Architecture

A Lost Treasure: Midway Gardens

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Someone as long-lived and hugely prolific as Frank Lloyd Wright might have been vulnerable to self-imitation in his work if he had run out of ideas before he ran out of clients. But like Picasso with regard to painting, Wright frequently surprised and impressed the wider public as well as many critics by his astonishing creativity, evident through several phases of self-reinvention in his work. Absorbing much from his teachers, Louis Sullivan among others, he then fundamentally transformed what he learned by creating new paradigms for architecture. FLW advanced our concept of what is beautiful and worth achieving through the design of buildings, and in helping us perceive the aesthetic potential of inspiring spaces in which to live and work, and simply be.

I have previously featured Wright’s 1923 Tokyo Imperial Hotel, located just down the avenue from the Japanese palace of the same name. Sadly, it was demolished in a 1960’s rebuilding program. An earlier structure for Chicago by Wright, with which the Imperial had considerable affinity, was his Midway Gardens, a large and elaborate project built in 1914. It was also subsequently razed despite its auspicious location on the Midway in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Located across from Washington Park, and astride 60th Street, the Midway Gardens facility sat adjacent to the former location of the great Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, in an area graced by the landscaping of Frederick Law Olmsted.

Now less well-known than its later Tokyo counterpart, Midway Gardens succumbed to its early demolition in 1929 due, at least in part, to Prohibition and the Great Depression. It is said that the complex was built with such structural integrity that the firm contracted to apply the wrecking ball went out of business as a result of its financial loss on the project.

Midway Gardens interior (above), Imperial Hotel interior (below)

Midway Gardens was created to provide Chicago with a year-round, indoor/outdoor, concert and entertainment venue where one could enjoy dining and socializing while being able to listen to live music. Like the Imperial Hotel and a number of Wright’s California houses, it was built in what is called the Mayan Revival style, and featured Wright’s characteristic horizontal bands of yellow brick intermixed with pattern-imprinted concrete block, soaring cantilevered terraces and overhangs, and Wright-designed ornamental features such as sculpture, light fixtures, and garden urns. As with so many of his projects, FLW prepared and oversaw the implementation of plans for every detail from roof and window design to that of the dining tables and restaurant china.

Of particular interest at Midway Gardens were Wright’s designs for the sculptures and sculptural elements executed by Alfonso Iannelli, many of whose stoneworks were lost in the subsequent demolition. Wright’s timeless designs for the Sprite sculptures later reappeared in stone at Taliesin West, and reproductions of them continue to be commercially available today.

A “Sprite” executed by Alfonso Iannelli based on Wright’s plans

Courtyard architectural detail

Surviving cast concrete forms designed by Wright

Midway Gardens interior terrace

Unfortunately, no color photos of Midway Gardens appear to have survived. However, photos of the Imperial Hotel help give us a sense of the design qualities of the Gardens structures and of what it would have been like to visit there. The foreign language labeled illustration below helps us appreciate the overall scale and character of the complex, and what a loss it is to American architecture that the facility was demolished, especially when it would be so congenial to contemporary design sensibility.

The Cottage Grove Avenue entrance area

Midway Gardens in its heyday

A link to my prior post on Wright’s Imperial Hotel can be found here. I am indebted to the website, WikiArquitectura, for some of the photos included here.

Note: blog settings have been changed to provide more opportunity to offer comments, using the link below.

A Japanese Tiny House: Less Can Be More

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Tiny house on wheels, by designer Haruhiko Tagami

Imagine Frank Lloyd Wright joining forces with Marie Kondo in accepting a challenge to create a tiny house on wheels. This is what Haruhiko Tagami has designed and built for a couple in Japan. Sitting on a single axle trailer frame and weighing approximately 1,300 lbs, Tagami has produced a remarkable example of a miniature F.L. Wright Prairie house on wheels. With its horizontal bands of unfinished lapstrake cedar planking, its recessed corner windows along with those of the light-admitting clerestory above, and clever use of space, the designer of this mobile mini-residence has done ‘the Master’ proud. It even includes a small but efficient wood burning fireplace.

Interior view

A very Japanese feature of this rolling tiny house is the intended multi-use of its principle room as a place for sitting, dining, and sleeping. Backless cushions are provided for sitting, with a table that can be stowed away, especially for night time. Bedding is then brought out from a storage cabinet and spread on a flat surface just as it would be in a traditional Japanese house. The small structure has a minimalist kitchen at the far end, made larger in feel by the expansive window adjacent to the work area. The clerestory above provides standing headroom for a person over 6′ in height, as well as a 360 degree view of the unit’s surroundings.

The kitchen area

When considering all the amenities built into this tiny house, it is hard to envision how small it really is. And yet it provides adequate room for two people to use for extended trips or as a get-away place in the country. The designer kept the overall result compact and light, suitable for towing behind an average vehicle, and able to be parked (without the vehicle) in a typical parking space. A portable toilet is among the items for which stowage is provided within, though the owners specifically did not want space taken up by even a small bathroom. Public toilets are widely available in Japan, and public bathhouses are easily found in almost every neighborhood or community, in addition to the numerous hot springs facilities located throughout the country.

On a larger scale, the Oregon Cottage Company has produced in this country a tiny house they call the Tea House cottage (depicted below). It is built on an 8′ x 20′ trailer frame and includes a formal area for the tea ceremony. Though the exterior of this Japanese inspired example looks conventionally Western, the interior incorporates a number of distinctly Japanese features enhanced by the unfinished birchwood wall surfaces. The windows have opaque shoji screen coverings, and traditional tatami mats cover the floor surface, which contains an aperture for preparing the tea pot. This little ‘tea house’ even provides an enclosed Japanese style soaking tub.

Interior view of Oregon Cottage Company Tea House trailer

Clearly the spare minimalism of traditional Japanese domestic interiors is well suited to tiny house design. These structures provide very attractive places for rest and retreat wherein the beauty of being surrounded by less may contribute greatly to one’s experience of a time away. Imagine – even for a short stay – inhabiting one of these pleasing spaces.

A Building That Evokes Awe and Wonder

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This is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and astonishingly it has survived twenty centuries since its construction during the great age of Rome, around 120 A.D. Replacing two earlier buildings lost to fire, this third one was built for the ages. After two thousand years, its coffered ceiling remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, and it continues to evoke awe and wonder among architects. The building is, of course, the Pantheon, whose formal Christian name is the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs.

Unlike some buildings of equal stature and antiquity, the Pantheon has survived because it was consecrated as a church that has since been in continuous use. First built as a temple whose practices were anchored in pagan religious cults, its original Greek name suggests that the building was dedicated to a multitude of Roman God’s. Indeed, many modern visitors know the building only by its classical name rather than by its later Christian one, even though the transition from its original purpose for pagan worship to its current one occurred fourteen-hundred years ago!

Think about that for a moment. A pagan temple, apparently dedicated to a panoply of Roman deities, was then consecrated as a church, and renamed to commemorate Christian saints. The building’s earlier purpose and meaning was not seen as inimical to its later use for holy Christian worship.

For some of us, that is unimaginable! It seems more likely that the building would have been razed, and its materials reused to build an entirely new building for Christ-inspired liturgies. That such a removal and replacement did not happen represents courage, the courage of holy imagination turned loose to see what is good, positive, and hopeful, even amidst the remains of a decaying or already dead civilization.

The origin of the great feast of All Saints, that we celebrate on November 1 or the following Sunday, is identified by some historians with the re-dedication of the Pantheon for Christian worship, in the spring of the year 609 or 610. In its subsequent role, the building commemorates both Mary and remembered Christian witnesses to the Faith. Its new name may reinforce a misleading idea that saints like Mary, as well as the martyrs, are unique and special persons, marked out for attention because they are so different from us.

In the century after the Pantheon was consecrated as a church, the community of those honored on All Saints came to be seen as including all those who have ‘washed their robes in the blood of the lamb,’ to quote an All Saints lectionary reading from John’s Revelation. This fits well with the more expansive biblical understanding of saints. Because, in the New Testament, ‘saints’ are all the baptized; in other words, they are everyday members of the Church.

For example, at the opening of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes “to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul is referring not just to a select elite within that community; he is referring to all of them, who are – through Baptism – in Christ. Therefore, on All Saints, we commemorate not only saints who are remembered on particular feasts, but we celebrate all the baptized, including my granddaughter, Charlotte Mary, ‘Christened’ this past Sunday as she “put on Christ” and became a “child of God through faith (Gal 3:26-27).”

Here, among the tourists admiring beautiful ancient Roman architecture, and especially that great curved ceiling with its oculus or skylight, there are surely many saints to be found. We can hope they pause to pray in the midst of their visit and remember the ‘light of the world.’ Jesus, in John, refers to himself by these words. Perhaps to our surprise, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that – after their call – his disciples share this remarkable identity and vocation with him.

What can we learn from the Mosque-Cathedral?

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Interior view of the Mosque-Cathedral

In my prior post on the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain, I reflected on the shaping effect of both Christianity and Islam on this building over the centuries, and how – side by side – the influence of both religious traditions are still evident today. In this second post, I offer further reflection on the way we might think about the points of contact between these two traditions as we find them in this place of significance to adherents of each.

In the well cared-for beauty of this Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, we discern interwoven architectural forms that reflect overlapping historical periods, which were shaped by differing cultures and faiths. I think inspiration can be found here as we – like so many others – face a challenge. This is the challenge of seeking to retain an appropriate confidence and peace about our own faith and traditions while genuinely respecting and appreciating those of others. Obviously, what this building first represents to the people of at least two traditions is prayer. Sensitive to that fact, we may be moved by the beauty of this place to pray that a greater openness to what is positive and of enduring significance in the world-views of other peoples and cultures – wherever we and they live – might be more evident across nations today.

Though relying on communication with the divine presence may appear passive to some, it is no small thing to entrust such prayers to God’s Providence. But we can also act toward this end in other ways. If circumstances permit, we can try to engage with one another in conversation. We could do this, perhaps most successfully, based on things that may be universal rather than upon what might be particular to individuals and their communities. Among things generally considered as universal are the three primary so-called “transcendentals:” beauty, goodness, and truth. For even as we have divergent notions about what constitutes compelling examples of them, in principle we can still agree about the value that these three abstract but also foundational concepts have for all people.

Of course, achieving in practice a consensus regarding truth (religious or otherwise) may be impossible, and agreement regarding goodness nearly as difficult. In seeking a greater harmony between differing viewpoints, we might therefore explore with one another what we find to be beautiful, in nature, in the arts, and in each others’ cultures and traditions.

Conversation based on the realm of beauty is more likely to be open-ended and less likely to be personally judgmental. Such conversations might even help us see glimpses of this transcendental within one another, if only briefly. For we have all been made in the image and likeness of the Creator, who has made of one blood all the peoples of the earth.

For Jews and Christians, Genesis 1:26-28 provides us with the source of our concept of the imago dei, our theological understanding that all human beings are made in the image of God. Christians go further in believing that God made all things through Christ, in their original state of goodness (John 1 & Colossians 1). These beliefs undergird our confident faith statement that God has made of one blood all people regardless of how much or how little we seem to have in common. These beliefs also provide the ground for what can become a shared source of hope.

A Mosque-Cathedral?

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Interior view of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain

In order to appreciate this UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cordoba, Spain, which has a history of having served as both a church and as a mosque, it is helpful first to consider the better-known example of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Its architecture and interior are widely appreciated, as is its history of once having been the largest Christian church in the world (built ca 537). Through the Ottoman period, from 1453 until 1931, it served as a mosque during which time Christian symbols and imagery were either removed or hidden. In 1935, under the official secular government of Turkey, the building was converted into a museum. Recently, the Hagia Sophia was officially re-established as a mosque for Islamic prayer.

Less familiar to many is another building created for prayer and worship with a similarly varied history, known officially as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Cordoba, Spain. Its origin as a Christian basilica also dates back to the 6th century, and its subsequent long history of having been a place for Muslims to pray helps explain the hyphenated descriptive label of ‘mosque-cathedral’ that is commonly applied to it.

Only portions of the foundation of the original Christian building remain, which are visible on the site below the present structure. Most evident to contemporary pilgrims and visitors are the architectural elements related to its 500 year history as a mosque. These are associated with the Spanish Islamic period and its successive caliphates that dominated the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th century until the 15th. History remembers this part of the Islamic world for being a cultural center and a significant place of exchange between Muslims and Christians involving advances in fields such as agronomy, astronomy, mathematics, and pharmacology.

In 1236, Christian worship was restored to Cordoba, and to this building that had been markedly expanded for use as a mosque over many hundreds of years. Yet, the overall character of the structure did not receive substantial alteration until the 15th and 16th centuries, when architectural elements more readily associated with Christian churches were added.

This time gap of several centuries represents a remarkable fact. Religious stewards of the building resisted an impulse evident in certain strands of Christian missionary theology, an impulse that – for example – sometimes has had the tragic effect of providing hospitality to antisemitism. This impulse rests on the view that the introduction of the Christian faith to the spiritual lives of people and to pagan places of worship necessarily involves a thorough process of eradication and replacement rather than an openness to seeing aspects of what came before as being compatible with the new. The originally pagan Pantheon in Rome, now known as the church of St. Mary and the Martyrs, provides what may be the best known example of this type of openness.

Like its sister structure of the Hagia Sophia in previous times, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba serves as compelling place for pilgrims from within many traditions, Christian, Islamic, and others, to visit with an appreciation for history and the arts, and to find time for prayer and an opportunity for fellowship.

Entrance to the ‘mihrab‘ within the Mosque-Cathedral building, situated so as to indicate the direction of Mecca, and previously used by the imam in Islamic worship

The ceilings of the Renaissance nave and transept of the same building, completed in 1607

The theme of potential compatibility between differing religious and cultural traditions, introduced in this post, will be developed in the following one.

In a Time of Darkness

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Chicago’s Unity Temple, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1908)

In a time of darkness, we seek light from above.

A couple of days after offering my reflection on “A Desecrated Beauty,” I heard the terrible news from the Holy Land with its many troubling details.

The desecration of beauty can rightly be seen as a violation of what is sacred. If we can associate this idea of violation with the greedy despoliation of an old-growth forest, or the thoughtless pollution of a tranquil waterway, what greater offense against the wisdom and love of the Creator exists than atrocious barbarity unleashed upon human persons made in the image of God?

Human warfare, whether justified on occasion through acts of reasoning that seek some form of the good, or abhorred as an absolutely unconscionable choice, always involves some evil. Hate does not reflect our better nature, unless perhaps it is hate for the ultimate source of all that is not of God. Yet, paradoxically, we so often embody evil through violent acts against people whose views and behavior we refuse to recognize, not only by damaging things that other people value, but by hurting them, even fatally, as well.

In spite of this, following Augustine and Aquinas, I accept the premise that acts of violence can in some circumstances and on some occasions be justified as acts in the service of justice and even of love. The view that the defense of other human beings can be a justifiable expression of our love for our neighbor, even if that defense may involve the use of force and acts of violence, is and has been a formative strand of biblically informed Christian moral reasoning. Therefore, I offer no judgment upon Israel and its leaders who are presently involved in responding militarily to the large-scale acts of terrorism against their nation and people.

Whether for decisions made in haste, or acts undertaken after due deliberation, Israel’s leaders and people will have occasion to judge themselves, their reasoning, and what they have done or not done. History, and others not directly involved, will certainly call them to account.

People impacted by the present conflict may find it difficult or even impossible to seek ‘light from above.’ Yet, in the midst of darkness, those who seek beauty, goodness, and truth, will best be prepared to receive that light, and the healing that comes with it. For the divine light is not absent and can be found.

Whether the divine presence is known and named as revealed, or unknown, or even secretly sought, Christ is the center of all that exists, the one in whom all things hold together, and through him God’s Providence is enacted. Evil will be vanquished, and all that is good or open to God’s redeeming guidance will be brought by him to its intended fulfillment and bliss (see Colossians 1:9-20).

For “the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2 & Matthew 4:16).

Chihuly Garden & Glass ~ Seattle

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On a recent trip to Seattle I visited the Chihuly Garden & Glass exhibit at Seattle Center. This collection of Dale Chihuly’s glass work, which includes both large and small objects and installations, provides a splendid way to become familiar with what the artist has accomplished so far over the course of his career. The extensive exhibit gives the visitor an excellent introduction to the methods that Chihuly has employed when embarking upon various projects and insight about how he has revolutionized many aspects of contemporary glass making.

An initial large room contains a display of smaller Chihuly creations set within the context of a selection of his baskets and related objects from First Nations peoples, as well as an assemblage of his large framed photographic prints of Native American individuals by Edward Curtis.

A large gallery within the exhibit features Chihuly’s Mille Fiori (a thousand flowers in Italian), inspired by memories of his mother’s garden. An information panel indicates that the pieces in this installation, gathered from several series of his prior work, “rely less on tools and more on the use of fire, gravity and centrifugal force.”

Two youngsters enjoying engagement with Mille Fiori while helping to provide us with an indication of the assemblage’s scale.

A display titled Ikebana and Float Boats is featured in a subsequent room. Having pursued glass making in Seattle and in Venice, both near significant bodies of water, Chihuly experimented with glass objects thrown into a river in Finland, where youth from the area in wooden boats helped retrieve them. Intrigued by the interaction between the objects, the light above, and the water below, the artist continued to develop these interests after traveling to the Japanese island of Niijima. There he became reacquainted with the glass globes traditionally employed by Japanese fishermen as floats for their nets, which he had first seen as a youth beach combing on Puget Sound. At the same time, Chihuly was inspired by the Japanese art of flower arranging, called Ikebana. He combined his interest in the glass globes with the inspiration provided by Ikebana and imaginatively adapted these forms within boat-shaped structures that have been displayed in galleries and upon ponds.

Another gallery space features large bowl-like objects from Chihuly’s Macchia series. As a guide at the Chihuly exhibit makes clear, no one has yet been able to produce a truly black form of glass. Yet, Chihuly has come close with his occasional use of very dark blue and purple. Through his Macchia series, he sought to incorporate every one of the other 300 colors that are available for glass making. Noticing that colors within stained glass windows often appear more alive when illuminated from behind by the diffused light of a bright cloudy sky, Chihuly began to experiment with including a white layer within objects between the inner and outer colored layers of glass. The presence of speckles and striations of additional colors results from when molten glass is rolled on a flat metal surface that has been sprinkled with multiple-colored bits of glass.

Near the end of a tour through the exhibit one finds a courtyard where an informative glassblowing demonstration is offered, which brings alive some of the challenges inherent in working with this medium.

Chihuly Garden & Glass provides a lively sense of the remarkable extent of the artist’s output, and the breadth of his highly imaginative vision for what can be done with glass as an art form. The exhibit is well worth a visit for those able to travel to the Seattle area.

Yamasaki’s Graceful Architecture

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Minoru Yamasaki behind models of the proposed World Trade Center towers

Minoru Yamasaki was one of the most significant American architects of the mid-twentieth century while also one of the least known. Since 9/11, almost everyone has seen images of his now lost World Trade Center towers that formerly crowned the southern tip of Manhattan. Yet many are unfamiliar with the man who designed and gave them their attractive and delicate facades. I first encountered Yamasaki’s distinctly modern yet historically informed approach to architecture as a child while my parents were on furlough from mission work in Japan. It was likely because of Yamasaki’s Japanese heritage that they became interested in his Northwestern National Life building in Minneapolis, opened in 1965, which he had designed for that company’s new headquarters (images below).

The Northwestern National Life building has design elements recognizable in a number of other structures designed by Yamasaki. His career-long approach to architecture consistently incorporated a classically inspired modernism that features a verticality and gracefulness of design, an approach which appears to owe as much to the great European gothic cathedrals as it does to Greco-Roman antecedents. This quality of his work is particularly evident in the decorative plaza towers and buildings he designed for the 1962 World’s Fair U.S. Science Exhibit in Seattle (now the Pacific Science Center, below).

U.S. Science Exhibit towers and buildings, 1962 World’s Fair, in a vintage photo

The 1962 Michigan Consolidated Gas Company building in Detroit (below) was Yamasaki’s first ‘skyscraper.’ The stonework tracery and narrow windows on the facade of this building, as well as the arcade of columns surrounding the glass-walled atrium on the entrance terrace level, are recurring motifs in his architectural designs. Some of these elements can also be found on Yamasaki’s 1960 College of Education building for Wayne State University (further below), as well as Olin Hall and other buildings he designed for Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

The Michigan Consolidated Gas Company building, Detroit. Plaza Sculpture by Giacomo Manzu.

The College of Education building for Wayne State University (Detroit, 1960)

Above: Olin Hall (Science Building) and lecture theater for Carleton College (Northfield, MN, 1961)

Watson Hall dormitory (1966) adjacent to a Japanese Garden at Carleton College (note how the exterior columns subtly curve outward at the base)

Above: McGregor Conference Center, Wayne State University (Detroit, 1957), exterior and interior

Yamasaki’s design for the Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office (below, 1959) incorporates elements found in the buildings featured above while also architecturally acknowledging the business of the company that commissioned it. Evident is the architect’s use of ornament clad to the facade of the building, but here in the form of a metallic visual screen attached to the building’s exterior. These elements, as well as the open terrace, and the glass-walled atrium surrounded by columns, are design features that we find over a decade later in his plan for the World Trade Center.

Some aspects of Yamasaki’s architectural work such as the terrace and reflecting pool adjacent to his McGregor Conference Center, as well as to his Reynolds building, may appear to embody an aesthetic sensitivity characteristic of Japanese culture. Raised by a Japanese family in America, Yamasaki – while recovering from serious illness and surgery – traveled to Japan, Italy, and India, in 1953, on an extended sojourn that provided not only recuperation but also inspiration.

Not all of Yamasaki’s designs are characterized by strong vertical lines and distinct angles, as well as by detailed surface ornament. Two notable exceptions are his 1956 St. Louis Lambert Airport terminal building, and his 1964 West Gym for Carleton College (both below).

Despite the passage of years, Yamasaki’s architectural designs continue to have a fresh and winsome appearance. His buildings stand apart from many examples of urban modernism, where reflective glass-clad buildings often appear indistinguishable from one another and where attention to human scale seems overlooked, especially in the experience of those who approach such structures. By contrast, Yamasaki’s buildings remain attractive and inviting.

Yamasaki displaying a scale model of his Wayne State College of Education building (above), and as featured on the cover of TIME magazine (1963).

The completed twin towers of the World Trade Center prior to 9/11

The Beauty of the Seth Peterson Cottage

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Frank Lloyd Wright, Cottage for Seth Peterson, 1958

The last commission completed by Frank Lloyd Wright before his death was a small cottage for Seth Peterson. While diminutive in scale, this architectural gem incorporates many of the design features we associate with the Wright’s visionary work. A native of the region near Taliesin, Wright’s home and studio, Peterson had once sought to become one of the student-apprentices there. He later sought to commission Wright to design a personal cottage, sending a check in advance. After declining Peterson’s request more than once, Wright, having already spent the fee, was obliged to fulfill the request to provide the plans. Admirers of FLW’s architecture can be glad for Peterson’s persistence and that this small project was completed with impressive results.

Sadly, Peterson did not live to inhabit the cottage. Yet subsequent owners and devotees of Wright’s legacy helped preserve this small treasure. The fully restored cottage sits on land that is now part of a state park, and it became the first Wright home later available for guest rental (and remains so).

Attention to the relatively simple floor plan of the cottage helps orient those newly acquainted with it to identify some of the principal characteristics of Wright’s many home designs.

The entryway on the upper left side of the plan is in many ways typical of Wright’s preferences in that the structure is approached from the rear and then from the side. Slender double doors open into the compact interior which at the same time appears expansive due to the raised roof and ascending ceiling, which provide shelter over a wall of glass punctuated by warm cedar or redwood uprights. Complementing the beckoning view to the left, over a valley and lake, straight ahead the visitor sees more windows and double doors that open onto a side terrace. This prompts an initial sense that the primary orientation of this small home is toward the natural beauty of the landscape just beyond.

Passing beyond the dining table and chairs (Wright designed, of course) and into the main part of the living space, a second principal point of orientation for the cottage emerges. This is as it is with most FLW-designed homes, where one finds a massive fireplace featuring the same stone work evident throughout the structure and its surrounding terraces. While fireplaces of this kind and scale provide a central anchor point for so many of these domiciles, the plan helps us perceive something more. Wright typically grouped the kitchen (what he termed the workspace), utility room, and bathroom(s) together with the central fireplace in a practical way. Yet, visually and experientially, the fireplace always took pride of place and tended to obscure attention to those other spaces and their functions.

The relatively diminutive scale of the bedroom and bathroom in this cottage befit that of the cottage as a whole, and yet a study of many of Wright’s other house plans reveals a similar result. Just like his designs for kitchens, Wright’s apportionment of space for nighttime rest and personal hygiene was at best modest. It is as if he strongly believed that the greatest amount of waking time for a home’s residents should be in its common areas, where – beyond personal needs – one might pursue learning, social interaction and an experiential connection with the natural world.

In my view, the following photographs show the cottage at its best.