8.04.2011

Frank LLoyd Wright: St. Louis

 The Taste of Wright is happening this weekend at the Gordon House here in Oregon. We won't be able to make it this year. You can see pictures here and here (interior kitchen shots) from our visit last year. But I did make it to a new FLW house this past Spring in St. Louis. I was on my  way to the airport from a work meeting and wouldn't you know there just happened to be an FLW house about 30 minutes from the airport. So close I had to call and see if I could be there for the Sunday afternoon tour before my flight out of town. The tours of the Ebsworth Park Home are by reservation only and they only accept 10 people at a time. Lucky for me they had one spot left on the tour! Here are some pictures I took inside the Kraus House. Technically indoor pictures are not allowed but as long as you used a flash and didn't take the picture in front of the docent it seemed to be just fine. So my interior pictures are blurry and technically do not exist. Got it? (wink wink) The docents were a lovely retired couple. The gentleman had been an architect himself and had met FLW several times which added a very personal touch to the tour. I won't go into detail here because I don't want to get the facts wrong, but the basics are that the house was built on the concept of a parallelogram. The house then is shaped like two parallelograms slid together and many of the angles in the house are quite severe and include nontraditional shapes of drawers and beds. It took about a decade to build because no one in St. Louis had built a house like this before and most builders were nervous about taking on such a project. It sounded as though every single change in the house over the years was approved by Mr. Wright and his apprentices and so it remains a fine example of the Usonian type of home that Mr. Wright created. If you're in the St. Louis area, it's only 10 dollars and is so great to be in such a remarkable and well loved little building. If you're in Oregon this weekend you can go to the Gordon House for the celebration or come to Eugene for the Whitaker Block Party, both of which will be scrumptious summer events!






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