FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Designs for an American Landscape, 1922-1932
|
|
HOME - Overview
- Introduction
- Gordon Strong
- Lake Tahoe
- Doheny Ranch
Johnson Desert
Compound
- San Marcos
- Copyright and Ordering
Information
- Credits
Doheny Ranch Development
Road map showing the proposed location of the Doheny
Ranch Development, Beverly Hills, California
Charles Owens, cartographer
Motor Routes through the Heart of Southern California (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, 1920)
Photolithograph
Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (22)
DOHENY RANCH DEVELOPMENT,BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, 1923
Attempting to reestablish practice in Los Angeles in 1922, Wright found
himself challenged to propose new, more positive approaches than those
being adopted by developers. He focused on one of the most enticing sectors
of the large, undeveloped plots that skirted the city: the 411-acre Doheny
Ranch, located in what is now Beverly Hills and later developed as the
Trousdale Estates. The land was owned by Edward Laurence Doheny (1856-1935),
then one of America's wealthiest citizens.
How understandable for Wright to have sought Doheny as a client, and
to have proposed a residential development of unparalleled scale. No
records have been discovered to document any contact between Wright and
Doheny, who quite possibly never met. It therefore seems that Wright
prepared his design in the hope of interesting Doheny rather than in
response to any actual commission.
Few drawings survive, and they are largely pictorial; evidence suggests
that all were completed during the early months of 1923. The proposal,
unencumbered by the realities of an actual programme, suggests a prototype
for a new type of Southern California suburb.
Ample precedents for Doheny exist in Wright's own work-for instance
his design for the Sherman M. Booth house (unbuilt; Glencoe, Illinois,
1911). The new elements of massiveness, textured masonry, and walled
gardens seem partly inspired by Italian vernacular buildings, which Wright
came to admire following a prolonged visit to Italy in 1910. During his
stays in Japan, he discovered landscapes that joined buildings and plantings
into one composition.
From his fascination with pre-Columbian architecture-arguably a natural
source for the indigenous expression he sought in California-came a renewed
awareness of large-scale composition. Yet ultimately the conception of
the Doheny Ranch was his. Fixity and mobility were to be joined in a
single composition that anticipated, in both scale and function, more
recent, adventurous approaches to the problems of the suburb.
Hypothetical study model of the Doheny Ranch Development
View of model
View of model, enlarged
The model is based on Wright's overall perspectives of the development in which
variations of Houses `A' and `B' can be discerned together with other, more generalized
forms. As a study of the actual site makes clear, he drew only a central section
of the Doheny Ranch. In realizing that section as a hypothetical study model,
it became clear that his massing studies corresponded closely to the original
topography.
In the model, House `C', which seems ideally suited for the northern section
of the site, has been so placed. Segments of roads correspond to Wright's perspectives,
as do building elements on a far ridge, but no attempt has been made to add
the additional buildings or complete the road system that would have been necessary
had he continued to develop the scheme.
Basswood and birch, 1995-96
Scale: 1 inch = 50 feet (area represented: approximately 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile)
Created for the exhibition by George Ranalli, architect, with Aaron McDonald
and Julie Shurtz, model makers (21)
Sketch perspective for Olive
Hill, Los Angeles
Anticipating his later design for the Doheny Ranch, Wright used building elements
to terrace the hill, achieving a single, integrated composition in this sketch
that reflects his hand.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on paper, 1920
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (23)
Perspective with pool for the
community playhouse (The Little Dipper), Olive Hill, Los Angeles
Intended as a neighborhood kindergarten, The Little Dipper was partly built
on its Olive Hill site before Aline Barnsdall, impatient with cost overruns,
halted construction. Of interest as it relates to the Doheny Ranch project,
the drawing demonstrates a clear advance in angular planning. Diagonal segments
of the plan are smoothly integrated into bridging elements that link terraces
and pools into a single, persuasive composition.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper,
ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (24)
Perspective from below for the
Aline Barnsdall House, Beverly Hills, California
Perspective, enlarged
This commission from Aline Barnsdall for a second house was done while Wright
was working out ideas for the Doheny Ranch Development. The detail of the arch
in the roadway suggests how details for Doheny might have been designed.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on Japanese paper, 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1986 (25)
Front elevation for the Aline
Barnsdall House, Beverly Hills, California
Front elevation, enlarged
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1986 (27)
PERSPECTIVE VIEWS
Wright's design of 1923 responded to the expansive qualities of the Doheny
site, respected local vegetation, and accommodated the automobile in both spatial
and architectural terms. It was nothing less than an idealized prototype for
what American suburbs might have become, but did not. As surviving perspectives
demonstrate, buildings, roadways, and plantings are conceived as an integrated
totality; it is the vision of the suburb as one structure.
Roadways depicted as powerful visual elements appear to terrace the hills,
providing a unifying pattern. Developed in the manner of viaducts, they bridge
intermediate ravines on gracefully arcuated spans or massively embank the steep
terrain. Walls defining these roadways extend to become walls of the houses
themselves.
Numerous roof terraces broaden the horizontal planes of the connecting roads,
amplifying an architectural image of vast scale. Both roads and houses are
clustered in ways that structure the site by selectively shaping and retaining
the natural slopes. The more fragile segments of valleys and the steepest slopes
are left largely untouched, but are joined in the full composition to achieve
an effect of extraordinary unity.
Perspective for the Doheny Ranch Development
This view is taken from a position sufficiently near the bottom of the near
ridge to show a ramped roadway leading north along the closer valley. It is
a generalized image. In actuality, the intermediate ridge drops less to the
north (or right) than is suggested, and glimpses of the ocean shown far beyond
(to the west) would necessitate a higher vantage point.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (5)
Here I was looking around me in Los Angeles - disgusted. There they were
busy with steam-shovels tearing down the hills. . . . Nearby . . . tan-gold foothills
rise . . . to join slopes spotted as the leopard-skin, with grease-bush. . .
. This foreground spreads to distances so vast - human scale is utterly lost
as all features recede, turn blue, recede, and become bluer still. . . . What
was missing? Nothing more or less than a distinctly genuine expression of California
. . . that was all. 1932
Preliminary perspective for
the Doheny Ranch Development
Preliminary perspective, enlarged
Two preliminary perspectives record Wright's shaping of the development, with
monumental clusters of plantings and connected building forms used as compositional
elements.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on Japanese paper, ca. 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift, Donald D. Walker, 1986 (6)
Preliminary perspective for
the Doheny Ranch Development
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (11)
Perspective for the Doheny Ranch Development
Because the topography is more accurately portrayed and the architectural elements
rendered with sharper detail than in the alternate, finished perspective,
this drawing appears to be the later of the two. The northern slope of the
central ridge corresponds with the site as seen today, and the higher vantage
point (allowing, with some liberty, a hint of ocean on the left horizon)
has left the bottom of the valley hidden within the folds of the hills below.
The inscription in Wright's hand reads: "Looking down on terraced roofs.
The whole becoming a terraced 'garden' suitable to the region."
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
Collection of Erving and Joyce Wolf (7)
HOUSES `A', `B', AND `C', DOHENY RANCH DEVELOPMENT
While surviving perspectives of the Doheny development are sufficiently loose
as to suggest that nothing other than a general layout was ever conceived,
designs for three prototypical houses that could be adapted to various sites
within it provide additional evidence.
Labeled `A', `B', and `C', they embody a new spatial typology in Wright's
work, related in their interior verticality and terracing to the Thomas P.
Hardy house (built; Racine, Wisconsin, 1905), but now more decisively developed.
There is an exaggerated mass to the designs, spaces are more formally differentiated,
and the play of levels is greater. Consistent with Wright's earlier work, each
building relates sensitively to its site, yet is more boldly shaped to strengthen
an overall composition.
Houses `A' and `B', both linear in configuration, bridge shallow ravines
and terrace sloping land rising behind. The roadway to `B', contained within
a viaduct, powerfully extends the line of the house. House `C', dramatically
angled in plan, seems to reconnect the landforms themselves. It marks Wright's
most pervasive, compelling use of angled geometries up to this time.
Perspective with partial plan for House
'A', the Doheny Ranch Development
This prototype was apparently conceived for a location just below a major ridge,
where it would bridge one of the many shallow ravines leading down from the
top. Walled terraces with unglazed, corbelled openings extend from each side;
to the left, these walls define an "entrance terrace," and to the right, a "terrace
garden."
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (8)
Main floor plan for House `A',
the Doheny Ranch Development
Major spaces are placed on different levels. A formal stairway at the back,
within an enclosed garden built against the slope rising behind, leads to the
living room above.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (10)
Elevation for House `A', the
Doheny Ranch Development
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (9)
Upper floor plan for House `A',
the Doheny Ranch Development
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (12)
Perspective for House `B', the
Doheny Ranch Development
The walls of the terrace extend to enclose a roadway on the right, a massive
viaduct that bridges an intermediate valley. On the left, walls surround a
long, narrow terrace.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (13)
Lower floor plan for House 'B',
the Doheny Ranch Development
A long, open gallery-like a Roman cryptoporticus-is placed beneath the roadway
and terraces above.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (14)
Main floor plan for House 'B',
the Doheny Ranch Development
The lack of windows along the back suggests that this prototype was intended
to be placed tightly against a hillside. At the end of the roadway on the right,
a circular turntable-not uncommon at the time-would have allowed cars to reverse
direction within the narrow space.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (15)
Upper floor plan for House `B',
the Doheny Ranch Development
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (19)
Lower floor plan for House 'C',
the Doheny Ranch Development
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (16)
Main floor plan for House `C',
the Doheny Ranch Development
This prototype could be located near the top of a ridge, where its main floor
could overlook the walled court shown behind, while the back wall of the floor
below, shown without windows, could retain the slope.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (20)
Perspective with partial plan
for House 'C', the Doheny Ranch Development
The projecting terrace walls balance the inwardly angled house behind; additional
terraces bridge steep slopes rising on each side. At the prow of the angled
terrace, a stairway leads around an open well; on the top landing, a fountain
creates the effect of a water cascade.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, ca. 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (17)
Elevation and plan for House
`C', the Doheny Ranch Development
Elevation and plan, Enlarged
In this recently discovered drawing, ideas for a third house, "Type C", are
developed. These ideas include a lower level with a roadway angling in and
under the projecting terrace above, a feature dropped from the final perspective.
Erasures visible in the perspective suggest that this roadway was originally
indicated in that view.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on Japanese paper, ca. 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift, Donald D. Walker, 1986 (18)
Perspective for the Alice Millard house (La Miniatura),
Pasadena, California
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on Japanese paper, 1923
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Hochschild (28)
Perspective for the Alice Millard
house (La Miniatura), Pasadena, California
Perspective, enlarged
For the publication of a series of articles on Wright in the Dutch magazine
Wendingen in 1925 the architect modified this photograph of his original drawing.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and gouache on gelatin photoprint, ca. 1925
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1992 (158)
CONCRETE BLOCK HOUSES, 1923-24
Paralleling Wright's proposals for the Doheny Ranch were designs for Aline
Barnsdall (1882-1946). Hollyhock House, which he began to plan in 1917, records
his first response to the Los Angeles area. During and after the course of
its prolonged construction (1919-22), Wright designed other buildings for her
expansive Olive Hill site, including a theatre, a community playhouse, and
adjoining houses as well as a long row of shops along one edge of her property.
As a group, they relate in scale and appearance to Doheny but lack that project's
more sweeping unity. Closer to the conception of Houses A, B, and C were the
four block houses Wright realized in Los Angeles in 1923-24.
Fundamental to Wright's approach were the materials and methods by which
his designs could be realized. Never, it seems, did he design without reference
to these essential elements, though rarely was he bound by their conventional
limitations, seeking instead to broaden their potential. His development of
concrete blocks into what he called the textile-block system illustrates this
approach. The first conceptions of architectural form and the means by which
these forms could be realized were intertwined from the beginning.
The textile-block system that Wright developed during the 1920s underlies
his designs for Doheny and related projects of the period, including four houses
in the Los Angeles area: Millard (called La Miniatura, 1923), Storer (1923),
Freeman (1924), and Ennis (1924). All four houses were built, illustrating
in fragmentary form the ideal suburban image of the Doheny Ranch development.
Similar to the individual units in that project, each house was related to
a roadway; when space allowed, these roadways were made an active part of the
design. Each structure also embanked or retained the slope of its site through
extended walls and terraces, so that an intermediate, clearly bounded area
of cultivated garden was created. This garden area, in turn, linked each building
to the surrounding, seemingly unchanged terrain.
Plan, elevation, and related
sketches for the Alice Millard house (La Miniatura), Pasadena, California
Sketch details indicate Wright's early development of his textile-block system.
As in other instances, he later dated this drawing 1920-21, earlier than the
actual commission.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on tracing paper, 1923
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (29)
View of the Alice Millard house
under construction, Pasadena, California
Kameki Tsuchiura, photographer
Gelatin silver print
1923 (negative exposed), modern print from copy negative
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (173)
A building could grow right up out of the soil - wherever sand and gravel
abound, a few steel strands dropped into the concrete for reinforcement. Steel
has given new life to "concrete" - new possibilities, finer purposes. When it
was found that the coefficient of expansion and contraction was the same for
concrete and for steel, a new world opened to the architect. 1930
Plan of lower level for the John Storer house, Los Angeles
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on Japanese paper, 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gif, Donald D. Walker, 1986 (30)
Perspective for the John Storer
house, Los Angeles
Perspective, enlarged
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, 1923
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1986 (31)
Aerial perspective for the Samuel
Freeman house, Los Angeles
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, 1924
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (32)
Sketch plan for the Samuel Freeman
house, Los Angeles
In this sketch, the roadway is firmly drawn into the composition, and terrace
levels extending below recall similar forms in the Aline Barnsdall Beverly
Hills design.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite on tracing paper, 1924
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (33)
Full-sized detail of pattern
block for the Samuel Freeman house, Los Angeles
Full-sized detail, enlarged
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite and colored pencil on Japanese paper, 1924
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1986 (144)
Blocks from the Samuel Freeman
house, Los Angeles
View showing edge of block
Concrete,1924
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
(135)
(134)
Perspective from below for the
Charles W. Ennis house, Los Angeles
Perspective, enlarged
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Graphite, and colored pencil on tracing paper, 1924
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Donald D. Walker, 1986 (155)
Perspective from below with
partial plan for the Charles W. Ennis house, Los Angeles
The long retaining wall of this design, incorporating extensive terraces and
a generously scaled parking court, comes closest of the four block houses to
realizing the image of the Doheny Ranch Development.
Office of Frank Lloyd Wright
Ink, graphite, and colored pencil on tracing paper,1924
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona (34)
CONCRETE BLOCKS
A building could grow right up out of the soil - wherever sand and gravel
abound, a few steel strands dropped into the concrete for reinforcement.
Steel has given new life to `concrete' - new possibilities, finer purposes.
When it was found that the coefficient of expansion and contraction was the
same for concrete and for steel, a new world opened to the architect. 1930
As realized, each of the California block houses departed from the ideal
construction Wright originally envisioned, which would have used blocks woven
on steel rods for walls, floors, and roofs. In practice, blocks were also combined
with more conventional frame construction.
Yet in each successive house Wright manipulated the blocks themselves with
increasing ease, gradually extracting a degree of richness through sensitively
located bands of ornament, stepped planes, and battered profiles. These effects,
only suggested in the Doheny drawings, were most fully realized in the Ennis
house.
HOME - Overview
- Introduction
- Gordon Strong
- Lake Tahoe
- Doheny Ranch
Johnson Desert
Compound
- San Marcos
- Copyright and Ordering
Information
- Credits Exhibits Home
Page - Library of Congress Home
Page
Library
of Congress
Contact Us (
July 6, 2005
) |