Bernard Pyron
Me
In 1976-1977 In My Basement Apartment in the Bunn House, at 104
Langdon Street in Madison, near Lake Mendota - Four of my Frank Lloyd
Wright Ward Willitts house high back chairs are in this photo. See: https://npgallery.nps.gov/…/c3a297a5-66e0-40c4-8e92-95f688e…........"Department
of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic
Places, Nomination Form: Langdon Street Historic District: Along with
the high concentration of period revival styles in the district, there
are also a significant number of nineteenth century architectural
styles. although they have almost all had some alterations or additions
since their date of construction. Also, this district has a number of
post-1900 architectural styles within its boundaries, including examples
of the prairie and bungalow styles."
Remember that Frank Lloyd Wright began designing his larger upper middle class Prairie houses with the Thomas house,(1901,210 Forest Ave., Oak Park, Illinois) and Willits House (1901, 1445 Sheridan Rd, Highland Park, IL).
When Frank Lloyd Wright left his practice in his studio in Oak Park, Illinois, and left his family in 1909, to go to Europe with Mrs Mamah Borthwick Cheney, this marked the beginning of the end of Wright's Prairie Style period.
William Storrer says that the "... Prairie School had died out by the early 1920s. In the Prairie era, Wright had created an American - some would say only a Midwestern - architecture. He had not, however, created a Democratic architecture (1)." Wright's democratic, more affordable and compact houses from 1936 to 1959 were called "Usonians." ..........................The Prairie homes of about 1901 to 1913 are larger than the Usonians, since they were designed for the Upper Middle Class. And because there was a lingering caste system at that time in America, in part because these mansions contained quarters for live-in servants they were larger than they might have been. In addition, many of the prairie homes had an extra entry for servants and delivery men, while the family and guests entered at another door.
BY 1914 WRIGHT TURNED TO DESIGNING FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE
Wright's Wisconsin Populism and Progressivism led him to finally turn from his Prairie houses for the Upper Middle Class to finding ways to create affordable houses for the Middle and Lower Middle Classes which also reached toward the level of art.
John Dos Passos .said that Frank Lloyd Wright, the son of a preacher, preached in stone.
And Frank Lloyd Wright translated the American Spirit into art as architecture more than anyone had done before or after him. Some of what Wright defined as the American Spirit came out of his experience as a boy growing up on his mother's family land in his ancestral valley near the Wisconsin River, east of Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Wright's Unitarianism and , Taoism, are not necesssarily populist, but Wright got some of his populism from his friend Robert La Follette, and behind Wisconsin Progressivism was the Midwest, South, and Texas Populist movement. After he stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe, Wright turned his attention to designing homes for the lower middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings. Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman
constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction. Five houses were built using the Pre-Fab Design Number one. A second pre-fab in Madison, on the South Belt Line, the Arnold Jackson house, is based on the Number One pre-Fab Plan but uses stone rather than the masonite of the Van Tamelen house(1956). Wright's goal was to create houses that the common people could afford, and yet would also rise to the level of art. He did not fail in this goal, either in his pre-fabs of the middle fifties, nor in his Usonian square and diamond module houses of the thirties, forties and fifties, which did not use the pre-fab method of construction to any great extent.
Remember that Frank Lloyd Wright began designing his larger upper middle class Prairie houses with the Thomas house,(1901,210 Forest Ave., Oak Park, Illinois) and Willits House (1901, 1445 Sheridan Rd, Highland Park, IL).
When Frank Lloyd Wright left his practice in his studio in Oak Park, Illinois, and left his family in 1909, to go to Europe with Mrs Mamah Borthwick Cheney, this marked the beginning of the end of Wright's Prairie Style period.
William Storrer says that the "... Prairie School had died out by the early 1920s. In the Prairie era, Wright had created an American - some would say only a Midwestern - architecture. He had not, however, created a Democratic architecture (1)." Wright's democratic, more affordable and compact houses from 1936 to 1959 were called "Usonians." ..........................The Prairie homes of about 1901 to 1913 are larger than the Usonians, since they were designed for the Upper Middle Class. And because there was a lingering caste system at that time in America, in part because these mansions contained quarters for live-in servants they were larger than they might have been. In addition, many of the prairie homes had an extra entry for servants and delivery men, while the family and guests entered at another door.
BY 1914 WRIGHT TURNED TO DESIGNING FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE
Wright's Wisconsin Populism and Progressivism led him to finally turn from his Prairie houses for the Upper Middle Class to finding ways to create affordable houses for the Middle and Lower Middle Classes which also reached toward the level of art.
John Dos Passos .said that Frank Lloyd Wright, the son of a preacher, preached in stone.
And Frank Lloyd Wright translated the American Spirit into art as architecture more than anyone had done before or after him. Some of what Wright defined as the American Spirit came out of his experience as a boy growing up on his mother's family land in his ancestral valley near the Wisconsin River, east of Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Wright's Unitarianism and , Taoism, are not necesssarily populist, but Wright got some of his populism from his friend Robert La Follette, and behind Wisconsin Progressivism was the Midwest, South, and Texas Populist movement. After he stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe, Wright turned his attention to designing homes for the lower middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings. Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman
constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction. Five houses were built using the Pre-Fab Design Number one. A second pre-fab in Madison, on the South Belt Line, the Arnold Jackson house, is based on the Number One pre-Fab Plan but uses stone rather than the masonite of the Van Tamelen house(1956). Wright's goal was to create houses that the common people could afford, and yet would also rise to the level of art. He did not fail in this goal, either in his pre-fabs of the middle fifties, nor in his Usonian square and diamond module houses of the thirties, forties and fifties, which did not use the pre-fab method of construction to any great extent.
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