how you came to the conclusion they were designed by Wright?
Dr. Storrer: None other than H. Allen Brooks has said it; when a question of who designed what, such as the Amberg house in Grand Rapids, or the Irving and Mueller houses in Decatur, “Attribution … must depend largely on stylistic evidence.” That is what we have for the William Street houses, Wright’s sophisticated “style” (though the master hated the word)—with interiors heavily in debt to son, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. — versus Harry Robinson’s love of rounded archways wherever he could use them, even in his Prairie masterpiece, the Truitt House in Naperville, IL.
Take the artistic signatures of a building, put them together, and they identify the artist. Such an approach has been in use since Bernard Berenson revolutionized art historical practices over a hundred years ago with his studies of Renaissance art in Italy, and such practices are common in the field of music. Those who do not use this aesthetic archaeological approach are the rear guard in the field. We expect it will become common in the field of architecture now that we have shown its effectiveness.
Eric: Does a lack of drawings or other supporting materials explicitly identifying Wright as the architect of these homes affect your findings in any way?
Dr. Storrer: No, and why should they? A negative proves nothing.
There are too many examples of lack of drawings in the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives of buildings undeniably by Wright to say such documents are necessary. Artistic signatures are a surer source of proof of authorship. The William Street designs are coherent with Wright’s work that followed in Ravine Bluffs, S.185-S.192, and the American System-Built Homes, S.202-S.204. Harry Robinson’s work is consistent from before and after his second time in Wright’s office (1912-1916), and totally inconsistent with the William Street houses.
Eric: Announcing that these houses were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has become very controversial. Why?
Dr. Storrer: As the Guest in Greg Bear’s The Forge of God would say, “Ask the right question.” I don’t see anything controversial.
Eric: How many more undiscovered Wright-designed houses do you feel are possibly out there?
Dr. Storrer: We don’t dare a guess. Tens, dozens, scores? pm
*Reference number to houses listed in William Allin Storer's Frank Lloyd Wright Companion
:: Blair Kamin's articles on the 'Mysterious 29" here.
:: Are the 29 "Wright"? Read about it here.
:: Dr. William Allin Storrer's Website
::The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright a complete catalog
William Street Image copyright PrairieMod. Book image copyright William Allin Storrer
William Allin Storrer is a graduate of Harvard College with a Ph.D. from Ohio University in Comparative Arts. He is an adjunct professor of architecture in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. Last fall he taught a design seminar that featured Wright’s practice of abstracting a design element from the site. He has written the standard catalog of Wright’s work, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright a complete catalog and the definitive study of Wright’s built work, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. His career has included directing over forty theatrical events, writing music and theatre criticism for forty years, and exhibiting his photographs in several states and England. He is a frequent visitor to Chicago and its suburbs, preferably when the Chicago Lyric Opera is in season.
Eric O'Malley is a co-founder and contributor to PrairieMod. He lives in the Little Red House, a Mid-Century Modern ranch in suburban Chicago. You can email him at eric@prairiemod.com.
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