Monthly Update
A Magical Evening At Poppyfield
On April 19, 2025 a special launch party attended by Taliesin Alumni, Taliesin Fellows, friends, and family was held at "Poppyfield" to celebrate the release of the brand new monograph, The Living Architecture of David E. Dodge.
The evening was filled with laughter, storytelling, food, drink, and the sharing memories of David and his remarkable creative life. The final highlight was experiencing a gorgeous Arizona sunset with floating candles in Poppyfield's reflecting pool. A truly magical evening!
Advance copies of the book were very well received by attendees. The good news is that the wait for everyone else is almost over! Copies of the book have arrived and pre-orders will start mailing out later this week!
Lavishly illustrated with never-before-published drawings and historic photographs, plus stunning new photography by Jake Case, this monograph highlights a wide array of David's architectural projects both personal and for Taliesin. These include nine “box projects,” which were speculative compositions presented as gifts to Mr. Wright up to twice a year from 1953 to 1959. Following Mr. Wright’s death, Dodge helped complete major buildings in progress. As a member of TAA, he is known to have contributed as lead designer to twenty-eight client commissions from 1964 to 2001. In addition, he produced several unbuilt designs for personal and speculative residences, as well as a significant cultural facility in Europe.
Hardcover with Dustjacket :: 192 pages :: 11" x 8.5" :: $60.00 Written by William B. Scott, Jr. :: Photography by Jake Case
NOTE: This is a special publication and is not included as part of the Journal OA+D subscription. It must be purchased separately.
From The Archives
This month, we spotlight an original 1950s press photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright’s visionary “Butterfly Wing Bridge,” which was designed as a proposed southern crossing of the San Francisco Bay. The bridge was intended to span from approximately Army Street (now Cesar Chavez Street) and Third Street in San Francisco to Bay Farm Island, just north of the Oakland Airport.
Wright’s concept featured a sweeping viaduct of reinforced concrete, hugging the water’s surface until it approached the ship channel. There, the bridge would rise into a dramatic, 2,000-foot-wide arch. As the roadways ascended, they diverged outward in a graceful curve. At the apex of the arch, a unique circular platform of reinforced concrete extended from each roadway, meeting at their tangent to form a resting point. This area was designed to allow vehicles to pull over and park, offering access to a lush garden space where visitors could step out and take in expansive views of the Bay.
A large-scale model of the bridge was constructed in 1951 in Aaron Green’s office at 319 Grant Avenue, where it remained a striking centerpiece for many years. The model was last exhibited at the Oakland Museum in 1989, as part of a showcase dedicated to Wright’s “Butterfly Wing Bridge.”
If you have archival materials related to Frank Lloyd Wright, the Taliesin Fellowship, or any other organic architectural or design items that you're interested in donating for our growing collections, please let us know by contacting us at info@oadarchives.org.
OA+D NEWS & EVENTS
Pre-Order Journal OA+D V13:N1 :: Coming Soon
Our flagship publication, The Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, has been continuously published three times a year since 2013. In that time significant and groundbreaking scholarship has been done on a variety of organic practitioners and their works.
We're hard at work on the Spring 2025 issue, which will document the history and preservation effort of Gene Masselink's remarkable painted mural for the Flying Dutchman Bar, formerly of Spring Green, WI.
We're excited to announce that the spring 2025 issue of the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, which documents the history and preservation effort of Gene Masselink's remarkable painted mural for the Flying Dutchman Bar, formally of Spring Green, WI, will be available soon!
Eugene Masselink‘s remarkable wall mural, “Heavenly Spheres,” originally located in the Flying Dutchman Bar in Spring Green, WI survived a devastating fire that gutted the Old Post House in 2004. The fire damaged wood mural panels were saved and stored at Taliesin in the Midway Barns for many years, waiting for someone to save them. In the summer of 2022, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation donated the remains of Gene Masselink’s Flying Dutchman mural to the OA+D Archives. OA+D is the designated repository for all Taliesin Associated Architect project files and ephemera. The desired goal of taking over stewardship of the surviving panels was to clean, conserve, and restore as much of the original mural as possible and record its accompanying history.
This 60-page publication features essays by Steve Sikora and Robert Hartmann that examine the history of the Flying Dutchman Bar, the story behind its tragic loss, and an exploration of the design process behind the creation of its Masselink mural. The issue includes never before published vintage photos, drawings, plans, and photo documentation of OA+D's efforts to preserve the original mural as a way to foster a deeper appreciation for Gene Masselink's singular creative talent.
Subscribers to the journal can look forward to their copies arriving to their mailboxes near the end of May. Others can PRE-ORDER this issue HERE and be one of the first to receive it when it does ship.
Or you can give the gift of this issue and more by purchasing an annual subscription to the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design HERE.