Frank Lloyd Wright: Architecture For America

Transcription

1 Frank Lloyd Wright: Architecture For America Fall 2015 (ARH 3435) Judith Dupré, Lecturer Mondays 6:30-9:50 pm Office hours by appointment Frank Lloyd Wright ( ) is considered the greatest of American architects. Over a period of 70 years, he designed buildings houses, museums, churches, and skyscrapers that came to define a uniquely American architecture. This course examines Wright s residential designs for the Oak Park Home and Studio, Robie House, Taliesin, Taliesin West, and Fallingwater; plans for the House Beautiful magazine, Broadacre City and Usonia; institutional designs for Unity Temple, Midway Gardens, Imperial Hotel, and the Guggenheim Museum. We will look at his major influences (Louis Sullivan, the Chicago school, Japanese art and architecture, American Transcendentalism), his Oak Park practice and the Taliesin Fellowship. Many landmark Wright structures are tied to events in his personal life. His mother, three wives, employee, and mistress had a far greater impact than previously supposed on his creative output. Anna Lloyd Jones, Kitty Tobin Wright, Marion Mahony Griffin, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Miriam Noel, and Olgivanna Ivanovna Wright were independent, accomplished women who, for varied reasons, were moths to Wright s narcissistic genius. Between them, they supplied Wright with the inspiration, social connections, and visionary philosophies that founded his work. We will examine each woman s relationship with Wright within the social, sexual, cultural context of her time. Particular emphasis is given to Mahony Griffin, Wright s first employee and seminal collaborator. Additionally, we will explore the many forces that shape structure including technology, economy, demographics, social movements, and prevailing aesthetics because architecture, perhaps more than any art, arises from a confluence of practical, conceptual, and technical concerns. Multiple information sources visuals, film screenings, and readings in architectural history, biography, autobiography, and imaginative works of historic fiction will suggest the many ways in which a life, or a building, can be understood. We will take a field trip to the Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museum of Art to observe Wright s work firsthand. Knowledge of Wright or architectural history is welcome, but not presumed. Assignments include prepared participation, readings, quizzes, a class presentation, and a final project that can be a traditional research paper or a Wright-inspired art project.

2 Syllabus Syllabus subject to change pending class composition and needs. Refer first to the course Moodle page. 8/ Overview. Introductions. Presentation of course themes, objectives, and assignments. Screening: Frank Lloyd Wright: A Film By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Part 1. September 7, Labor Day, no class. 2. Gothic cathedrals, Froebel Gifts, and Mom Anna Lloyd Jones ( ); FLLW childhood in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Screening: Frank Lloyd Wright, Part 2. Huxtable, Frank Lloyd Wright. Cronon, William. Inconstant Unity. Frank Lloyd Wright Architect. Ed. Terrence Riley. New York: Museum of Modern Art, Scully, Vincent. Frank Lloyd Wright and the Stuff of Dreams. Perspecta, vol. 16, (1980), Chicago Hustle: Defining a Uniquely American Architecture The influence of Louis Sullivan, Screening: Frank Lloyd Wright, Part 3. Sullivan, Louis. Emotional Architecture as Compared with Intellectual. Kindergarten Chats Revised ed. New York: Dover, Wright, Gwendolyn. Modern Consolidation, Introduction and Wright. Louis Henry Sullivan: His Work. Critical Writings The Prairie Style: Home, Hearth and Clients Catherine Kitty Lee Tobin Wright ( ); FLLW Home and studio in Oak Park (1889/1898); Robie House ( ). Assignment: Students should bring to class a preliminary two-page description of the topic they wish to research. It should identify a few primary sources. Wright. The Natural House. Critical Writings Frampton, Kenneth. FLLW and the Myth of the Prairie Modern Architecture, A Critical History. London: Thames & Hudson, Wright, Gwendolyn. Progressive Architectures, Love s Vision: Inside FLLW s studio Marion Mahony Griffin ( ); Unity Temple (1906).

3 Friedman, Alice T. Girl Talk: Feminism and Domestic Architecture at FLLW s Oak Park Studio. Marion Mahony Reconsidered. Ed. Van Zanten. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Siry, Joseph. Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple and Architecture for Liberal Religion in Chicago, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 2 (June, 1991), FLLW s Japanese Aesthetic Screening: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright Assignment: Students should bring to class a bibliography (formatted, MLA style) of at least 6 works for their paper. 7. Escape to Australia Marion Mahony Griffin (cont). The influence of Mahony s drawings on the 1911 Federal Capital Design Competition in Canberra, Australia. Assignment: Book critique due. Kruty, Paul. Graphic Depictions: The Evolution of Marion Mahony s Architectural Renderings. Marion Mahony Reconsidered Love, Scandal, and the Wasmuth Portfolio Martha Mamah Borthwick Cheney ( ); Wasmuth Portfolio ( ) Viewing: Wasmuth Portfolio, vols. 1+2 ( ) Assignment: Bring to class at least 4 images for their project in Powerpoint format. Alofsin, Anthony. Squaring the Self with Life: Return from Europe and The Lessons of Europe. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years, : A Study Of Influence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Murder at Taliesin Taliesin, Wisconsin (1911, 1925) Wright, Frank Lloyd. An Autobiography. Petaluma: Pomegranate, Rebound Maude Miriam Noel ( ); Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (1915) Screening (excerpt): Magnificent Obsession (2005) Wright. The Natural House. Critical Writings Phoenix Rising Olga Olgivanna Ivanovna Lazovich ( ); Taliesin Fellowship (1932-ongoing) and Taliesin West (1937) 12. Fallingwater ( ) and Presentations

4 13. Presentations 14. The Guggenheim Museum and Presentations Assignment: Final papers due. 15. Wrap-up and evaluation. Assignments and Grading 15% Attendance and informed participation in discussions about readings 10% Topic Explorations 30% Quizzes and short papers. 15% Presentation (10-15 minute illustrated PowerPoint, including Q&A) on your research/writing topic. 30% Final paper, pages Websites Wright, Frank Lloyd. Wasmuth Portfolio, vols. 1+2 ( ) Mahony Griffin, Marion. The Magic of America. The Art Institute of Chicago and the New York Historical Society, Required books: Course materials also are available at the library reserve desk. Huxtable, Ada Louise. Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Viking, Wright, Frank Lloyd. Bruce Pfeiffer, ed. The Essential Frank Lloyd Wright: Critical Writings on Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Wright, Gwendolyn. USA: Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books, Selected chapters. Additional reading Alofsin, Anthony. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years, : A Study of Influence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Boyle, T. Coraghessan. The Women. New York: Viking, Gill, Brendan. Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright. (1987; Da Capo Press, New York, 1998). Horan, Nancy. Loving Frank. New York: Ballantine Books, Riley, Terrence, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright Architect. New York: Museum of Modern Art, Secrest, Meryle. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography. New York: Harper Perennial, Twombly, Robert C. Frank Lloyd Wright: An Interpretive Biography. New York: Harper + Row, Van Zanten, David, ed. Marion Mahony Reconsidered. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Wood, Debora, ed. Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature. Evanston, IL: Block Museum of Art, Wright, Frank Lloyd. An Autobiography. Petaluma, CA: Pomegranate, 2005.

5 (First edition 1932).