Newsmax: The architecture school founded by Frank Lloyd Wright during the Great Depression will stop operating after 88 years, CNN reported on Wednesday.
The School of Architecture at Taliesin, with campuses in Wisconsin and Arizona, will close in June.
“We are saddened we could not reach an agreement with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to continue operating the architecture school,” Dan Schweiker, chair of the school’s board of governors, said in a press release. “Our innovative school and its mission were integral to Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for connecting architecture to our natural world. Wright’s legacy was not just building. It was a school to promulgate the lessons for all future generations.” read more
These days home buyers expect their roof not to leak.
OTOH–We visited Taliesin West 30 yrs ago and loved it.
FLWright was both genius and asshole. Much like Steve Jobs, et al.
I had a house that was designed by an FLW graduate.
Beautiful house.
– Until the flat roof leaked – that’s why I’m not in that house anymore
I never could make sense of flat roofs. Maintenance nightmares.
The only reasons flat roofs exist is a modern look, height restrictions and people with more money than brains. A new roof lasts about 10 years and then do it again.
By the way, I work for a company that does construction defect repair, we do a lot of dry rot repair from these things.
My house had a flat roof. It was vital to keep the drains cleared, otherwise, I loved my box of bricks and windows.
The closure of these schools is a tragedy. FLW was a genius and his buildings were modern without being jarring. We could use more of his designs in the world.
Just like all geniuses, Frank had the vision, but he had too much faith in the structural integrity of concrete.
Flat roofs have been around since the dawn of time. That’s how they caught rainwater and delivered it to cisterns.
But those areas had no trees around to fill the scuppers and no cheap builder grade materials tp fail after a year or two.
Leaving for Neptune in “10-9-8…”.
Some of his stuff looks like stacked up phone books to me.
So long, so long..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0RrF6KsI8
Most, MJA. Most.
BTW, that S&G song i posted above…When I was little, and my mom played that album, she’d run in and pick up the needle. She hated FLW architecture and that wimpy song about him. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song all the way through.
While yes FLW buildings (homes) were known for have leaky roofs, it’s not such much because of flat roofs. His buildings did have roofs, for the most part, they are just of such a minor slope, 3 on 12, very shallow this is not good for the freeze thaw cycle.
Some of the problems were do to outdoor decks that would have cantilever roofs over them, also a problem, as the roof, had the likelihood of sagging over time, IF not designed and built properly:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/technology/technology-terms-and-concepts/cantilever
In defense of the leaky roofs, he had a Jeffersonian Agrarian belief system and he perhaps was America’s most prolific architect. He used unconventional building methods, introduced modular building systems for middle class families (again for the most part) he was designing the Guggenheim right up to the end of his life, that was his last project in around 1959.
Yes, he appears to have been an asshole in the micro world, but in the macro world he really was a great American and pioneer.
His Prairie School and Unsonian styles did not really get any steam though.
Oh, his mistress and two children, along with five other people were murdered in Taliesin I, in Spring Green Wisconsin around 1915, by a crazed grounds keeper who just about decapitated several of the family members that caught on fire and set the house and studio on FIRE as well using gasoline.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/28519/taliesin-tragedy
FLW was away for a project in Chicago…
Very interesting life he had for sure.
Too bad the school and the foundation could not come to some agreement.