Monthly Update
OA+D Monthly News and Updates
During the past month we added images to the online OA+D Archives Collections catalog of drawings for more than 50 projects in the Taliesin Architects Collection. The images date from the late 1950s to the 1990s, and represent designs by William Wesley Peters, John Rattenbury, Charles Montooth, Joe Fabris, Tom Casey, Davey Davison, Aubrey Banks, Tony Puttnam, Arnold Roy, Stephen Nemtin, and others.
In addition, we have continued to enter collection references for designs by Frank Lloyd Wright with which Taliesin Architects did subsequent work. For example, the unbuilt design for the Southwest Christian Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona (1950) was revived by Taliesin Architects at the request of the client as the First Christian Church (1969). Further work in 1976-1977 included a Masterplan, Chapel and Office Addition, Bell Tower, and Prayer Garden. Alterations to the building were also executed in 1985 and 1993. Images for these related Taliesin Architects projects can be found as a group here.
Particularly rich presentation renderings were done for another Frank Lloyd Wright design when Taliesin Architects remodeled the Automobile Display Room for Maximillian Hoffman (1956), which originally displayed Jaguar models for Daimler-Benz to sell Mercedes cars.
As part of the “Taliesin Legacy” program instituted by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in the 1980s-1990s, several structures were built which reference earlier unbuilt designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. John Rattenbury revived the Wright-designed Gibbons Gray Cornwell house (1954) in his House for Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Sanderson Sims in 1989. Charles Montooth adapted Wright’s earlier design for the adobe Lloyd Burlingham house (1942) for his House for Charles Klotsche in 1982.
Masterplans by Taliesin Architects for large-scale residential community developments from California to Arizona are numerous. These projects often include a number of model house designs. Examples designed by John Rattenbury include the Hillside Villas for the Lyle Anderson Corporation at Desert Highlands (1984) and the Masterplan for Desert Mountain Estates (1984).
Finally, sometimes it could take multiple efforts to get the right opportunity. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the unbuilt Nakoma Country Club in 1923. The first attempt by Taliesin Architects to give this building life was in 1966 for the Spring Green Clubhouse for Wisconsin River Development Corporation. An alternate scheme based on the tall, visually prominent Nakoma design appeared for the second time at the Ancala Development adjacent to Taliesin West. The third time was the charm for Arnold Roy at the Gold Mountain development in Plumas County, California (1997), where the structure was finally realized and gained notice from Architectural Digest.
The online catalog is not only a portal for researchers to examine OA+D Archives holdings, but is also the main tool by which the collections are being inventoried. By using the Collective Access software in this way, catalog information is provided immediately for public access. But we need YOUR help to continue this exciting work!
Your tax-deductible donations to OA+D help fund the ongoing effort to process, digitize, and make these remarkable materials accessible to the public. If you'd like to become part of this exciting archival adventure, please consider making a donation HERE.
From The Archives
2023 marks the 100th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's lost masterpiece, the Imperial Hotel. Throughout the year we'll be featuring some of the hundreds of items OA+D is fortunate enough to have in its collections that are connected to the building.
This month we showcase a rare wooden matchbox wrapped in a four-color paper label featuring a bold graphic design of a stylized Imperial Hotel. One of the colors used is a metallic gold ink, making one imagine the building graphic shimmer whenever a match was struck. Not many examples of this circa 1930s matchbox survive since it was intended to be a disposable item of everyday use. Luckily, someone admired the beauty of the graphic design and kept it over the decades until it could be added to the OA+D Archives collection of Imperial Hotel-related items.
If you have other materials related to the Imperial Hotel (or any other organic architectural or design items) that you're interested in donating to join other items like these, please let us know by contacting us at info@oadarchives.org.
Celebrate Wright's Imperial Hotel: 100 Years In 100 Objects
June came and went in the blink of an eye and that means that work is well underway on the next issue of the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design Archives. As announced last month, the next issue of the journal coming out in late summer/early fall will be a special one marking the 100th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. Special guest editor Kathryn Smith — noted architectural historian and an expert on Wright's lost hotel — will curate the publication by exploring "100 years in 100 objects" as selected from the vast amount of material held in the OA+D Archives collections. As we get closer to the publication date, we'll announce when pre-orders for this landmark issue will be available. However, if you want to be one of the first to receive this anniversary issue (and ensure you don't miss any other upcoming issues of our flagship publication) be sure to renew your subscription today by following the LINK