Wright enthusiasts to meet here

[steven]

The Darwin Martin House Complex and Graycliff are getting ready for close-up looks.



Wednesday marks the start of a five-day annual conference sponsored by the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, with 200 Wright scholars and enthusiasts from 27 states and Canada planning to tour Wright sites and other architectural marvels, and hold panel discussions on preserving Wright’s legacy.



It’s the second time in 20 annual meetings that the conservancy has come to Buffalo, the first since 1997. Since then, there has been the reconstruction of the Martin House Complex and the exterior restoration of the Isabelle R. Martin House in Derby, along with the removal of buildings at each site not designed by Wright.

Other Wright tour stops include a limited visit to the Walter V. Davidson House on Tillinghast Place, Buffalo, and to the Edward E. Boynton House in Rochester, both private residences. There also are planned trips to the Guaranty Building, Kleinhans Music Hall, Goldome Building and Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, plus a downtown walking tour.

A visit is planned Thursday evening to the University at Buffalo’s Anderson Gallery to see “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo Venture: From the Larkin Building to Broadacre City.”

The extensive exhibition, curated by Wright scholar and UB art history professor Jack Quinan, documents all of Wright’s Buffalo-connected buildings and projects, plus his long-standing relationship with patron Darwin D. Martin.

A source of controversy among Wright scholars has been the turning of unrealized Wright drawings into actual structures, especially in Buffalo. The conference’s theme, “Wright in the Drafting Room: Drawings for the Built and the Unbuilt,” was purposely chosen for Buffalo, said Quinan, curator of the Martin House.

Two projects, the Blue Sky Mausoleum in 2004, and the Charles and Marie Fontana Boathouse, in 2007, opened using unrealized plans drawn by Wright. A third project, a Wright-designed gas station, is planned to open in 2011 at the Buffalo Transportation/ Pierce-Arrow Museum, now under reconstruction.

Such projects have their defenders and detractors, although Quinan, like many scholars, questions their authenticity. He said a 9 a. m. Saturday panel, “Building the Unbuilt,” could provide some sparks.




http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/819178.html

[ForestBird]

Their love-feast is nothing I can afford, but I wouldn't be welcome anyhow - Wright's smaller homes seem okay to me, but most everything else he designed feels flat, cold, and anti-Human to me. Big, ugly, rectangular slabs like the hideous Larkin building were about as appealing as the uglier factories of 1910 or so. He was a shrimp, and all of his interiors reflect his wish that everybody else should be as short as he was - doorways and ceilings barely high enough for a normal male of the 20th Century.

An egotistical, whore-mongering, family-deserting, bankrupt fraud who used men like Darwin Martin as a personal ATM - that's the real Wright. His main claim to fame was that he survived longer than his contemporaries.

[300miles]

ceilings barely high enough for a normal male of the 20th Century.

Exaggerating a little? Those ceilings are probably higher than the ceiling's in most modern homes... I'm sure they're not less than 8 feet at least. What "normal males" are you thinking of?

[blockclubof1]

An egotistical, whore-mongering, family-deserting, bankrupt fraud who used men like Darwin Martin as a personal ATM - that's the real Wright. His main claim to fame was that he survived longer than his contemporaries.

Sounds like your typical American!

[Linda_D]

Their love-feast is nothing I can afford, but I wouldn't be welcome anyhow - Wright's smaller homes seem okay to me, but most everything else he designed feels flat, cold, and anti-Human to me. Big, ugly, rectangular slabs like the hideous Larkin building were about as appealing as the uglier factories of 1910 or so. He was a shrimp, and all of his interiors reflect his wish that everybody else should be as short as he was - doorways and ceilings barely high enough for a normal male of the 20th Century.

An egotistical, whore-mongering, family-deserting, bankrupt fraud who used men like Darwin Martin as a personal ATM - that's the real Wright. His main claim to fame was that he survived longer than his contemporaries.

Oh, man, FB, be prepared to be slammed for your heresy if any Wright fanatics find this thread, especially the remark about how hideous the Larkin Building was!!! Don't you know that the Larkin Building was the greatest architectural loss to Buffalo in its entire history???

I'm not a big Wright fan myself. I like his houses for their visual design, but I'm a pragmatist, and I don't think much of an architect whose buildings can't stand up to time and the elements. The infamous Larkin Building leaked almost from the day it was built. It was so expensive to maintain and heat that nobody could afford to do anything with it -- and that was back in the 1950s when energy was cheap! Whatever organization runs Falling Water just had to spend millions to shore the darn thing up before it tumbled into the creek!

One of the reasons that Wright's buildings require such expensive "restoration" is because he didn't design them to be durable. If HH Richardson had been as good as Wright, his Towers would have crumbled decades ago. If John & Washington Roebling had been as good as Wright, the Brooklyn Bridge wouldn't still be in use between Manhattan with Brooklyn.

[300miles]

Personal opinion is perfectly fine if you don't like his work. Wright was apparently more of an artist than an engineer. But his designs were amazingly futuristic for his era, and the materials he used were on the cutting edge. All that uniqueness is going include risk that it may not age well.

But regardless of personal opinion on his work or his life, you cannot deny that he WAS and IS a superstar of American Architecture, and his works attract tourists from around the country and around the world. Given that Buffalo has so many of his works here, it would be foolish to not try and take advantage of the opportunity.