"Charlie Self" wrote in message
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| Wright was said to be height challanged and slender.

He was, and so am I. I don't have any problem navigating Wright interiors.
:-)

But seriously he also has some designs that soar. Wright did lots of
innovative things with space. Remember that he rebelled against a design
tradition that envisioned houses as a collection of isolated square boxes
joined by doorways. That rebellion produced an entirely different concept
of space in a dwelling by creating a flow from one functional area to
another and using things like ceiling height to visually demarcate them.

Innovation isn't always and universally good. By trading the strict
compartmentalization of Victorian architecture for his new concept, he just
traded one set of known problems for another set of problems that he (and we
subsequently) came to characterize and criticize.

| Anyway, the concept is brilliant, but like the construction
| at Falling Water, the implementation leaves a bit to be desired

The whole concept of built-in furniture is fraught with peril. And I'm not
talking about Murphy beds or bookshelves. The notion of setting in stone
(or nailed-down wood) just what the furniture should be and where it should
go denies some of the freedom normally enjoyed by the inhabitant. We enjoy
our homes partly because we can adapt them to our tastes in ways the
original designer perhaps did not envision or intend, and because we can
change those adaptations at will.

Mutability appeals to some people. Look at how many people post here
saying, "I've got this table that I really like, but I need to change it.
How should I go about it?" Maybe Wright built in a seat or a table
somewhere with a very good reason in mind, but who is to say the inhabitant
recognizes and appreciates that reason? Who's to say the inhabitant hasn't
found a better reason for locating that piece across the room?

Now we here tend to congregate at the nascent end of a piece's life cycle.
There is a certain sense of "ownership" of a piece, even if we pass physical
possession of it to someone else and cash his check. We invest our creative
efforts into choosing the wood, executing our design, and carefully
finishing the piece. And so part of us wants to scream when the recipient
glops on six coats of Minwax High-Gloss Kindergartner Snot. But the other
part of us has to admit that if that's what makes the piece visually
appealing or functional to its new owner, it's better that way. It means
the end user is "correcting" a "deficiency" that we should have seen.

Wright took great care to create an integrated expression of his ideas to a
great level of detail. If some fault exists in the design, or in the
execution of the design, we would like to have the ability to correct it.
Wright didn't leave much flexibility for that. And in so doing requires you
either to take him or to leave him. If a designer is going to do that, then
he must accept being left.

| (at FW, they've spent OVER $4 million bucks to restore a house
| that cost about $100,000 to build, IIRC).

Well, sure. But how much do you think the Mona Lisa costs in terms of the
materials and initial labor? Compare that with the efforts now expended to
preserve and extend its life. We spend $4 million on Fallingwater because
it's the architectural equivalent of a Mona Lisa. Other houses get the
wrecking ball when their cantilevers sag.

I can go buy a bookshelf from Sauder made of compressed oatmeal with a
picture of wood pasted on it. It may look good in a context where a Krenov
would not. It may provide a sturdy, serviceable container where a Krenov
might not. Under those circumstances, the only advantage a Krenov has is
that Krenov made it. The value of art is exactly what we assign to it.

I remember having spent a lot of time in the 1980s with wildlife artist
Hayden Lambson, who is a friend of my grandfather. At the time he was just
an amateur painter. He had a typical desk job. He would show his works at
local art shows where people spread out their paintings on the lawn or
makeshift easels with prices marked in little colored stickers. The turning
point in his life came when a renowned artist visiting an art show paused at
one of his works, picked it up, and wrote Hayden a check for three times his
asking price. As Hayden's eyes widened, the artist said, "Don't you ever
sell a painting for anything less than that amount." Now, of course, Hayden
paints full time, has a full plate of commissions, and commands four and
five figures for originals. He doesn't paint any better or worse now than
when he was hawking his canvases in parks. The difference in the prices and
respect he commands was in finally realizing what impact his work was having
on others.

In a sense, the appreciation of art -- whether it's a coffee table, a house,
or a painting of a white-tailed deer -- is arbitrary. Why did we pick
Wright, out of all his contemporaries who were following the same design
principles, to be the exemplar of a particular style in a particular art
form? Why are we spending millions of dollars preserving his offerings
(including some of the most uncomfortable furniture ever built) at letting
others be destroyed? I don't know why. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, and therefore preservation comes from the wallet of that same
beholder.

| I love the way the two houses look and they way they are set
| into their respective landscapes, but I'd prefer not to even
| think seriously of living in them.

And that's a widely-shared opinion.

But, see, now we have to go back and revisit that "take-it-or-leave-it"
philosophy. Wright, in addition to his visual motivation, was also
practical. He wanted his work to be visually appealing, but also useful and
practical. He used lots of windows in order to provide natural light, but
that wasn't expected to come at the cost of freezing your kiester off during
a harsh Chicago winter. If you got cold sitting next to a window, Wright
would have advocated replacing his window with a better one.

Wright spent a lot of time working on designs that he intended to be easy to
live in and easy to build. He was big into the notion of pre-fab housing.
We associated him with unique and visually stunning commissions for the very
wealthy, but that isn't necessary the role he wrote for himself. He wanted
houses that looked nice, but that anyone could afford to own.

"Mr. Wright, I like your chairs, but they're so terribly uncomfortable."
Wright listened, and so version 2 had a sloped back. Still not as
comfortable as a Laz-E-Boy, but Wright did pay attention to that kind of
feedback. I'm not sure he would be pleased with the "preserve the original
design at all costs" mentality with which some have addressed his work.

And so in that respect, perhaps both his houses and his furniture designs
have passed into pure art, forsaking all semblance of function. But it's
because we made it that way, not necessarily because Wright made it that
way.

--Jay