PBS gift / Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City

I couldn't be more delighted to see that my recent book, titled Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie, is currently being offered as a free donation bonus in the fundraising campaign on Iowa PBS. It is featured in two donation options online here and here. 

I think it's a pretty good overview of the influence of European and Japanese traditions on Wright's architectural style (and vice versa), as well as an explanation of why Mason City's architecture is of genuine significance. There is a shortage of serious writing about the importance of things that surround us.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Dessau Bauhaus

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City

One often hears people asking about the flow of influence between the German Bauhaus and American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Pertaining to that, it was interesting this morning to run across this passage from the memoir of an eyewitness who was present then—

•••

Matthew Josephson, Life Among the Surrealists. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962—

In Germany [in 1927]…I had been deeply impressed by my visit to the school of the Bauhaus-Dessau where Walter Gropius, [Laszlo] Moholy-Nagy, and their confreres carried on a movement for the teaching and propagation of modern industrial design. These people had been frank to tell me that much of their inspiration was derived from an American artist whom Americans scarcely knew: Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright and Design

 

Ways to remain engaged during a pandemic

The feature article below was published earlier today in the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo IA). The full text and photos can be accessed online here.

Mason City's Prairie Landmarks—and Australia

Above A new article on Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin, and Prairie School architecture in Mason City, Iowa—and the surprising connection with Australia. Just published in The Iowa Source magazine, and now accessible online.

Peggy Bang in front of her home—the Melson House

the prairie as a lookalike of oceanic vastness

Full online article (1998)

Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828. UK: Edinburgh, Cadell and Co (1829)—

The resemblance to the sea, which some of the [American Midwestern] Prairies exhibited, was really most singular. I had heard of this before, but always supposed the account exaggerated. There is one spot in particular, near the middle of the Grand Prairie, if I recollect rightly, where the ground happened to be of the rolling character above alluded to, and where, excepting in the article of color—and that was not widely different from the tinge of some seas—the similarity was so very striking, that I almost forgot where I was. 

This deception was heightened by a circumstance which I had often heard mentioned, but the force of which, perhaps, none but a seaman could fully estimate; I mean the appearance of the distant insulated trees, as they gradually rose above the horizon, or receded from our view. They were so exactly like strange sails heaving in sight, that I am sure, if two or three sailors had been present, they would almost have agreed as to what canvas these magical vessels were carrying.

Henri Matisse, Portrait of Madame Matisse (The Green Line), 1905

Kevin Nute on Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan

If I named a single book from which, more than any other, I learned about the architecture and beliefs of Frank Lloyd Wright (and the source of his influences), my first choice would easily be Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan: The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright by Kevin Nute, who teaches architecture at the University of Oregon. I was fortunate to buy a copy when it was published in 1994, nearly twenty-five years ago.

Only yesterday, I was delighted to find that Professor Nute will soon be talking about Wright in Japan at the Architectural Interpretive Center in Mason City IA. The lecture begins at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, July 10, 2018. It is free and open to the public.

Pulling the Teeth of Frank Lloyd Wright

FLW montage © Roy R. Behrens 2017

Ben Masselink in "Gene" in Edgar Tafel, ed., About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, pp. 189-190—

Gene [Masselink, his brother, an apprentice to Wright] had driven Mr. Wright in that open Cord down the rolling green hills of Wisconsin and along the sweeping outer drive of Chicago and through the smoky war of Gary, Indiana, and up along the huge, blue lake through Benton Harbor and Saugatuck, Gene's old art school, and into Grand Rapids to see the dentist, who was my dad. Mr. Wright wanted every tooth in his mouth pulled, which could compare to storming the Great Wall of China single-handed, and in one sitting, and then to be fitted for false. This greatly impressed my dad, as this was never done; it was too hard on the patient. Usually, one or two teeth were pulled at a time, four at the most, but Mr. Wright insisted, and so my dad pulled them as if he were plucking corn off a cob. Mr. Wright never flinched, but treated it as casually as if he'd come to have a hair trim.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

Condé Nast: Mason City Among Top 20 Cities

Condé Nast Traveler (June 2017)

In a recent update to a list compiled originally in 2013, Condé Nast Traveler has ranked Mason City, Iowa, as among The World's 20 Best Cities for Architecture Lovers. As pictured on their website, it was listed as Number 8 of 20 on June 12, 2017. Other cities on the list include St. Petersburg, Budapest, Brasilia, Athens, Rome, Hanoi and others. The remaining American cities are Miami FL, Seattle WA, Columbus IN, Brooklyn NY and Portland OR. Mason City has nearly 40 Prairie Style buildings, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Stockman House, and the City National Bank and Park Inn Hotel, with additional structures by Walter Burley Griffin and others. For the story of how it all happened, see our recent book on Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City—repeatedly featured in recent months as one of the top ten bestselling books on Frank Lloyd Wright on Amazon.

Mason City Posters © Roy R. Behrens 2016

Top Selling | Frank Lloyd Wright & Mason City

Digital montage (2017)

Publisher's description of Roy R. Behrens, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie. Charleston SC: The History Press, 2016 (repeatedly ranked in recent months among top best-selling books on Frank Lloyd Wright on Amazon)—

In the early 1900s, Frank Lloyd Wright transformed a small midwestern prairie community into one of the world’s most important architectural destinations. Mason City, Iowa, became home to his City National Bank and Park Inn—the last surviving Wright hotel. In addition, his prototype Stockman House helped launch the Prairie School architectural style. Soon after, architect Walter Burley Griffin followed in Wright’s footsteps, designing a cluster of Prairie School homes in the Rock Crest/Rock Glen neighborhood. Design historian Roy Behrens leads the way through Mason City’s historic development from the Industrial Revolution to the modern era of Frank Lloyd Wright.  
    

Book Review | Frank Lloyd Wright & Mason City

Jerome Klinkowitz, in "Right Here in River City: An Iowa Community at the Prairie School's Edge: A Review of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City by Roy R. Behrens" in Universitas (University of Northern Iowa). Vol 12, 2016-2017—

…it is to Behrens's credit that his comprehension of the [Prairie School] movement reaches well beyond the limits that some commentators would impose…

No scholar has identified both the process of organic architecture and its sources more succinctly or with such clarity of thought. More>>>

Review | Frank Lloyd Wright & Mason City

Poster © Roy R. Behrens (2017)

Above Roy R. Behrens, digital montage regarding Frank Lloyd Wright (2017) in relation to Prairie School architectural landmarks. Sources images include art glass window diagram from Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs (based on window in the Robie House in Chicago), and designer's photograph of the Spirit of Mercury by Richard Bock, commissioned by Wright as a recurrent motif in his City National Bank and Park Inn Hotel in Mason City (1910).

•••

Book review on GoodReads (four stars out of five) of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie. Charleston SC: The History Press, 2016—

I recently visited Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob houses in Pennsylvania and enjoyed seeing both of those homes. Having spent many summer vacations in Mason City as a youth, I was thrilled to stumble upon this book and excited to read about Wright's architectural impact on this small Iowa town. I think the author did a fine job of showcasing Wright's work in Mason City while incorporating some of Wright's personal (and scandalous!) history with the evolution of this north central Iowa town.

Duplicitous Serenity | Frank Lloyd Wright

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY (2016)

Above Roy R. Behrens, digital montage portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (2017).

•••

What was it like to encounter for the first time the Midwestern prairie, not yet dominated by Euro-Americans at the time of the American Revolutionary War? Below is a description, based on eyewitness accounts from 1782, as invading American troops were in pursuit of Native Americans who had sided with the British.

Allan W. Eckert, That Dark and Bloody River: Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley. New York: Bantam Books, 1996, p. 342—

For those of the army who had never before seen the Sandusky Plains [in Ohio], their first view of it yesterday was breathtaking. The heavily forested hills through which they had been riding for the better part of a week had abruptly leveled out into high plains, with vast fields of grass as far as the eye could see. Their guides told them this type of terrain would continue all the way to the Sandusky towns, still some 30 miles distant: deep, thick grasses that were emerald green in their lush new growth and so high that the early morning dew soaked their horses and bathed the riders themselves to their waists. There was a deceptive sense of peace to the vista and a strong illusion that they had entered upon an expansive green sea where the surface was calm and smooth except where breezes touched down and rippled the grass in pleasant swaths all the way to the western horizon. The illusion of a sea was further enhanced by, here and there in the distance, great isolated groves of trees projecting above the grasses, appearing to be a series of lovely islands. So strong was this sense, in fact, that almost immediately the men referred to these groves as islands and dubbed them colorful names based on their size or shape or color. Smaller groves, hazy and indistinct in the distance, loomed above the grasses like ships traversing the sea from one of the larger islands to another.

Some of the men, however, viewed the deep grass with a rise of fear; in this sort of cover, a whole great army of Indians could lie hidden beyond detection, abruptly to rise at any given moment and pour a devastating fire into the troops. Their fear became infectious, and soon the initial serenity of the scene was replaced in the men's minds with uneasy expectation.

Wright and Mason City's Architectural Gems

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY •

Above Some of the great treasures of American architecture are located in Mason City IA, two hours south of Minneapolis (or two hours north of Des Moines). The downtown is the setting of the magnificently restored Historic Park Inn Hotel, a tandem two-part structure, that originally also housed the City National Bank, the sole surviving hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is now both a hotel and an events center, with rooms restored to replicate the original Wright design. There is also a Wrightian restaurant, with an excellent menu. The hotel entrance is adjacent to the city park—it's the park that was famously featured in the Broadway musical and film The Music Man, a story that's based on the memories of Meredith Willson, who grew up in what is sometimes called "River City."  It's a great architectural treat to visit Mason City, as flocks of world-wide tourists have found since, fully restored, it reopened several years ago. The Condé Nast Traveler recently declared it "one of the 14 best cities for architectural lovers."

To experience Wright's City National Bank and Park Inn Hotel is itself sufficient reward. But that's only part of the story. Just five blocks east of the hotel is an historically significant cluster of Prairie School homes in a purposely designed neighborhood that borders both sides of Willow Creek. The precisely landscaped neighborhood was designed by Wright's associate, Walter Burley Griffin. Most of the planning drawings were made by another Wright associate, Marion Mahony (one of the first female architects, especially admired for her extraordinary drawings), who was also Griffin's spouse. Known as Rock Crest / Rock Glen, about nineteen houses were planned but only half of those were built. But the ones that were completed are both exquisite and well-maintained.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY •

On the northern edge of this historic neighborhood is the relocated and exactly restored Stockman House, an early Wright prototype for a fireproof two-story Prairie School home. It is now a house museum, and is frequently open for guided tours. And on the property adjoining that is the recently constructed Robert E. McCoy Architectural Interpretive Center, which serves as an informational hub, a gift shop, and a gathering place for talks about Mason City architecture.

To my mind, among the highlights of Mason City's architectural gems is a residence called the Melson House. It was constructed on a limestone cliff on the Rock Crest side of the neighborhood, overlooking the creek and the houses that make up the opposite side, the level bank that called Rock Glen. The significance of the Melson House is discussed in Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (pp. 114-115)—

As H. Allen Brooks has said, it (the Melson House)  is "a master stroke" in which [Walter Burley] Griffin "turned the cliff to his advantage," with the result that the building is "partly hewn, [and] partly growing from the striated cliff." Amazingly, as [C.J.] Hurley notes, "although the almost fortress-like structure appears to be part of the cliff face, the interior is open and spacious, human in its scale, proportions and liveability."

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY •

The owners of the Melson House are Roger and Peggy Bang, who have long been active in Mason City's efforts to restore its architectural gems. Peggy has recently published a book (The Melson House Revealed: An Owner's Perspective) [see cover below] about all the pleasures as well as frustrations involved in maintaining the verve of this astonishing landmark—while also living in it.

• All posters by Roy R. Behrens © 2017. Photo of Melson House © Peggy L. Bang. Other images courtesy Wikimedia.

THE MELSON HOUSE REVEALED

Frank Lloyd Wright Swats Fellow Architects

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY •

Maria Durell Stone (wife of architect Edward Durell Stone) in Edgar Tafel, Ed., About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, p. 57—

A few hours after I arrived at Taliesin [in 1954] we dined with others outside under a large tree. Flies, for some reason, were prolific on this warm spring day. [Frank Lloyd] Wright remedied this annoyance by having a fly swatter next to his chair. As a fly landed, he would pick up the swatter and take precise aim. "That's [Walter] Gropius," he jovially exclaimed, and then he would take aim again at another unsuspecting fly. "And that's [Le] Corbusier," he would add, until dead flies littered the table and he had struck down the so-called hierarchy of modern architecture.

• Design by Roy R. Behrens, using public domain portrait photograph (colorized) of Wright (c1926), from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, and his own photograph of the restored City National Bank and Park Inn in Mason City IA, now officially known as the Historic Park Inn Hotel.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra

The Stockman House | Mason City IA (1908) •

Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND MASON CITY: Architectural Heart of the Prairie. Charleston SC: The History Press, 2016, pp. 15-16—

Soon after his arrival in the U.S., a young German architect named Richard Neutra was walking through the neighborhoods of the Hyde Park area of Chicago, looking for Prairie School houses.

Earlier, in a European library, he had seen the Wasmuth Portfolio, an album of early buildings by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Now, he had come to Chicago to search for one of Wright’s most admired designs, the famous Frederick C. Robie House on Woodlawn Avenue.

Standing at last in the presence of the Robie House, Neutra was infused with emotion. He rang the doorbell and asked in broken English, “Is Mr. Robie in?” The present owner, who answered the door, replied, “Mr. Robie? Never heard of him.” There had been a succession of owners, and she had bought the house, she explained, because it was “very cheap” and the previous owner “had to get out.” She didn’t particularly like its design, Neutra recalled, and “had all kinds of petty criticisms.” 

In his autobiography, Neutra recalled that this happened repeatedly as he visited famous American buildings, well-known and admired by European architects. Inevitably, he found that the current residents (and their neighbors) had little or no understanding of the importance of the buildings that surrounded them. He was overtaken by what he described as a “sad wonderment.”

“I had arrived in fairyland,” he said, “but the fairies had gone. And the occupants of the enchanted forest looked entirely inconsistent and contradictory to what their setting called for. I was downcast, broken, and puzzled.”

Later, when Neutra actually met Frank Lloyd Wright, he told him how surprised he was that Chicago’s Prairie School houses were not surrounded by prairie. When those homes were built, he asked, were they then in the prairie?

“No,” Wright answered, “there was no prairie…but it was the spirit of the prairie that was recaptured with it and in it.”

• Design by Roy R. Behrens, using public domain portrait photograph (colorized) of Wright (c1926), from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, and a photograph of the Stockman House by Pamela V. White (2007), from Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

Continuity, Patterns & Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

Jonathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, pp. 67-68—

As for resembling life forms [in architecture], it is underlying pattern, not any literal representation that makes a building "come alive." Trees, which populate the landscape much as buildings do, are much more generally considered to be beautiful. But, as Frank Lloyd Wright said, a building should be like a tree, not look like a tree…Trees and people contain the same kinds of patterns. Harmonious buildings that embody life forms refer to us, they are about us. That is why we are so attracted to them.

Harmony can be defined as the resonating play of shapes. It can be gentle or strong, but it is not immobility. The old way of seeing is not repose, and it is not prettiness. It might be soft or rough. It might be cheap…or it might be the Great Pyramid, but the same design principles will guide it. Harmony in a building means relationships that work with other relationships.…

One of the purposes of ornament is to pull the eye toward the regulating lines of a building, to point out the key visual points of its geometry. Ornament strengthens the forms that are already there. The powerful governing patterns of the buildings are not decorative, they are the architecture. They are inherent in the building, just as what the building does is inherent in it: this building is a house, and it also embodies this pattern. To be a pattern if one of the building's functions. In this way a building is like music.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Real River City

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

From an unpublished review by Paul D. Whitson of FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie. Charleston SC: History Press, 2016—

[This book is] A masterly detailed romp (staccato vivace) through the cultural and architectural history of the persons, structures, and interrelations emergent along the 1908-1911 timeline in Mason City, Iowa. Although the City National Bank, Park Inn, and Stockman residence by Frank Lloyd Wright are central, equal attention is given to the Rock Crest/Rock Glen residences actuated by the "Griffins," Byrne, Blythe, Broaten, Drummond, and Besinger. Instructive insights into the principles of design, essences of organic logic, and exposed peccadillos (good and not so) of the chief actors pleasantly compliment the illustrative architectural heart of the once prairie village. A five-star read (romp) indeed.

Taoism, Frank Lloyd Wright and Space Within

Frank Lloyd Wright photomontage (2016) •

Laozi [formerly Lao-Tze or Lao-Tse], Tao Te Ching (c. 4th century BC)—

Thirty spokes meet in the hub, but the empty space between them is the essence of the wheel. Pots are formed from clay, but the empty space within it is the essence of the pot. Walls with windows and doors form the house, but the empty space within it is the essence of the home.

•••

Jonathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), pp. 176-177—

[Frank Lloyd] Wright played with such [surface] decoration, but he abandoned it around 1900. Wright's continuity meant that each element and aspect—shape, color, texture—participates, not as one thing on another but as one thing with another. This is why Wright came to understand that materials required expression for what they were. The purpose was not to be morally honest, but to let each element be seen and experienced individually. In the unity of a Wright building, every component is active.

The essence of each material stands out. Wood is not painted, because paint would conceal its "woodness"—its color, grain, odor. Paint would muddy the experience of continity, which accords value to everything. So the wood is unpainted. The blocky rectangularity of brick is revealed so that each brick reads as a clear element. Wright would never paint brick…because the idea is to emphasize "brickness." The Wright building does not use brick, it is brick. But geometry comes ahead of material in a Wright building…But even the pattern is not dominant. Wright uses pattern to bring out space. Space, the nothing, is dominant.

• Montage by Roy R. Behrens (© 2016). Public domain image sources: Carol M. Highsmith photograph of V.C. Morris building, and Al Ravenna, photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York World-Telegram and the Sun Collection), both from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016). 

Frank Lloyd Wright | His Favorite Jokes

Roy R. Behrens, Robie House Montage (2016) •

David Henken (Wright apprentice and engineer, in a letter to his wife), in Priscilla J. Henken, Taliesin Diary: A Year with Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), p. 92—

[After Christmas dinner in 1942] Frank [Lloyd Wright] read some jokes from a gift book he received, killed himself laughing at each joke so that we couldn't hear them at all. I managed to piece a few together as samples show.

Father: When George Washington was your age, he was working as a surveyor and making a success of himself. 
Son: When he was your age he was President of the United States.

Grandmother to granddaughter: Dear I want you to promise me never to use a certain two words—one is swell and the other lousy.
Granddaughter: Why, of course, I'll promise. What are the words?

•••

Frank Lloyd Wright—

Television is chewing gum for the eyes. 

•  Image sources: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, and NASA. See also Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016)

Frank Lloyd Wright Gold Medal | 1982

Frank Lloyd Wright gold medal (1982)

Above  Frank Lloyd Wright half ounce gold medal. American Arts Commemorative Series. US Treasury, 1982. Wikipedia Commons. Heritage Auctions. Public domain.

•••

Edgar Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius. New York: Dover Publications, 1985, pp. 85-86—

If we [Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentices] expected one thing, he did another. If we did something one way on one day, it was not necessary to do it the same way the next. Coming back from [an unexpected detour into] Canada, we went through Niagara Falls. When we got to the border, the customs man asked, "All of you born in the United States?" Before we could stop him, Manuel [an apprentice woodworker] yelled out, "Born in Nee-kah-RAAH-wah" and then admitted he hadn't brought his papers. None of us knew we were going through Canada, so it had never occurred to Manuel to bring his documents. "Follow me," said the official, and we watched him lead Manuel off to the customs detention office. That was it for Mr. Wright. He got furious, burst out of the car, and besieged the office. I waited in the car for a while, then got curious. I went to the office to see what was up. There was Mr. Wright stomping around and declaring to everyone that he was a great American, that he was a friend of Carl Sandburg and Clarence Darrow, that he was an internationally known architect, that he'd never do anything that wasn't thoroughly American. The customs officials were completely dismayed. They let Manuel go, and we returned to the car and drove on toward Buffalo. Within five minutes, Mr. Wright was snoozing. He could fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)