Today through Monday the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago will have a special “virtual” tour of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
The computer-generated model of the fairgrounds will be projected on a movie screen in a 220-seat museum auditorium. The program allows Snyder to move the screen’s point of view at will, giving viewers […]
Friday’s Break the Box lecture is “Constructing Architect: Barry Byrne and Unity Temple”, given by Vincent Michael of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago:
Barry Byrne joined Wright’s office as an office boy and was supervising the construction of Unity Temple by age 24. Vincent Michael, John H. Bryan Chair of Historic Preservation at […]
A free exhibit at the Chicago Architectural Foundation (224 S. Michigan Ave) “Do We Dare Squander Chicagoâs Great Architectural Heritage?” through May 9.
The exhibition includes architectural artifacts from the Tribune, Fisher, Santa Fe, and Monadnock buildings, a rare film–featuring photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel, of the demolition of Adler & Sullivanâs Chicago Stock Exchange, photographs […]
The exhibit Hollyhock House and Olive Hill: Frank Lloyd Wright and Edmund Teske opens today at the Price Tower Arts Center, and runs through March 30.
The exhibit consists of a number of Wright’s drawings for Barnsdall’s planned complex (built and unbuilt) and the photographs of Teske who lived and worked in the complex in […]
The Unitarian Meeting House in Madison (technically, Shorewood Hills) will resume guided tours this May, after a lengthy hiatus due to construction (we missed seeing the interior last July). The Friends of the Meeting House are also looking for volunteers to lead tours — contact them through their website.
The FLW Building Conservancy’s 2008 Conference will be held in Western Pennsylvania, September 17-21. The conference theme is “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Roots of Sustainability”, and it is clear that they are hoping for a sophisticated and nuanced view of Wright’s attitude towards, and legacy in the various issues today lumped under the term “sustainability”.
From the Call for Papers:
Wright frequently arrived at solutions of a sustainable nature that seem remarkably prescient today. Such innovations as nature-based site planning, interior day lighting, radiant and passive solar heating, natural evaporative air cooling, interior plantscaping, lumber-saving âframelessâ construction, earth-sheltered construction, âsun trapsâ to illuminate basements, and semi-subterranean designs for the Arizona desert are just some of his many solutions to problems that today are identified as âsustainable.â Thus Wrightâs nature-based architecture is powerfully relevant to current sustainability concerns on both innovative and symbolic levels.
Despite these achievements, Wright was also deeply attached to principles that foreshadowed suburban sprawl and run directly counter to the goals of todayâs sustainability movement including his promotion of the automobile and the single-family house, and a vision of the United States as a vast landscape of Usonian communities.
In truth, Wright was too interested in ideas, pure artistry and the possibilities of new materials and technologies, to be preoccupied with the narrow confines of sustainable design, yet, his achievements in the realm of a âgreen architectureâ are remarkable. All of which provokes us to ask â just what is Frank Lloyd Wrightâs relationship to sustainability?
It’s early yet, and the schedule of events has not been set, but clear your calendar.
The full text of the Call for Papers lies below the jump.
From the Call for Papers:
Wright frequently arrived at solutions of a sustainable nature that seem remarkably prescient today. Such innovations as nature-based site planning, interior day lighting, radiant and passive solar heating, natural evaporative air cooling, interior plantscaping, lumber-saving âframelessâ construction, earth-sheltered construction, âsun trapsâ to illuminate basements, and semi-subterranean designs for the Arizona desert are just some of his many solutions to problems that today are identified as âsustainable.â Thus Wrightâs nature-based architecture is powerfully relevant to current sustainability concerns on both innovative and symbolic levels.
Despite these achievements, Wright was also deeply attached to principles that foreshadowed suburban sprawl and run directly counter to the goals of todayâs sustainability movement including his promotion of the automobile and the single-family house, and a vision of the United States as a vast landscape of Usonian communities.
In truth, Wright was too interested in ideas, pure artistry and the possibilities of new materials and technologies, to be preoccupied with the narrow confines of sustainable design, yet, his achievements in the realm of a âgreen architectureâ are remarkable. All of which provokes us to ask â just what is Frank Lloyd Wrightâs relationship to sustainability?
It’s early yet, and the schedule of events has not been set, but clear your calendar.
The Bernard Schwartz House, in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, can be toured this Sunday, February 3 at 1 PM.
Tickets are $7, reservations are required and can be made by calling (612) 250-6965. The money raised will go towards the restoration fund.
The home is available for overnight rentals, and tour opportunities are not common.
Speaking of Iowa, this year there there will be two bus tours of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin and Louis Sullivan in the Hawkeye state. The first, on May 17, will include Quasqueton, Cedar Rapids, Grinnell and and Marshalltown — specific sites aren’t listed, but it’s likely to include the the […]
Training sessions for Wright Plus volunteers begin Saturday, February 2 and continue for the next five Saturdays. Call 708-848-1976 ext. 223 or e-mail volunteer@wrightplus.org. From what I’ve heard, volunteers for the Preservation Trust are very well-trained, so this would be a great opportunity to earn a boatload about Wright and Oak Park history.
I’ll, of course, be […]
This Friday, Frank Henry is giving a lecture Frank Lloyd Wright: The Southwest Legacy, part of the Sidney D. Gamble Lecture Series. It will take place at the Art Center Ahmanson Auditorium in Pasadena.
The following day, as a companion to the lecture, La Miniatura can be toured from 10AM to 5 PM, and lunch served […]