A TALIESIN APPRENTICE'S CHALLENGE OF DESIGNING WITHIN WRIGHT'S MIDWAY BARN
On the face of it, proposing to construct something completely new inside a historically important Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building seems fraught with potential headaches. Yet, Russell Mahoney's idea to build his student shelter inside the Midway Farm Complex at Taliesin is bringing new-found interest and much-needed restoration to this often overlooked building at Wright's Wisconsin estate.
Russell's project—part of his studies at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture Masters of Architecture degree program—is to adaptively reuse the milk room inside the historic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Midway Farm Building as a student shelter. The unique challenge of marrying the historic with the cutting edge has brought a renewed interest in the Midway complex. This interest has lead to renewed efforts toward restoring the crumbling complex. Students and school alumni recently undertook a two week cleanup and fix-up session on the South facade and roof structure, with plans to apply a similar treatment to the East portion of Midway—thus completing repairs to the two most visible sides of the complex.
The site is also visited several times a week by tour groups, visiting artists, scholars, and architects from all parts of the world. Thanks to the unique aspects of melding the old with the new, Russell's project gives tour guides something topical to inform and engage visitors, and the shelter project has become part of their regular guide to stop and talk about the school and how the students design, build, and live in their own shelters.
What follows is Russell's abstract for the project and more images highlighting specific aspects of the shelter's design:
ABSTRACT:
The Midway.Furniture project is part of my studies at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture Masters of Architecture degree program. The program allows for the students to occupy, in their first/second years, a shelter designed and built by a predecessor. Then in the second/third years you have the opportunity to design and build your own shelter. The program, in the past, has been limited to Taliesin West (the schools winter campus in Arizona), but recently has been expanded to Taliesin East (the schools summer campus in Wisconsin). Russell Mahoney's shelter will be the third completed shelter at Taliesin. The school gives us a modest budget with the hope that by marketing our projects we will be able to subsidize the cost of construction by soliciting donations in the form of material components, labor, and cash contributions.
PROJECT:
Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1944, designed and built Midway, a farm structure using his principles of the unified farm theory. The theory, in short, was to incorporate all of the traditional farm buildings under one unified roof, which helped create a more streamline work process. The complex was built between the Taliesin residence and the hillside school in Spring Green Wisconsin and took on the name Midway Farm. Midway has had a successful life as a farm complex. But, like many farms, has fallen in disrepair.
The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture has a design build program to build small shelters on the school campus. This program allows for the students to occupy, in their first/second years, a shelter designed and built by a predecessor. Then in the second/third years you have the opportunity to design and build your own shelter. The program, in the past, has been limited to Taliesin West (the schools winter campus), but recently has been expanded to Taliesin (the schools summer campus in Wisconsin). Russell Mahoney’s shelter is the third completed shelter at Taliesin. The school gives each student a modest budget with the hope that by marketing our projects we will be able to subsidize the cost of construction by soliciting donations in the form of material components, labor, and cash contributions.
The program considerations to create Russell Mahoney’s shelter:
• Not tamper with any of the historic fabric of this Frank Lloyd Wright one-of-a-kind structure.
• To harness the quality of natural light and beauty that already exists within the milk room.
• To create a building module/component that could be easily brought in through tight access.
• Must be able to be assembled/disassembled in one weekend.
The answer to these programmatic issues is a concept derived from Tinkertoys™, which have one exhaustively engineered component, and a more modest straight section which act as the girders and uprights; when combined as modules they tend to create a complex composition. This concept allowed Mahoney to move all the components into the milk tower with relative ease and minimal physical exertion, yet be able to create a more compositionally pleasing space that fulfills his living needs.
What's remarkable is that, instead of marring a historic building, Russell's project has actually breathed new life and attention into the Midway complex. The old and the new need not be at odds with each other. They can instead build-off the best parts of each, offering new opportunities to preserve, educate, and appreciate our architectural heritage. pm
:: Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture official website
:: Midway.Furniture student shelter webpage
:: Contact Russell via email: rmahoney AT talieisn.edu
First images copyright Eric Oxendorf. All other images copyright Russell Mahoney.
Eric O'Malley is a co-founder and contributor to PrairieMod. He lives with his wife in the Little Red House, a Mid-Century Modern dwelling in suburban Chicago. You can email him at eric@prairiemod.com.
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