PrairieMod

Hollyhock House: Restoring the Romanza DVD

An associate of mine was on a business trip to Los Angeles and happened to stop by the now opened Hollyhock House for a tour. Generously, this associate picked up not one but two DVD's from the small gift shop to give me as gifts! You can order A Very Proud House and Restoring the Romanza over the phone from Hollyhock House. The really good news is that our team at PrairieMod has uncovered a 30 minute version of Restoring the Romanza online via Google Video! View it here for free.

The DVD version of Restoring the Romanza is 60 minutes long and is excellent for those who are intrigued by fine details of historic restoration. It runs a bit long, but the Google Video version online is only 30 minutes with all of the unnecessary bits edited out. It's actually much stronger as a whole. It features FLLW's grandson Eric Lloyd Wright and Aline Barnsdall's great grand-daughter Kate Devine.

Kate also plays Aline Barnsdall in historic recreations on the A Very Proud House DVD.

Photo credit: Mark Willis

Duncan House Confusion

We at PrairieMod take special pride in hailing from the state with the most Frank Lloyd Wright structures, Illinois. So when one of those buildings is physically moved out of the Land of Lincoln (and Wright), it is followed very closely. In the case of the Duncan House (formally of Lisle, IL) it was saved from demolition by an out of state party, disassembled and moved to Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the current status of it's reconstruction is unknown. I've tried contacting the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy on the subject, but have yet to hear back. If anyone can shed some light on the status of this Illinois Ex-Pat, we at PrairieMod would appreciate it. When we hear more news, we'll update everyone.

One-Stop Shop

Located on South Wabash Street in downtown Chicago is what could quite possibly be billed as the largest bookstore dedicated to the subject  of architecture in the country. Prairie Avenue Bookshop is a beautiful, two level architecture bibliophile's Mecca. They carry books on every conceivable subject associated with architecture...and an especially nice selection of titles on Frank Lloyd Wright. They are also one of the few places in the country with a large collection of original Wasmuth portfolio plates for sale. Mingled in and amongst the books are also original pieces of Wright furniture (chairs from the Coonley playhouse, a desk from the Dwight, IL bank, a table from the Hickox house.) All of this combines to form a wonderful browsing/shopping experience. I plan on spending many more hours haunting this wonderful store and I invite you to do the same.

Photo courtesy of the Prairie Avenue Bookshop website.

Add It To Your Subscription List

A new magazine for Arts and Crafts enthusiasts will be available on news stands this quarter. Old House Interiors has started a new quarterly magazine titled "Arts and Crafts Homes and the Revival". They explain on their website that:

"Arts & Crafts Homes and the Revival is a new publication that grew out of Old-House Interiors magazine, itself 11 years old and a sister publication to The Old-House Journal, the original restoration magazine begun as a brownstoners' newsletter in 1973 and formerly owned by our editor and publisher. Our magazines have covered post-Victorian architecture since 1980-including Bungalows, American Foursquares, Prairie School-influenced houses, Sears and other planbook homes, English and Colonial and Spanish Revival houses. In 2005, Old-House Interiors did a pilot issue about the Arts and Crafts Revival, which met with resounding success both in the numbers of copies sold through the newsstand and in advertiser response. So we launched Arts & Crafts Homes as a separate quarterly, vowing to include contemporary practitioners of Arts and Crafts as well as covering the historical antecedents of the continuing movement."

We look forward to perusing this new addition to magazine racks and reporting back on what they will be covering in the coming months.

Frank Lloyd Wright for the Masses!

I was dragged by some loved ones this past weekend into a Pottery Barn and what did I see on display before me? The most entertaining book on Frank Lloyd Wright that’s currently around! Margo Stipe, Registrar and Archivist of the FLLW Archives, has masterfully put together Frank Lloyd Wright: The Interactive Portfolio for all of our enjoyment.

Kate Messer of the Austin Chronicle discusses how this book is part of a new genre called “book kits”. She also notes that,

“The Wright kit is like a personal journey behind the scenes of this architectural god. Culled from Wright's official archive, this collection is an unflinching look at the man behind the sketches, personal letters, and blueprints reproduced within. Stipe's prose dignifies serious students of design while not overwhelming the curious or new fan.”

Now, if Pottery Barn could only carry more items of such impeccable taste. Ouch! Did I really type that?

Hidden Wright Treasure

Over the weekend I had the distinct pleasure to tour what must be one of the most beautifully restored and little known Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

Located about 75 miles due west of Chicago in the idyllic country town of Plato Center, Illinois is the Robert Muirhead Farmhouse. It has the distinct honor of being the only Wright designed structure for an actual working farm, and as such, it displays some unique qualities that make it stand out from many of the other Usonian houses. The house is incredibly long, thanks in large part to the 30ft corridor between the dining/kitchen/workroom area of the house and the living quarters. This feature helped separate the bustling activities of feeding farmhands and running a farm from the rest of family life. Originally designed by Wright as an open-air corridor, Betty Muirhead quickly had that part of the plan altered so that the Muirhead children wouldn’t catch their death of cold walking between the living quarters and the dining area of the house in the middle of an Illinois prairie winter. At a story and a half, it has possibly the largest kitchen of any Usonian, with plenty of natural sunlight filtering in from above. The cypress-paneled bedrooms are cozy and accommodating, with the master bedroom having a large brick fireplace (one of three found in the house).

Today, the house has just finished an extensive and breathtaking restoration and is now open as a bed and breakfast. The current owners of the house, Sarah Muirhead Petersdorf and her husband, Mike Petersdorf have painstakingly restored every aspect of the house, including building Wright designed furniture that had never been executed. Much of the surrounding farmland was recently sold to the Kane County Forest preserve and will be returned to natural prairie, making the house a truly modern expression of a “home in a prairie town.” As I toured the home with the Petersdorfs pointing out the details of the house and its restoration, I was overwhelmed by how magnificent the final result was and what a moving experience it would be to stay overnight in such a wonderful setting.

I would highly recommend visiting and staying a night or two in this Wright gem. The warm surroundings and equally warm hospitality make it an experience not soon forgotten.

Photo courtesy of Muirhead Farmhouse Bed and Breakfast

A Consuming Passion: Why Now?

On the CD-ROM titled, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, FLWF Archives Director Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer eloquently comments on the ever increasing popularity of Mr. Wright's work. He begins by presenting a question. Why is there now this consuming passion for Frank Lloyd Wright's work almost 50 years after his death? He then answers...

"What he did, what he built, what he promulgated, what he believed in, was timeless. He upheld principles that don't know the manner of time. More and more people are being drawn to his work because these principles are as pertinent today as they were 100 years ago."

Mr. Pfeiffer's astute observation accurately captures the reason behind this global phenomena. Many of us connect with Frank Lloyd Wright's work simply because it is timeless. It doesn't matter if you step into an early Prairie home, a California block house, Fallingwater, a Usonian or the Guggenheim. These structures were all built at different times over a 60 year period, but each one evokes a similar feeling of wonder. If we seek out those principles and understand the how and why, we can take that same profound knowledge with us as we move through the 21st century.

Willey House on the Web

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1934 masterpiece, the Malcolm Willey House is seen as a pivotal point in Wright's career and an important step in modern residential architecture development. As stated on the Willey House website:

"In the Malcolm Willey House, Wright moved beyond the pure functionalism of the Modernists to something more profound, to something more respectful of ones humanity. Its influence can be seen in the development of Wright's Usonian homes, and also the birth of the ranch house."

The website, designed by Design Guys of Minneapolis, is quite possibly the most stunning Frank Lloyd Wright site on the web. The home's history, construction and restoration are highlighted in an informative and sleek manner. I would invite all to take some time to virtually explore and learn about Wright's "Garden Wall."

Style 1900 or Style 2000?

In the current Winter/Spring 2006 issue of Style 1900, Editor-in-Chief, Marilyn Fish made some intriguing comments in her editorial. These remarks are relevant to those of us who appreciate and respect historic ideals about interior design, but are seeking ways to individually express those tried and true principles. You can find a sampling of her editorial below, but go pick a up copy at your local bookseller and read for yourself.

"One of the key principles of Arts and Crafts design is the unification of the home, from landscape and siting to furniture and lighting. For example, if you look at Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin complex, you'll see the architect's hand in everything. Gustav Stickley, the Greene brothers, Charles Mackintosh and others advocated the same brand of harmony. But we live in an era of self-confident individualism."

Beautiful Vase

A Frank Lloyd Wright designed ceramic vase is now being offered as a new product developed in conjunction with the traveling "House Beautiful" museum exhibition. The Pinnacle vase is manufactured by new Frank Lloyd Wright Collection Licensee, Haeger Pottery, and is based off of Mr. Wright's original drawing for the Leerdam Glassfabrik Company. It comes in green or cayenne red and can be used as a water containing vessel. It retails for $45.00 and can currently be ordered from franklloydwright.com, but will most likely also be availble at museum and house sites in the future. Hopefully this will mean we can expect more stunning Wright inspired ceramic products in the near future.

Old vs. New

Would you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house if you had the chance? If so, would it be an original or a "new" one? Discuss it at WrightChat.

Here are two articles related to this topic:

"Old" FLLW -

"New" FLLW -

Unity Temple HVAC

The Architectural Record website has an article describing the new geothermal HVAC system proposed as part of the restoration project for Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL. You can read the article here:

This is an important and exciting step in the restoration of this magnificent (yet often overlooked) building. I don't think americans realize the importance of this one building in the scheme of world architecture. It's essentially the building that launched modern architecture for the world...and it was designed in 1905! Frank Lloyd Wright himself acknowledged the significance of this work and he has been quoted as saying:

"Unity Temple makes an entirely new architecture...and is the first expression of it. That is my contribution to modern architecture. And that, to me, is modern architecture."

Out of all the buildings Mr. Wright designed and built over the course of a 70 year career, that is a pretty significant statement to make for a single one. If you find yourself in the Oak Park area, I highly suggest you take the nominally priced tour of this architectural gem. The outside is impressive, but the inside takes your breath away...there is no other space like it in the world!

Rocks to a Glass House

Upon my first visit to the Farnsworth House website, I was drawn to the home's simple beauty. I thought that maybe there was something to this modernist style. I had to run over there to see first hand. However, the structure is closed to the public in the off season so I headed over the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhusrt, IL where they have another Mies van der Rohe house. The McCormick House is actually part of the museum structure itself and contains offices for the staff. Sadly, I was expecting to see something that just wasn't there. It wasn't less is more. It was nothing is nothing. In theory it sounds great, but in practice it falls flat. Note: I do understand that one could argue this wasn't a true experience of a modernist house in it's original environs. Until this spring when the Farnsworth House opens again, it's all I have to go on. At that time I will append this post. 

Louis Sullivan pushed form following function. Frank Lloyd Wright urged that form and function should be one. I've seen these ideals at work and they stir emotion in me. Though I longed to feel empowered by standing in a Mies van der Rohe structure, it honestly just felt empty. From afar it was a work of art, but as a true home it seemed to miss the mark.

The original owner of the Farnsworth House, Dr. Edith Farnsworth, expressed somewhat similar feelings when she tried to sue Mies in court. She claimed that the home was uninhabitable and even sought a national platform to denounce him and his work. Wouldn't you know, FLLW was right there using the occasion to point out the flaws of the modernist style.

Photo credit: Jon Miller, Hedrich Blessing

On Style

I recently hunted down and purchased an often read and well worn copy of the January 1938 Architectural Forum. It is an important issue in the Frank Lloyd Wright published canon and is peppered with fantastic historical photographs, Walt Whitman quotations and Wright soliloquies on life, culture and of course...architecture. I found the section highlighting the first Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin especially enlightening and I wanted to share it with all of you. Mr. Wright stated:

"In our country the chief obstacle to any real solution of the moderate-cost house-problem is the fact that our people do not really know how to live, imagining their idiosyncrasies to be their "tastes," their prejudices to be their predilections and their ignorance to be virtue where any beauty of living is concerned."

This struck me as something as painfully true today as it was in 1938. All one has to do is drive down any street in America to come face-to-face with what passes for the "home" today. Obscenely large, inefficient, ugly boxes with ridiculous amalgamations of gables for roofs and windows pointlessly punched out of walls. The American public is hypnotized into believing that these vinyl-sided monstrosities are a symbol of affluence and success. The bigger and more ghastly a home can be, the assumption is the better life will be. No thought is given to how a family actually functions, or what a home should really symbolize and thus be designed to function as. So, they build energy-gobbling super-structures filled with empty, pointless rooms that reflect the empty, pointless lives of the people that inhabit them.

I think our society would do well to stop and reflect inward on what our priorities really are. Spiraling property costs coupled with record foreclosures and bankruptcies should be the wake-up call we all heed. We need to ask ourselves: What should a house really be about? Are we living for a house or in a house?

Frank Lloyd Wright goes on to say in that issue of The Forum: "I am certain that any approach to the new house...must be a pattern for more simple and, at the same time, more gracious living: new but suitable to living conditions as they might so well be in the country we live in today. This needed house of moderate cost must sometime face reality. Why not now? The houses built by the million...do no such thing. To me such houses are "escapist" houses, putting on some style or other, really having none. Style is important. A style is not. There is all the difference when we work with style and not for a style."

Now, one could argue that the very name of this blog invites criticism on being slavish to "A style." Not so. We at PrairieMod aren't suggesting that we all try and ape the historical Prairie Style in our lives and homes. Instead, we suggest focusing in on the ideas and ideals of what the progenitors of the  Prairie School and the Craftsman Movement were practicing in those "styles" and find ways to incorporate them into our modern world. It's not the quarter-sawn wood table that is important...it's what that table says about the individual environment that one integrates it within. It doesn't have to be a faithful replica of a Niedecken style table, or an expensive Stickley style table. So long as the table is chosen to harmonize in some way with it's environment and is beautiful and well crafted it will exemplify the styles championed by the Prairie School and Craftsman Movement.

Styles come and go, but the ideas of some transcend the items and structures they are associated with. "Prairie" and "Modern" are just words that in and of themselves don't mean too much. As "styles" they evolve into each other historically (Prairie, USONIAN, Modern...they are all interrelated in some way) and fall in and out of vogue. Instead, we at PrairieMod want to keep the focus on the ideas and less on a particular "style". We will try and make this a 21st century forum to showcase books, art, products, places and ideas that fit with our own particular take on the new cultural movement we affectionately refer to as "Prairie Modern." Hopefully we'll do it in style.

Mysterious Wright Font

I thought I would add an update to the subject of Frank Lloyd Wright fonts. There has been a bit of traffic from the Save Wright chat room and someone asked about a Unity Temple font. The font titled "Unity" is based on the epigram typography located above the entry ways of Frank Lloyd Wright's materpiece, Unity Temple. I was fortunate enough to pick up a copy of this little gem at the Michael Fitzsimmons gallery a few years ago before it was lost to obscurity. It came on a 3.5" floppy disk (so that tells you how old it was) and there was really no info on who developed it. Needless to say, I'm glad I got a copy of it. If anyone knows who developed this font or where copies of it can be legally purchased from, let us know.

   

A Virtual Tour of the Purcell-Cutts House

I've been coveting this Prairie School Gem for quite some time now. It's been on my wishlist for at least 11 months and I finally decided to breakdown and pick up a copy via the Minneapolis Institute of Arts website. However, after doing some digging it turns out that the entire CD-ROM is accessible online at Unified Vision: The Architecture and Design of the Prairie School. Hands down, it's simply one of the best websites I've ever seen dedicated to a Prairie School structure. It is a visual treat that you should definitely spend time exploring.

Nevertheless, I'm still ordering a copy for posterity's sake. A wonderful complimentary text to this CD-ROM is Progressive Design in the Midwest: The Purcell-Cutts House and the Prairie School Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. However, the layout isn't as tasty.

More Wright Fonts

P22 is known for designing typefaces that are inspired by artists, architects, history and science. They work with museums and foundations in the development of their typefaces and many of their fonts have become familiar mainstays in the design community. P22 is a liscencee of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and they've developed three fonts based on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright--Eaglefeather, Exhibition and Terracotta. PrairieMod has recently learned that they are in development on a new Frank Lloyd Wright Font based on samples of Mr. Wright's handwriting that should be released in the next year. PrairieMod will keep you updated on its release.

Confessions of a PrairieMod Squad Member

If master Roycrofter Elbert Hubbard were alive today, he'd most likely give me a good lashing. Or, at least graciously lecture me on the sins, which I've recently committed. Even though he loved to watch movies, Frank Lloyd Wright would undoubtedly shake his head in disappointment that I haven’t artfully found a way to conceal my 50" plasma behemoth.

I'm supposed to be decorating my home with beautiful, useful objects. Well, to some folks, this is beautiful and useful. It’s really just a matter of perspective.

My confession is simple. The HDTV is the center of focus in my great room where I use my DVR or DVD player while writing blog entries like this on my laptop via a wireless network. Is there any grace that can be bestowed (if it helps, I sleep on a handmade quartersawn oak bed)?

In all fairness, I'm an individual caught between the ideals of the past and the absolutely ridiculous luxuries of a post-postmodern world.

Contemporary Prairie, Quite Contrary

I'd like to preface this post by saying that I'm a huge fan and even a member of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL. Yet I wholeheartedly disagree with writer Pamela Dittmer McKuen that the arboretum's 36,000 sq. ft. Visitor Center is a "contemporary prairie" structure. Designed by David Woodhouse Architects, this gorgeous building is at best a fine example of a modern take on the Usonian style. It has a low, horizontal design and is accented by a cedar, limestone and glass facade. If you live in Chicagoland and haven't been out to see it, you need to go for a visit on your next available weekend!

These were the best shots I could find online and were taken by Bill Timmerman of Timmerman Photography, Inc.:

What is Prairie Modern?

I'm sure a number of people are going to be asking that question as they visit this site. It's a question we at PrairieMod have been asking ourselves for the last few years. We've been wrestling with a way to describe our own personal aesthetic and thus we formulated a term that best describes the style of life that we have chosen to surround ourselves with.

Living and growing up in the in the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois, one can't help but run across something created or influenced by the Prairie School. Notable 19th and early 20th century Midwestern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin, William Gray Purcell, George Grant Elmslie and William Labarthe Steele are all associated with the Prairie School style. The style makes use of flat roofs, horizontal lines, open plans, natural materials, broad cantilevered eaves, honest craftsmanship and the unified use of decoration and ornament.

Frank Lloyd Wright is credited with originating the Prairie Style, and it is seen as an outgrowth of the Craftsman Movement. Even with the massive conceptual leap forward that his work represented, Mr. Wright in his personal philosophy was a product of the 19th century. He firmly believed in Nature, beauty, craftsmanship, simplicity, individualism and the notion that a better home would create better people. It's these ideas that helped shape the Prairie Style and were shared and proliferated by his contemporaries in the Prairie School.

Unfortunately, After the horrors of World War I, the decadence of the Jazz Age and crushing despair of the Great Depression, the ideas of the Craftsman Movement and Prairie School were quickly set aside and forgotten. Frank Lloyd Wright and his contemporaries were relegated to the past and the world became enamored with the steel and glass minimalism of the Modernism Movement. FLLW was able to evolve and eventually distinguish himself as the premier American architect, but most in our society forgot or were never exposed to the ideas he championed and as such, our country has existed in a pop-cultural Dark Age ever since. Most would consider the Prairie School's ideas at odds with the modern world; a quaint throwback to a time that can never be recaptured. Not so.

What we at PrairieMod have set out to do is try and turn this thinking on it's ear. It's our self-described mission to show that the ideas and ideals expressed over a century ago by the Prairie School and in the case of what Frank Lloyd Wright refined and matured over his 70 year career, can and should be studied, experienced and adopted for our modern world. Those notions of craftsmanship, honest construction, unity of design, beauty, function and simplicity are universal themes that are not relegated to a bygone era. They were meant for any time and are as true today as they were back then. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright's USONIAN house was a modern evolution on his ideas formed during the Prairie Period. Eventually, the ranch house and subsequent notion of "track housing" were the outgrowth of his USONIAN concept, but the philosophy behind the concept was not co-opted as well, and over the years, the simple ranch home has devolved and become perverted into the state of American housing that we are saddled with today.

In the era of the "McMansion" and the mass consumption of cheap and poorly manufactured Chinese imports, it becomes imperative that we rethink our society's cultural course and re-examine what makes us American. We at PrairieMod feel the need to look back and champion those early ideals and help find ways to apply and incorporate them as they suit the individual and ultimately the collective for today. We look forward to opening the discussion up and hopefully finding a way to bring beauty and honesty back to the American way of life.

Rethinking Historic Preservation

Frank Lloyd Wright’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Wright Ingraham FAIA wrote in the afterward of Building a Legacy:

Preservation should take us into a productive future rather than attempt to hold on to the past as a model for the present. The difficultly with historic preservation has always been that people reject the present in favor of the past while attempting to replicate the past in an effort to improve the quality of life.

For us contributors to the PrairieMod blog, these words strike a chord. It’s a keen observation that motivates us to understand the principles FLLW espoused, yet reinterpret them in a way that's relevant to our 21st century lifestyles. While the preservation of Mr. Wright's structures is essential to our American culture and heritage, let's discover how their significance can inform the way in which we live today.

Who is the PrairieMod Squad?

The PrairieMod Squad is a collective of twenty and thirty-something designers/entrepreneurs based in and around Chicago, Illinois. Our city has the greatest collection of architecture in the world and this has had a tremendous impact on our sensibilities. The PrairieMod mission is to provide a forum showcasing designs, products, places, people and ideas that promote a principle-based modern lifestyle.

Why principles? Because principles are time-tested truths that form the foundation upon which all great ideas are built. We recognize and respect this fact. As a result, the foundation of the PrairieMod Lifestyle is based on principles (for a quick overview of the 10 Principles, we suggest you check out this Wikipedia entry).

PrairieMod - It's the Art of Living in the Modern World!

The Next Big Thing!

Welcome to PrairieMod. This site represents a chance for us to expose the world to the newest ideas in a movement we like to refer to as Prairie/Modern (aka PrairieMod). It's the 21st century re-examination into the ideas and ideals of the Praire School and the Arts and Crafts Movement (with a little Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Bauhaus thrown in for zest). We'll be posting our thoughts and explorations in conjunction with book reviews, merchandise finds and anything else that catches our fancy. Expect to see a fair amount devoted to the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and other Prairie School artists and architects. Feel free to post your feedback and let us know what you think!