Posts Tagged ‘frank lloyd wright’

Tweet Build it and they will come, right? For architects, all solutions to urban, suburban, and even rural problems lie in the built environment. Just look at Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City and even Paolo Soleri’s Arcology. These are all visions for cities that are supposed to be more egalitarian, more accessible and in Soleri’s case, more in harmony with nature. But what if the solution to the world’s problems isn’t to build something new? Or even to mess with what’s already there? Maybe the solution is to make room, not build something. Maybe the solution…

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Tweet The Gordon House, located in Silverton, Oregon, is the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in Oregon and the only Wright building in the Pacific Northwest open to the public. It was built in 1964 for Evelyn and Conrad Gordon in Wilsonville, OR and was saved from demolition in 2001 when it was disassembled and moved to Silverton, Oregon. Set in a serene environment next to the Oregon Garden, this Wright gem is a beautiful and unique home to look at inside and out. Guided tours of the house are available everyday except Tuesdays and start at noon, 1pm…

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Tweet “Frank Lloyd Wright went to great lengths to make sure his houses never faced north,” said Robert McCarter, a Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, on Friday at his lecture for the Gordon House Conservancy called The Evolution of the American House. McCarter also said that Wright liked to use drapes in homes not only to cut the draft but to create visual privacy while at the same time maintaining auditory connectedness. The architect was particularly sensitive to how occupants of his buildings experienced sound. The Gordon House This weekend’s lecture was…

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Tweet Today’s post is the second in a series about Learning from Le Corbusier by guest writer Alison King of Modern Phoenix. If you missed the first part, catch it here.  Learning from Le Corbusier, a Series – Part II In our previous installation (link here) we encountered the first of Le Corbusier’s three Points of New Architecture: piloti, open floor plans and ribbon windows. We left you at the threshhold of Corbu’s apartment and were just about to enter his studio space, pictured above, showing you details you just can’t find in coffeetable books. Now we enter his most…

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August 29, 2013

Le Corbusier’s Studio Apartment in Paris, 1931

by: Alison King

Tweet Today’s post is the first in a series about Learning from Le Corbusier by guest writer Alison King. Alison is the founding editor of ModernPhoenix.net and Associate Professor of Graphic Design and History at the Art Institute of Phoenix. In 2013 Modern Phoenix celebrated its first ten years of publishing original articles, photographs and primary sources. Alison wrote “Everyman’s Modernist”, the authorized biography of Ralph Haver AIA, and is currently creating a definitive inventory of all buildings designed by Arizona architect Al Beadle with the assistance of his family and friends at BeadleArchive.com. Learning from Le Corbusier, a Series – Part 1 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret…

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Tweet Tis the season to be jolly! After an epic 6-month long saga that has been nothing short of a roller coaster, the David Wright House is finally in good hands with plans in place to preserve it in perpetuity. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, the organization that first brought the threat of demolition to our attention, has come to the rescue! The preservation organization facilitated the purchase of the property by an anonymous benefactor that will transfer it to an Arizona nonprofit. The new owner will push forward a landmark designation by the City that will protect the…

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Tweet In a multidisciplinary panel discussion held Monday night at the College of Design North building on the ASU Tempe campus, a group of design and development professionals shared their takes on the greater issues behind the ongoing push to preserve the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed David and Gladys Wright House in the Arcadia area of Phoenix. The discussion was moderated by Craig Barton, director of the Design School that is part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Speakers included practicing architect and ASU architecture professor Paul Zygas; director of the ASU Master of Real Estate Development program…

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Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Will Novak: On Tuesday night (Oct 2nd) the case to recommend a landmark status historic overlay on the beautiful David and Gladys Wright home in Arcadia went before the Camelback East Village Planning Committee. If you weren’t there, be sorry you missed it; for a moment I thought it would turn into WrestleMania XXIX. Before going into detail about what happened at the meeting, a bit of an overview of City processes is needed. As you probably know, the City is divided up into 15 “Villages” each with its own Village Planning Committee….

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Tweet Yesterday afternoon as a full house with an electric atmosphere at the Historic Preservation Commission meeting at Phoenix City Hall, surprising many of the commissioners who’re used to seeing only a handful of seats taken at these meetings. Everyone was there for the landmark designation recommendation for the David Wright House. It’s a no brainer that the David Wright House is worthy of a landmark designation, but the rub lies in that the owner has not given permission for this designation. And in Phoenix, we don’t normally go through with a historic preservation designation without the owner’s approval due…

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Tweet There has been a lot of talk about the David Wright House as of late. You may even be sick of hearing about it. But the battle to save it is far from over. Yesterday I had the privilege of going to tour the house which I had heard was in quite a state of disrepair. But our tour proved otherwise. Many of us remarked at how well the house has withstood its 61 years and how it remains in great condition. The new owner, John Hoffman, who is the center of what I’m sure is some unwanted attention,…

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