Art as Microcosm (2004)

[Newberry]

Roger,

Your piece is very dense and very long and quite abstract. Not enough examples for me to get my mind around. One simple example I thought of is how to resolve the idea of small worlds with larger than life figures in a painting...

Ellen:

"The Scream." What's going to be said in short order by an Objectivist about that painting? That it depicts a "malevolent" "sense of life" and "metaphysical value-judgments" of an inhospitable universe. But is this accurate, or useful, in understanding the painting? I don't think so. The painting depicts an emotional state of cut-of-from-others angst, a screaming which isn't heard by others.

Both your views of what the painting is about and what you think “objectivists” think about are quite similar–they are not worlds apart.

Is there anyone who has never experienced such a state? Maybe so, but I'm not one of those people if so. If an artist depicts this state, is the artist therefore revealing that he or she feels this as a characteristic mood?

I don’t think that artists can, simultaneously, be happy-go-lucky and paint dark moody pieces. In creating art there are a few overlapping states of consciousness going on at the same time. One of the states will deal with the subject/content of the work. If the artist doesn’t feel like the content of the painting they are full of shit. That would be the pathetic sight of 2nd hand person, who wants to project a world that they do not feel.

Also, I am sure an artist can feel a kind of excitement or exaltation in getting across the feeling, dark or whatever, of the artwork..

Is the artist claiming that people should feel this? Or that happiness is impossible in existence?

Well, if I were Munch, I would hope that people would feel empathy or horror at the sight of screaming person. And I would be scratching my head if they danced away from the painting like Gene Kelly.

Would the Objectivist say that such a painting would better not be done? That there's something inherently wrong with the artist for doing it?

These are interesting questions. If you will empathize with my reply...on a personal level artists should simply be true to themselves. No biggy there. But to some of us, as artists, our understanding and experience with art takes us in certain directions. For me, art is a beacon; states that I want to experience in life. But an objectivist key here is the idea that the nature of art serves a profound function: it is literally the stuff that dreams are made of. It is Rand’s contention that without art, we might have the ability to imagine beyond our immediate surroundings and problems, but we wouldn’t have the irresistible confidence to go for it..

Therefore, if art’s nature is to support the efficacy of our minds, then the artist that does not do that is working against it. Then you can get into the weird spectacle of artists using and sabotaging the means of art.

That's there's something inherently wrong with anyone who likes it? (I like it; my husband likes it. Are we both malevolent universers?)

I don’t know, are you? Does it hang over your bed? Or do you give prints of it as wedding gifts? If it were hanging in your home with a Duchamp, a De Kooning, a Koons, and a Hirst, and not any other art, it might cross my mind that you would be a narcotic and neurotic New Yorker.

Hahahahah, I like the Scream as well.

Michael

[James Shay]

The result is, on the level of the microcosm, the impression of a world that is “rationally ordered, harmoniously integrated, and seamlessly joined with nature. It tells us that the world makes sense. . . . The theme of Fallingwater is rational order and its consequence: man’s harmony with this world” (22). In other words, Tracinski suggests, Fallingwater presents the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by obeying it. Gehry’s museum, on the other hand, presents instead the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by asserting whim.

Roger,

Recently, while reading through your paper,"Art as Microcosm", I came across a statement about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which says that it's theme is "rational thought and its consequences: man's harmony with this world." You quote this from an article in the Intellectual Activist entitled "Architecture and Sense of Life" by architect and historian Sherri Tracinski. When I read it alarm bells went off for me, as they always do when Wright and Rand are wed.

So, as an architect, I decided to briefly write a few thoughts about the work of objectivist writers on architecture, the Wright/Rand nexus, and the Fallingwater statement. I don't intend this as any kind of "mini-paper" and perhaps this isn't the best place to post my thoughts, because some of them aren't directly related to your paper. Michael and Kat might relocate what I have to say somewhere else on OL. Nevertheless, your article was a jumping-off place for me. The first three following paragraphs are about the character of the writing in Tracinski's article. These are followed by four paragraphs about her use of Fallingwater as an example of rational thought in architecture, followed by a few general comments about some objectivist writing on architecture.

Tracinski extensively quotes Rand in her opening five paragraphs. She writes, "Anyone who has ever read The Fountainhead has been captivated by the moving eloquence of Ayn Rand's descriptions of Howard Roark's buildings.[Anyone?] At the same time, however, most of those who admire Ayn Rands' novels do not have a clear knowledge of how to evaluate buildings or judge the works of architecture they see around them. This is not surprising as it may seem. The Fountainhead provides little in the way of an explicit or detailed theory of architecture."

I read and reread this because it seemed so odd to me. I wasn't surprised that Rand did not include a "detailed theory of architecture". Architecture wasn't an area of expertise for her.

Tracinski, who at the time of writing her article described herself as a licensed architect and graduate student, writes, "most of the buildings built today are, like their architect's philosophy, such a hodgepodge of different elements that they convey little or no meaning." This contemptuous Randian/Wrightian nonsense is dumb and alienating, and implies an unusually great intellectual perceptiveness and a special kind of all-encompassing visual accuity possessed by the writer. Since she cannot have seen "most of the buildings built today" or interviewed most of today's architects (over 100,000 in America alone) to discover and analyze their particular philosophies, how did she arrive at her judgement? Did she look at representative samples and, if so, where? Illinois? Rio de Janeiro? Kuala Lumpur? How did she extrapolate the results to her conclusion? And what were her criteria for a hodgepodge-like philosophy? Wondering if Tracinski, as an actual architect, might have completed buildings which would provide clarity to her statements, I searched Google's 112 responses to her name for examples of her work in built architecture without success. (Said less politely, some architects I know might ask her to "put up or shut up".)

Fallingwater is incomparably beautiful (at thirteen I decided to become an architect after reading Wright's The Natural House and the Living City. To say that I was astonished at the beauty of his work in the photographs and drawings of buildinigs within the text is an understatement.) But it's not an especially good example of rational thought. The weight of the enormous, poorly conceived and badly engineered decks was slowly tearing apart the building and dragging it into Bear Run Creek until massive structural corrections a few years ago. It has cost over eleven million dollars to save this relatively small house. Structural calculations are rational. As often happens when objectivists talk and write about architecture, Wright has been misappropriated to make the author's point, that Fallingwater represents the "consequences of rational thought: man's harmony with this world."

More importantly and in addition to the structural weakness within its bones, Fallingwater does not visually exemplify rationality. Viewed from below the second waterfall past the house the cross-cantilevered deck off the living room appears to be headed into the water below the house because of its pronounced and unfortunate seven-inch-plus sag.

Tracinski distorts Wright's intent and uses the finishes on the building's great decks to make her case that Fallingwater is a "natural" building. She praises them as "tan concrete" (they're actually gray concrete with an an applied pale apricot/yellow ochre finish), but that's not at all what he intended. He wanted gold leaf (hardly a "natural finish"). Can you imagine? Thank god Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner, refused to pay the incredible cost!

In her article Tracinski is very off-putting when comparing Fallingwater to Frank Gehry's Wiseman Center, which she describes as "the architectural equivalent of an epileptic seizure, tin-can castle," and "a madman's fantasy world." The building conveys a sense of "unintelligible chaos" with its "absurb shapes" and has a "stage set effect." On entering the building you "are slapped in the face with a peacefully calm, simple lobby."(?) She has absolutely nothing good whatsoever to say about Gehry's building and nothing negative at all to say about Fallingwater.

Tracinski has important things to say to those beyond the objectivist world who love architecture and who she might reach if she quit insulting them. She writes eloquently about what she regards as the relationship between The Enlightenment and architecture, and closes her article with a brief but excellent paragraph about the value of living in buildings that reflect our beliefs. She does a terrific, instructive job of walking readers through the evaluation of a building, although she inexplicably omits a discussion of architectural space, which Wright and many others think is the foundation of fine architecture. Unfortunately, though, many nonobjectivist readers run when they hear Rand and Wright so enmeshed. Most knowledgeable readers of architectural writing are aware of the dogma contained in Wright's books and articles, in which he sometimes says or implies that he is the Way, the Truth and the Light.

I wish she had picked a different building by Wright to use in her paper, perhaps the Robie House near Chicago or Taliesin West, outside Phoenix. Neither of them have obvious structural defects that I'm aware of. More than that I wish she and Peter Cresswell, another objectivist writer on architecture who has a presence on SOLO, would more often use someone other than Wright to stand for all that's good in architecture. Since 1968, when I began to read Rand's work and that of others related to objectivism, I have encountered within the writing Frank Lloyd Wright's name literally thousands of times, and rarely if ever the names of other great architects used in a positive sense. By my admittedly somewhat arbitrary and hard to substantiate calculations at least two-hundred-thousand people, at the very least, have practiced architecture, since 1900, when Wright's independent career more or less really got going. Surely there are other extraordinary architects with whom objectivists can illustrate their points. Using him again and again becomes stale, boring and sometimes comes across as lightweight scholarship. And pairing Wright and Rand, two heavy duty moralizers, has a distinct whiff of "true believerism."

Cresswell wrote an article, What is Architecture," which begins with an informative explanation of his beliefs illustrated with diagrams and photographs. He even includes a delightful excursion into Minoan palaces and Egyptian mortuary temples. But he then goes on to four or five pages of theory as it relates to contemporary buildings in which he extensively quotes Frank Lloyd Wright and almost no other twentieth century architect. In his article he talks of the "Gehry School of Post Modern Masturbation" and describes the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, which I like a lot, by Gehry as "egregiously incoherent." He describes those who write favorably about the building as "posturing fools." He goes after the fine contemporary architect, Zaha Hadid, when he writes of a recent design, "This mess, designed for the poor fools at the Cincinatti Art Centre, was budgeted at $34.1 million dollars. The fools were a lot poorer after paying for it." He says we live in an "Age of Crap". Actually, since at least the nineties we have lived in a spectacular age of architecture with regard to large structures. Course, sarcastic and sometimes inadequately researched writing doesn't uphold the spirit of rational discussion. Objectivists and others should read carefully when they encounter Rand and Wright used together.

[James Shay]

The result is, on the level of the microcosm, the impression of a world that is “rationally ordered, harmoniously integrated, and seamlessly joined with nature. It tells us that the world makes sense. . . . The theme of Fallingwater is rational order and its consequence: man’s harmony with this world” (22). In other words, Tracinski suggests, Fallingwater presents the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by obeying it. Gehry’s museum, on the other hand, presents instead the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by asserting whim.

The indentations on my copy didn't show up on the posting, so here's a version with spaced paragraphs. Much easier to read.

Roger,

Recently, while reading through your paper,"Art as Microcosm", I came across a statement about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which says that it's theme is "rational thought and its consequences: man's harmony with this world." You quote this from an article in the Intellectual Activist entitled "Architecture and Sense of Life" by architect and historian Sherri Tracinski. When I read it alarm bells went off for me, as they always do when Wright and Rand are wed.

So, as an architect, I decided to briefly write a few thoughts about the work of objectivist writers on architecture, the Wright/Rand nexus, and the Fallingwater statement. I don't intend this as any kind of "mini-paper" and perhaps this isn't the best place to post my thoughts, because some of them aren't directly related to your paper. Michael and Kat might relocate what I have to say somewhere else on OL. Nevertheless, your article was a jumping-off place for me. The first three following paragraphs are about the character of the writing in Tracinski's article. These are followed by four paragraphs about her use of Fallingwater as an example of rational thought in architecture, followed by a few general comments about some objectivist writing on architecture.

Tracinski extensively quotes Rand in her opening five paragraphs. She writes, "Anyone who has ever read The Fountainhead has been captivated by the moving eloquence of Ayn Rand's descriptions of Howard Roark's buildings.[Anyone?] At the same time, however, most of those who admire Ayn Rands' novels do not have a clear knowledge of how to evaluate buildings or judge the works of architecture they see around them. This is not surprising as it may seem. The Fountainhead provides little in the way of an explicit or detailed theory of architecture."

I read and reread this because it seemed so odd to me. I wasn't surprised that Rand did not include a "detailed theory of architecture". Architecture wasn't an area of expertise for her.

Tracinski, who at the time of writing her article described herself as a licensed architect and graduate student, writes, "most of the buildings built today are, like their architect's philosophy, such a hodgepodge of different elements that they convey little or no meaning." This contemptuous Randian/Wrightian nonsense is dumb and alienating, and implies an unusually great intellectual perceptiveness and a special kind of all-encompassing visual accuity possessed by the writer. Since she cannot have seen "most of the buildings built today" or interviewed most of today's architects (over 100,000 in America alone) to discover and analyze their particular philosophies, how did she arrive at her judgement? Did she look at representative samples and, if so, where? Illinois? Rio de Janeiro? Kuala Lumpur? How did she extrapolate the results to her conclusion? And what were her criteria for a hodgepodge-like philosophy? Wondering if Tracinski, as an actual architect, might have completed buildings which would provide clarity to her statements, I searched Google's 112 responses to her name for examples of her work in built architecture without success. (Said less politely, some architects I know might ask her to "put up or shut up".)

Fallingwater is incomparably beautiful (at thirteen I decided to become an architect after reading Wright's The Natural House and the Living City. To say that I was astonished at the beauty of his work in the photographs and drawings of buildinigs within the text is an understatement.) But it's not an especially good example of rational thought. The weight of the enormous, poorly conceived and badly engineered decks was slowly tearing apart the building and dragging it into Bear Run Creek until massive structural corrections a few years ago. It has cost over eleven million dollars to save this relatively small house. Structural calculations are rational. As often happens when objectivists talk and write about architecture, Wright has been misappropriated to make the author's point, that Fallingwater represents the "consequences of rational thought: man's harmony with this world."

More importantly and in addition to the structural weakness within its bones, Fallingwater does not visually exemplify rationality. Viewed from below the second waterfall past the house the cross-cantilevered deck off the living room appears to be headed into the water below the house because of its pronounced and unfortunate seven-inch-plus sag.

Tracinski distorts Wright's intent and uses the finishes on the building's great decks to make her case that Fallingwater is a "natural" building. She praises them as "tan concrete" (they're actually gray concrete with an an applied pale apricot/yellow ochre finish), but that's not at all what he intended. He wanted gold leaf (hardly a "natural finish"). Can you imagine? Thank god Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner, refused to pay the incredible cost!

In her article Tracinski is very off-putting when comparing Fallingwater to Frank Gehry's Wiseman Center, which she describes as "the architectural equivalent of an epileptic seizure, tin-can castle," and "a madman's fantasy world." The building conveys a sense of "unintelligible chaos" with its "absurb shapes" and has a "stage set effect." On entering the building you "are slapped in the face with a peacefully calm, simple lobby."(?) She has absolutely nothing good whatsoever to say about Gehry's building and nothing negative at all to say about Fallingwater.

Tracinski has important things to say to those beyond the objectivist world who love architecture and who she might reach if she quit insulting them. She writes eloquently about what she regards as the relationship between The Enlightenment and architecture, and closes her article with a brief but excellent paragraph about the value of living in buildings that reflect our beliefs. She does a terrific, instructive job of walking readers through the evaluation of a building, although she inexplicably omits a discussion of architectural space, which Wright and many others think is the foundation of fine architecture. Unfortunately, though, many nonobjectivist readers run when they hear Rand and Wright so enmeshed. Most knowledgeable readers of architectural writing are aware of the dogma contained in Wright's books and articles, in which he sometimes says or implies that he is the Way, the Truth and the Light.

I wish she had picked a different building by Wright to use in her paper, perhaps the Robie House near Chicago or Taliesin West, outside Phoenix. Neither of them have obvious structural defects that I'm aware of. More than that I wish she and Peter Cresswell, another objectivist writer on architecture who has a presence on SOLO, would more often use someone other than Wright to stand for all that's good in architecture. Since 1968, when I began to read Rand's work and that of others related to objectivism, I have encountered within the writing Frank Lloyd Wright's name literally thousands of times, and rarely if ever the names of other great architects used in a positive sense. By my admittedly somewhat arbitrary and hard to substantiate calculations at least two-hundred-thousand people, at the very least, have practiced architecture, since 1900, when Wright's independent career more or less really got going. Surely there are other extraordinary architects with whom objectivists can illustrate their points. Using him again and again becomes stale, boring and sometimes comes across as lightweight scholarship. And pairing Wright and Rand, two heavy duty moralizers, has a distinct whiff of "true believerism."

Cresswell wrote an article, What is Architecture," which begins with an informative explanation of his beliefs illustrated with diagrams and photographs. He even includes a delightful excursion into Minoan palaces and Egyptian mortuary temples. But he then goes on to four or five pages of theory as it relates to contemporary buildings in which he extensively quotes Frank Lloyd Wright and almost no other twentieth century architect. In his article he talks of the "Gehry School of Post Modern Masturbation" and describes the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, which I like a lot, by Gehry as "egregiously incoherent." He describes those who write favorably about the building as "posturing fools." He goes after the fine contemporary architect, Zaha Hadid, when he writes of a recent design, "This mess, designed for the poor fools at the Cincinatti Art Centre, was budgeted at $34.1 million dollars. The fools were a lot poorer after paying for it." He says we live in an "Age of Crap". Actually, since at least the nineties we have lived in a spectacular age of architecture with regard to large structures. Course, sarcastic and sometimes inadequately researched writing doesn't uphold the spirit of rational discussion. Objectivists and others should read carefully when they encounter Rand and Wright used together.

[Brant Gaede]

Fallingwater's problems stem from the fact that Kaufmann went along with his engineers' suggestion that the house needed more structural steel and the builder's mistake of not compensating for the inevitable drop of the cantilevers as they flexed from the weight.

I'm not an expert on this subject and not sure about the above, but it has become common recently to blame Wright for a lot of the deficiencies in his homes. He did build that disaster The Barnsdale House in LA.

--Brant

[James Shay]

Fallingwater's problems stem from the fact that Kaufmann went along with his engineers' suggestion that the house needed more structural steel and the builder's mistake of not compensating for the inevitable drop of the cantilevers as they flexed from the weight.

I'm not an expert on this subject and not sure about the above, but it has become common recently to blame Wright for a lot of the deficiencies in his homes. He did build that disaster The Barnsdale House in LA.

--Brant

Brant, Both of the things you state are in the realm of myth with regard to Fallingwater, propogated by Wrightians to shift the blame onto the contractor and owner. In Fallingwater Rising, a recent book about the building, the author, who's name escapes me, lays out in detail what, it seems, really went wrong.

As the author and others have stated, Wright pushed concrete into "the realm of folly". The decks are a combination of concrete beams hidden within the depth of the decks, all tied together on the bottom by a single concrete plane. They are enormously heavy. He later expressed regrets that he used such enormous amounts of concrete and did not design the side parapets of the decks as cantilevered trusses, which would have greatly reduced the deck's weight.

I suppose there's enough blame to go around, but on this one it really wasn't the contractor or the owner. I believe the reinforcing steel was upped from 7/8 inch round to 1 inch square, and that wouldn't greatly affect the weight, although the number of bars may have been greatly increased, as well. Wright's own engineer later believed he might have forgotten some of the steel necessary to resist the deflection, although some people discount what he says.

With regard to the flex of the cantilevers, the contractor apparently did not, as you say, set the formwork as he should have to allow for deflection. However, this anticipated deflection in concrete is normally no more than 3/4's of an inch, not 7 inches. In addition to the weight factor, there is also a misdesigned beam within the lower deck which Wright bent to go around the opening for the stair to the creek below. It does not function well, and is in part the reason for the sag.

You mention the Barnsdall House in LA. I actually like it and the other LA houses quite a bit. The Barnsdall House and the Ennis House, which recently started heading downhill as well, are really ususual, no doubt, but I like their Mayan references, as odd as they are. What do you dislike about it? I spent a fair amount of time in the Freeman House in Hollywood, and it's interior was absolutely magical.

Jim

[Brant Gaede]

I believe The Barnsdale House's exterior walls did not hold up well to the elements. In any case it was extensively restored several years ago.

--Brant

[James Shay]

I believe The Barnsdale House's exterior walls did not hold up well to the elements. In any case it was extensively restored several years ago.

--Brant

I didn't know that the Barnsdall House had been restored. When I saw it the plaster wasn't in good shape. That house and the others in LA are such an interesting diversion from Wright's much more modern work. It's been written that they represent his response to the Spanish Colonial work popular in California during his years in the area. He wanted an earlier precedent for a revival style.

Wright's work in LA and some of his early work goes distinctly against the grain of any connection with Ayn Rand. In The Fountainhead I remember that Roark lectured a client who wanted a revivalist house about the importance of building a modern home. Rand put her money where her convictions were and bought a beautiful and important Richard Neutra house in the San Fernando Valley.

Roark's client exemplifies part of what many people want when they buy or construct a home, which is a lot of memories and associations with the past. In his own extraordinary way Wright was reaching for connections in California with the earliest level of significant North American architecture.

I like revivalist buildings, when they're well done and have designed a few. I don't think that liking them or living in one is forsaking modernity. It would be interesting to read something well written about that by an objectivist.

[Brant Gaede]

I'd bet Rand had Fallingwater in mind when she wrote Anthem. It had been featured on the cover of Time magazine in the late 30s.

--Brant

[James Shay]

I'd bet Rand had Fallingwater in mind when she wrote Anthem. It had been featured on the cover of Time magazine in the late 30s.

--Brant

I think you may be right, if the dates work. The scene when the couple discovers the house in Anthem is one of my favorites in her writing. I remember Rand writes something about the sun sparkling off the glass in the distance.

Wright's Ennis House shows up a lot in films. Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner is in the house, although not in a very good looking area. Steve Martin's character in Grand Canyon lives in the Ennis House, and the film contains a beautiful shot of the living room.

Jim

[Newberry]

Hey Jim,

Nice to read your comments from a pro in the field.

I really enjoyed going through Fallingwater. I still recall how awesome it was to face the choice at the stairs in the living room--either I could step up the stairs and enter into the visible sky above, or take steps down and literally enter the water.

Once I got a secret private tour of the incomplete Disney Hall of Gehry's. The architect taking us around worked on the project wasn't too keen on the disconnect between the interior and exterior shell of the building--the interior did not reflect the exterior in the least. Perhaps an interesting contrast to Gehry's aesthetic is Michelangelo's view about the figure being inside the block of stone--he was appalled by the idea of using two or more blocks of marble for one sculpture.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Fallingwater's problems stem from the fact that Kaufmann went along with his engineers' suggestion that the house needed more structural steel and the builder's mistake of not compensating for the inevitable drop of the cantilevers as they flexed from the weight.

I'm not an expert on this subject and not sure about the above, but it has become common recently to blame Wright for a lot of the deficiencies in his homes. He did build that disaster The Barnsdale House in LA.

--Brant

Brant, Both of the things you state are in the realm of myth with regard to Fallingwater, propogated by Wrightians to shift the blame onto the contractor and owner. In Fallingwater Rising, a recent book about the building, the author, who's name escapes me, lays out in detail what, it seems, really went wrong.

As the author and others have stated, Wright pushed concrete into "the realm of folly". The decks are a combination of concrete beams hidden within the depth of the decks, all tied together on the bottom by a single concrete plane. They are enormously heavy. He later expressed regrets that he used such enormous amounts of concrete and did not design the side parapets of the decks as cantilevered trusses, which would have greatly reduced the deck's weight.

I suppose there's enough blame to go around, but on this one it really wasn't the contractor or the owner. I believe the reinforcing steel was upped from 7/8 inch round to 1 inch square, and that wouldn't greatly affect the weight, although the number of bars may have been greatly increased, as well. Wright's own engineer later believed he might have forgotten some of the steel necessary to resist the deflection, although some people discount what he says.

With regard to the flex of the cantilevers, the contractor apparently did not, as you say, set the formwork as he should have to allow for deflection. However, this anticipated deflection in concrete is normally no more than 3/4's of an inch, not 7 inches. In addition to the weight factor, there is also a misdesigned beam within the lower deck which Wright bent to go around the opening for the stair to the creek below. It does not function well, and is in part the reason for the sag.

You mention the Barnsdall House in LA. I actually like it and the other LA houses quite a bit. The Barnsdall House and the Ennis House, which recently started heading downhill as well, are really ususual, no doubt, but I like their Mayan references, as odd as they are. What do you dislike about it? I spent a fair amount of time in the Freeman House in Hollywood, and it's interior was absolutely magical.

Jim

This is all extremely interesting. I went through Fallingwater in 1974. Reading about its construction I was struck by how little time Wright seemed to have spent on site. Aesthetically to me it is the greatest private residence ever. In regard to the work he did for Ayn Rand, I do not like it very much. I thought it was generic, second-rate Wright, with too much massonry relative to glass and too damn big for two people. I also didn't like the way he did the casement windows, hung from the top seemingly from the top of the ceiling. If he had done more work on this design he would have greatly improved it. Wright, however, was an architect to his last day. Rand stopped being a novelist in 1957. Wright frequently indulged in magalomania. He proposed a mile-high skyscapper ("The Illinois") for Chicago and a beautiful bridge never built. (The George Washington bridge spanning the Hudson was built instead. Wright called the GW bridge "that agonized extravaganza," which it surely is.)

Anyone who visits the Metropolitan Museum of art in NYC should visit that Wright living room interior there (I forget from which house he did). I have always been overwhelmingly impressed with his interior aesthethics, craftmanship and what-have-you. His best interiors were not Fallingwater, btw, which is great too. In a few years I intend to travel the country and see as much Wright as I can.

Personally I prefer Richard Neutra to Wright. I think he used glass much better overall, but Wright's use of glass in Fallingwater is just outstanding.

--Brant

[James Shay]

Hey Jim,

Nice to read your comments from a pro in the field.

I really enjoyed going through Fallingwater. I still recall how awesome it was to face the choice at the stairs in the living room--either I could step up the stairs and enter into the visible sky above, or take steps down and literally enter the water.

Once I got a secret private tour of the incomplete Disney Hall of Gehry's. The architect taking us around worked on the project wasn't too keen on the disconnect between the interior and exterior shell of the building--the interior did not reflect the exterior in the least. Perhaps an interesting contrast to Gehry's aesthetic is Michelangelo's view about the figure being inside the block of stone--he was appalled by the idea of using two or more blocks of marble for one sculpture.

Michael

Michael,

At Fallingwater there is the slightly confusing array of stairs - which way to go? - and at the same time that great sense of being between sky and water.

I think you were very fortunate to go through the Disney Hall during construction. It's a cliche to say buildings are at their most exciting during construction, but very true. That's been the case for me. I love being on construction sites.

You are right about the interior/exterior disconnect, and that is a major knock against the Disney and Bilbao, along with their lack of interesting detailing in the building componants. The construction photos I have seen of each depict the walls constructed of enormous triangular truss stood on end, with one curve for the exterior shell and one for interior spaces. I have heard modernist architects who believe the structure, finish and shape of the space are one plane, whether curved or straight, denigrate the buildings because of their method of construction.

If I understand you correctly about Michelangelo, what you say about finding something within that is the direct result of it's method of forming ( and I think he also implied seeking the shape out as if it were imprisoned within the stone) is interesting compared to the shape/form disconnect, and that for some is the problem with the Gehry buildings. If they were cast in concrete, as are the shells of the Sydney Opera House, for example, they would seem more to have been found within the material, rather than somewhat contorted out of steel (am I making sense?). I believe I read that Bilbao has something like 400,000 different sizes of structural steel. Impossible to do without computers, for sure. Bilbao still is extraordinarily beautiful.

But, another way to look at the material issue would be to say that stone lends itself to mass, making the carving analogy appropriate in the sense that stone buildings sometimes convey a sense of having been carved. And steel and titanium might be said to lend themselves to trusses with shell-like covers.

And then there is Wright, who said architecture is what isn't there, formed by what is. I like that the best!

Jim

[James Shay]

Jim

This is all extremely interesting. I went through Fallingwater in 1974. Reading about its construction I was struck by how little time Wright seemed to have spent on site. Aesthetically to me it is the greatest private residence ever. In regard to the work he did for Ayn Rand, I do not like it very much. I thought it was generic, second-rate Wright, with too much massonry relative to glass and too damn big for two people. I also didn't like the way he did the casement windows, hung from the top seemingly from the top of the ceiling. If he had done more work on this design he would have greatly improved it. Wright, however, was an architect to his last day. Rand stopped being a novelist in 1957. Wright frequently indulged in magalomania. He proposed a mile-high skyscapper ("The Illinois") for Chicago and a beautiful bridge never built. (The George Washington bridge spanning the Hudson was built instead. Wright called the GW bridge "that agonized extravaganza," which it surely is.)

Anyone who visits the Metropolitan Museum of art in NYC should visit that Wright living room interior there (I forget from which house he did). I have always been overwhelmingly impressed with his interior aesthethics, craftmanship and what-have-you. His best interiors were not Fallingwater, btw, which is great too. In a few years I intend to travel the country and see as much Wright as I can.

Personally I prefer Richard Neutra to Wright. I think he used glass much better overall, but Wright's use of glass in Fallingwater is just outstanding.

--Brant

Brant,

I have not studied the Rand Residence is the detail you have given it, but will look at it again. I remember the perspective. The house did seem quite large. With regard to what you call its generic quality, he had a few "in-house styles" that his staff knew how to put together after his conceptual studies. Generally they turned out quite well, though. I think the "Illinois" skyscraper will get built someday with appropriate structural modifications. As it's designed, building it would keep concrete plants on site and in 3 surrounding states busy for quite awhile. It's beautiful, but will benefit from the enormous progress in highrise construction of the last 20 years. The Petronas Towers in Indonesia are concrete and over 1,000 feet high - not nearly the mile Wright proposed. I think everything above that has been steel frame. I read somewhere that the drawing of the Illinois at the scale Wright chose is something like 15 feet long. I like very much how he integrated the landscaping into the highrise, as he did with the tower in Oklahoma.

I mentioned the uncanny sense of wonder I felt in the Freeman House living room in LA. I sensed that in the living room that is in the Met, as well. Being restricted in the floor area you can actually visit compromises the experience, but I imagine it's necessary to preserve what's there.

Although Wright was not actively on site, he did have a "clerk of the works", as he called him, on site at Fallingwater. He gets blamed for sagging cantilevers, too, like some of the others we have mentioned earlier. He put the construction shack out on the tip of the living room deck soon after it was poured, and some think doing so contributed to the sag, because the concrete had not satisfactorily cured.

Do you know the Kaufmann House by Neutra in California, near or in Palm Springs? It's a great building, for the same client. Neutra was a great architect, but I like Wright's handling of space better than his and that's my bottom line. I'll have to look at his handling of glass. I like Schindler more than Neutra, because his buildings don't feel quite so "skinny" to me. But, one of the most beautiful buildings, in the manner of the above architects, of the Twentieth Century is the Barcelona Pavilion, by Mies van der Rohe. It is stunning, and he uses statuary to interact with it exactly right. It was one of my "first loves" in architecture.

Jim

[Newberry]

Jim:

I think you were very fortunate to go through the Disney Hall during construction.

Yes. It was under tight security and gag orders.

If I understand you correctly about Michelangelo, what you say about finding something within that is the direct result of it's method of forming ( and I think he also implied seeking the shape out as if it were imprisoned within the stone) is interesting compared to the shape/form disconnect, and that for some is the problem with the Gehry buildings.

Yes, I was thinking of the difference between M. and Bernini--both awesome sculptors but M would be more of purist and Bernini made choices to maximum visual effect...The Guggenheim vs. Bilbao. Agreed Bilbao is quite beautiful.

But, another way to look at the material issue would be to say that stone lends itself to mass, making the carving analogy appropriate in the sense that stone buildings sometimes convey a sense of having been carved. And steel and titanium might be said to lend themselves to trusses with shell-like covers.

Excellent, informative, and insightful point! Thank you.

And then there is Wright, who said architecture is what isn't there, formed by what is. I like that the best!

One of my upcoming tutorials will be on how to create negative space: warp it!

Michael

[James Shay]

Yes, I was thinking of the difference between M. and Bernini--both awesome sculptors but M would be more of purist and Bernini made choices to maximum visual effect...The Guggenheim vs. Bilbao. Agreed Bilbao is quite beautiful.

Michael

Michael,

I'll take Bernini, especially Saint Whatever Her Name Is in ecstacy. I also like M's Slaves, but am not crazy about David. And I'll take Bernini's paintings, too. But, what an architect M was.

You know, I've enjoyed these exchanges about architecture and art, but my intention was not to start something in which I came across as some kind of pro with interesting details and anecdotes about architecture. What I hoped was that someone might pick up on what I wrote about objectivist writing on architecture and the necessity to think carefully when reading it. Fallingwater and Frank Gehry were within the writing I was looking at.

The ghost of Howard Roard seems to be always present in the background of objectivist blogs, where Ayn Rand has inspired an interest in architecture in many who otherwise might not look at it. But, the so-called architecture specialists on those sites come from a very mixed bag.

Alas, the subject may be too arcane and/or boring.

Jim

[Reidy]

Re #282: Rand's letters to Gerald Loeb establish that she was interested in buying Wright's Storer house, one of the "revivalist" LA works, before she settled on the Neutra. She called it "beautiful" but apparently decided that she couldn't afford the needed repairs. Thus it seems to have been to her taste. She also alludes in her diaries of the 1940s to his autobiographical account of Barnsdall / Hollyhock.

The Wynand country house is another that resembles Fallingwater. Gerald Toker's Fallingwater Rising makes the interesting point that MOMA honored the house with a special exhibition in 1938, as soon as it was built, and that this is the likely source of her interest in the building. He also notes that she kept a copy of the 1938 Time Wright cover issue for the rest of her life. On the other hand, some of what he has to say otherwise about the Rand-Wright connection strikes me as labored and implausible. He gives a detailed account of the structural issues that have threatened the building from the start.

Yet more movie allusions: Neutra's most famous house, Lovell, was a locale for LA Confidential some years back. The original owner of AR's house in the Valley was Josef von Sternberg, the director who made a star of Marlene Dietrich and who, at one time, was signed up to do Rand's Red Pawn. He said in his autobiography that she told him his Shanghai Express was one of her all-time movies. It's one of mine, too; see it if you get the chance. Branden mentions the Dietrich / von Sternberg connection in one of his autobiographies, but I'm not so sure of his claim that Dietrich once lived in the house.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Reidy

[Brant Gaede]

Re #282: Rand's letters to Gerald Loeb establish that she was interested in buying Wright's Storer

Is this the same Gerald Loeb who was a partner in E.F. Hotton and wrote "The Battle for Investment Survival"?

--Brant

[James Shay]

Re #282: Rand's letters to Gerald Loeb establish that she was interested in buying Wright's Storer house, one of the "revivalist" LA works, before she settled on the Neutra. She called it "beautiful" but apparently decided that she couldn't afford the needed repairs. Thus it seems to have been to her taste. She also alludes in her diaries of the 1940s to his autobiographical account of Barnsdall / Hollyhock.

The Wynand country house is another that resembles Fallingwater. Gerald Toker's Fallingwater Rising makes the interesting point that MOMA honored the house with a special exhibition in 1938, as soon as it was built, and that this is the likely source of her interest in the building. He also notes that she kept a copy of the 1938 Time Wright cover issue for the rest of her life. On the other hand, some of what he has to say otherwise about the Rand-Wright connection strikes me as labored and implausible. He gives a detailed account of the structural issues that have threatened the building from the start.

Yet more movie allusions: Neutra's most famous house, Lovell, was a locale for LA Confidential some years back. The original owner of AR's house in the Valley was Josef von Sternberg, the director who made a star of Marlene Dietrich and who, at one time, was signed up to do Rand's Red Pawn. He said in his autobiography that she told him his Shanghai Express was one of her all-time movies. It's one of mine, too; see it if you get the chance. Branden mentions the Dietrich / von Sternberg connection in one of his autobiographies, but I'm not so sure of his claim that Dietrich once lived in the house.

I think Rand did have Fallingwater in mind as a partial model for the Wynand House. I like Brant's idea that it could have been the house in Anthem. What an image.

Had Rand bought the Mayan Revival Storer House I wonder what the affect on her would have been. Perhaps she would have had more to say about the affect of the past on us? Living in that house would have profoundly affected her. It was purchased by a maker of mediocre movies who paid to have it beautifully renovated. (somewhat like the Wynand/Roard connection). It was sold again, recently. It's the most static of the LA block houses. The Millard House in Pasadena is the best of the series. The Ennis is the weirdest and the Freeman the most unassuming.

The Von Sternberg House was one of Neutra's best, hands down. Very unfortunately, it has gone the way of the wrecking ball, as you probably know. The Lovell House looked great in LA Confidential - beautifully photographed.

[Reidy]

I suspect she never would have finished Atlas Shrugged if she'd bought that house, with all those well-meaning and fundamentally harmless scholars, college kids and beauty-lovers knocking on her door and asking for a look around (though young Nathan and Barbara would have had a much easier time getting there). In the balance, we're better off for her decision to live out in the country.

Nowadays a look around Storer will cost you $1500 (see www.savewright.org, temporarily down), but it's for a good cause, and they'll throw in dinner.

I've been a guide at the Barnsdall "monstrosity" for over 20 years. Work takes me out of town for several months, but once I get home, OLs are free to get in touch for a tour; Schindler, too. MSN travel recently did a feature on Wright, including interiors of Hollyhock (one of the most magnificent rooms in the world, say what you will of the house in other respects) and Storer. You could believe Rand living there.

#292: Yes, it's the same Gerald Loeb. He also commissioned (but didn't build) a house from Wright in Redding, Connecticut, near where she was planning to build.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Reidy

[Newberry]

But, the so-called architecture specialists on those sites come from a very mixed bag.

Jim

Critics bring to the table what knowledge they have. ;)

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Riedy; Thanks for all the information. I think I'll have to pass on the tour.

[James Shay]

I suspect she never would have finished Atlas Shrugged if she'd bought that house, with all those well-meaning and fundamentally harmless scholars, college kids and beauty-lovers knocking on her door and asking for a look around (though young Nathan and Barbara would have had a much easier time getting there). In the balance, we're better off for her decision to live out in the country.

Nowadays a look around Storer will cost you $1500 (see www.savewright.org, temporarily down), but it's for a good cause, and they'll throw in dinner.

I've been a guide at the Barnsdall "monstrosity" for over 20 years. Work takes me out of town for several months, but once I get home, OLs are free to get in touch for a tour; Schindler, too. MSN travel recently did a feature on Wright, including interiors of Hollyhock (one of the most magnificent rooms in the world, say what you will of the house in other respects) and Storer. You could believe Rand living there.

#292: Yes, it's the same Gerald Loeb. He also commissioned (but didn't build) a house from Wright in Redding, Connecticut, near where she was planning to build.

Interesting info. You're right about the living room in the Barnsdall House, although I've only seen it from the interior garden court through the loggia - when the house was closed to the public in the 60's I, as a "well-meaning" and "fundamentally harmless" student, snuck over the roof into the courtyard to see what I could. Because Wright took some big chances on the house it remains one of my favorites of his work. Also, I was nearly lunch for 2 dobermans at his Ennnis House, when, again meaning well, I went over the parapet near the swimming pool to look through windows. Fortunately, a friend's warning saved me in the nick of time. I went back over the parapet as fast as possible and fell into the street below. To get into Sam Freeman's house from time to time I learned to show up with a nice young lady or two, and Sam would happily show us the place. He offered to rent me the Schindler-designed apartment under the garage, but it was a bit of a cave.

Thank's for the tour invitation. Jim

Jim

Edited December 5, 2007 by Jim Shay

[Jonathan]

Great post, Jim. Somehow I missed it earlier.

I live within a short driving distance of Gehry's Weisman. I see it as evoking a feeling similar to that of good jazz -- although I suppose that "good jazz," to proper Objectivists, probably equals aesthetic "epileptic seizures" and "whim worship." The Weisman's peacefully calm lobby has never slapped me in the face, as you quote Sherri Tracinski as saying it does. I've found the interior to be welcoming, navigable, and quite suitable to the displaying of art. I haven't visited the building in quite a while, so I think I might have to do so again one of these days with Tracinski's opinions in mind.

I like your idea that Tracinski should "put up or shut up."

In fact, her status as an ARI commentator on architecture ties into MSK's recently posted summary of Peikoff and Brook criticizing online forums and blogs. Their complaints were that internet participation can easily lead to superficial examination, poor thinking habits, and blurting out whatever is on a person's mind at the time, and they worry about the difficulty of identifying or evaluating whether or not people are experts or authorities on a topic being discussed. They seem to fear that internet groups are like the blind leading the blind.

Well. Issues like superficial examination, blurting, and establishing whether or not someone is an expert or authority are not limited to blogs and discussion forums. I often question the qualifications of Objectivist "experts," and I'd include everyone who writes for the ARI, as well as Rand herself, among those whom I don't accept as experts on any subject that they've decided to comment on in books, newsletters, press-releases, etc. Like you, I'd like to see some examples of Tracinski's built architecture. I'd like to know what qualifies her to write for the ARI as an implied authority in the field, other than the fact that she agrees with ARIan Objectivism and the aesthetic judgments of those who are not experts on architecture but who control what is published by the ARI.

J

Edited January 16, 2008 by Jonathan

[James Shay]

Great post, Jim. Somehow I missed it earlier.

I live within a short driving distance of Gehry's Weisman. I see it as evoking a feeling similar to that of good jazz -- although I suppose that "good jazz," to proper Objectivists, probably equals aesthetic "epileptic seizures" and "whim worship." The Weisman's peacefully calm lobby has never slapped me in the face, as you quote Sherri Tracinski as saying it does. I've found the interior to be welcoming, navigable, and quite suitable to the displaying of art. I haven't visited the building in quite a while, so I think I might have to do so again one of these days with Tracinski's opinions in mind.

I like your idea that Tracinski should "put up or shut up."

In fact, her status as an ARI commentator on architecture ties into MSK's recently posted summary of Peikoff and Brook criticizing online forums and blogs. Their complaints were that internet participation can easily lead to superficial examination, poor thinking habits, and blurting out whatever is on a person's mind at the time, and they worry about the difficulty of identifying or evaluating whether or not people are experts or authorities on a topic being discussed. They seem to fear that internet groups are like the blind leading the blind.

Well. Issues like superficial examination, blurting, and establishing whether or not someone is an expert or authority are not limited to blogs and discussion forums. I often question the qualifications of Objectivist "experts," and I'd include everyone who writes for the ARI, as well as Rand herself, among those whom I don't accept as experts on any subject that they've decided to comment on in books, newsletters, press-releases, etc. Like you, I'd like to see some examples of Tracinski's built architecture. I'd like to know what qualifies her to write for the ARI as an implied authority in the field, other than the fact that she agrees with ARIan Objectivism and the aesthetic judgments of those who are not experts on architecture but who control what is published by the ARI.

J

Thanks for the reply, Jonathan. I'm glad you responded to the heart of what I wrote.

I think the jazz analogy is a good one to help describe the compositional sense of the Weisman Center, although I have not yet visited the building. By the way, I think someday Gehry's best work, as odd as it is, will be regarded somewhat similarly to how we appreciate the great, but strange Spanish architect, Gaudi. His work is somewhat freakish, certainly far away from whatever the so-called "Gestalt" of the time is in architecture, and much more personal than most other architects' work. But, the buildings have a strange and profound beauty that evokes strong feeling and thought in the same way that other great architecture and art does.

Sherri Tracinski's overriding response to the building is objectivist contempt. She sneers at it (her writing would go nowhere fast among architects and others looking for a good discussion of the building's values and shortcomings). And while she does write well about how buildings project values and how they can affirm our own beliefs, many of her criticisms seem to be not well thought out at all. I previously mentioned her misunderstanding of the construction and finishes of Fallingwater's great decks and her ignoring of the large deflections in the living room balcony. As another example of what I think is jumbled architectural thought, when she writes about the Weisman Center, she recoils from the nontraditional dispersal of forms on the exterior, and laments the "non-legibility" of the floor levels from the building's exterior. She wants the window openings to uniformly tell us where the floors occur, and is especially upset about a window on the front facade that seems to be located to harmonize with the exterior, rather than to have a strong relation to the interior space behind it. This criticism, like some of the others in her article, is one that I have a hard time believing she'd take to heart as an architect if she really gave the building some non-ideologically inflamed thought and didn't let her scorn carry her away. Many fine buildings don't have legible floor levels from the exterior. Even her beloved FLlW's Guggenheim is in part a great visual mystery with regard to floor arrangement, until the viewer begins to work out the relationship between the spiralling form and the art museum within. And often some of the most important work of the great Bruce Goff (much cared for by many objectivist fans of great architecture) in Oklahoma provides no clue to the interior floor platforms. As in jazz, the rhythms and syncopation are coming from somewhere other than classical composition, a place far beyond the very rudimentary stacking of floors upon each other.

I didn't know that Tracinski is one of ARI's commentators. I think she should tighten up her scholarship, jettison the contempt and get rid of what seems like very excessive adulation for Wright and Rand. She has things of value to say. It's unfortunate the the ARI people put forth speakers and commentators who are heavy on what seems like sanctified wisdom and sometimes short on knowledge of a specific field.

I'm wary of those who take an ideological leap when writing or talking about aesthetics. Occasionally, I have met architects and architectural students (some from Taliesin) who have a strange light shining out of their eyes and an odd set to their jaws, and who, in their own desires to bring some kind of moral certainty to architectural philosophy, have swallowed Wright, and sometimes Rand, hook, line and sinker. They have sold themselves very short and not found out who they really are.

Thanks again for your reply.

Jim

[Guyau]

Roger,

I had included a link to your essay Art as Microcosm this past year,* but only today have I had the pleasure of rereading it for myself. It had been some years since I read it, and in the meantime, this past year, I had occasion to reread The Fountainhead.

Rand’s descriptions of Roark’s designs include deliberate relationships to the natural and manmade surroundings of his buildings.* In architecture which could count as art-as-microcosm, it would seem that the surroundings are turned into part of the frame of the artistic microcosm-window, particularly in viewing the exterior of the building. In that sort of exterior view, one could think of the view as like the view of a sculpture in its grounds (cf. a, b). Is the microcosm of an art-as-microcosm building, when viewed from the exterior, only as like a sculpture in its grounds? Or would you say the building’s general known function (or at least the idea that it has a function) is part of one’s experience of building as microcosm in the esthetic experience of the exterior?

I wonder if all art-as-microcosm includes (generally unconscious) expression of organic unity from the biological world, together with the organic unity of differentiating and integrating consciousness, particularly the latter organic unity in the conceptual level of consciousness. I just wonder.

Be that as it may, is there a center of the microcosm—perhaps an abstract personality—portrayed in all art-as-microcosm? Or is there required a center—indeed a personality—only in the experience of the art, namely, the imagined mindedness of the creator making and sharing objects of esthetic experience?

In the case of architecture, you seem to pose a different center:

2. Art as Not Exclusively Non-Utilitarian

. . .

[Text, from page 333 of the original essay in JARS V5N2]

A visitor to one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterfully designed buildings [cf.], is perfectly capable of an act of selective attention, by which he abstracts away (visually tunes out) all the people living or working in it (in much the same fashion as a concert-goer can visually tune out all the people in the orchestra and the audience). He can then focus on it as an image of a world in which a certain kind of person lives in a certain kind of habitation, and on what it implies about the basic nature of the world and of human life. This is completely parallel to what he can do in regard to a statue (as an image of a certain kind of human, and what it implies about the basic nature of the world and of human life)—apart from its accepted, if not intended use as a pigeon roost!

Then, too, perhaps an imagined mindedness behind the creation and an imagined “certain kind of person” are only as the evening star and the morning star.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Stephen Boydstun