Monthly Update
OA+D Monthly Updates
In our previous update, we brought your attention to nearly 200 images of the Arch Oboler property designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1940, its environs, and the small accessory building known as Eleanor’s Retreat. This month we continued to add over 100 images of the estate in Malibu, California, whose structures were completely lost in the 2018 Woolsey Fire.
In the original Wright design there would have been a larger house on the property. While this was not realized by Oboler, nor by a later owner who had designs prepared by Wiehle-Carr Architecture in whose records this photographic survey is found, a large gate lodge contained several wings.
Newly added images show the exterior and interior of the gate lodge living quarters, including the children’s wing, the shop wing, the stable wing, and various aspects of the site. Since we are reflecting the organization of an architectural document in our collections, the photographs are presented in the order they were prepared for reference use. However, the most interesting views tend to be toward the end of the displays, so be sure to scroll down for wonderful full room perspectives. All of these spaces no longer exist, yet we can still visit them in these wonderful documentary photographs.
If anyone has questions or additional materials related to the Oboler property they would like to donate to the OA+D Archives, please contact us at info@oadarchives.org
From The Archives
This month we feature a rare and important early 1900s brochure featuring tipped-in mechanically reproduced photos of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hillside Home School, its classes, interiors, students and surrounding countryside.
Wright designed the original Hillside Home School for his aunts, Jane and Ellen Lloyd Jones, in 1887. By 1902, the school had outgrown the domestically scaled Shingle style structure, and Wright’s aunts commissioned a new structure to accommodate the activities of an expanding student body. The new building featured classrooms, an assembly room with a balcony that served as a library, and a gymnasium featuring a second balcony.
This brochure has 16 early views of the Wright-designed buildings and how they were used. The captions for each tipped-in photo are printed on the page and the whole is string-bound with simple paper cover. This item is found in the Donald G. Kalec Collection within the OA+D Archives and is an invaluable documentation of these now lost spaces for researchers and scholars to study.
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 to join our growing collections, please let us know by contacting us at info@oadarchives.org.
OA+D NEWS & EVENTS
Journal OA+D V12:N2 PRE-ORDER
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S MARTIN & MARTIN BUILDING: A FORGOTTEN LANDMARK REDISCOVERED
60 pages :: Essay by Gregory M. Brewer
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin & Martin Building, more commonly known as the E-Z Polish Factory, was constructed in 1905 but remained unknown until rediscovered decades later by historian Grant Carpenter Manson. Manson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock paid relatively little attention to the building in their seminal works on Wright and it has remained largely unexamined until now. The Martin & Martin Building is a forgotten and misunderstood landmark of Frank Lloyd Wright’s early career. It was Wright’s first use of reinforced concrete and likely only the second building of reinforced concrete to be built in Chicago. What little has been written about the building has often been incorrect. No floor plan or other drawing of the finished building has ever been published, although several earlier drawings of Wright’s unbuilt design for a different site continue to be misidentified as the still extant 1905 building. Although both designs were carried through to construction documents, only preliminary drawings have survived. Thanks to Gregory Brewer's scholarship, this issue presents for the first time newly prepared drawings based on extensive field measurements and close examination of Wright’s surviving drawings for both projects. With never-before-published photos and drawings, this journal provides insights that will help shed light on this important early Wright designs.
PRE-ORDERS are now open at the OA+D website here.
If you are already an active subscriber, you will receive this issue as part of your subscription.
Contact us if you have questions about your subscription status or other questions at info@oadarchives.org
SAVE THE DATE :: First Annual OA+D Celebration
NOVEMBER 8-10, 2024 :: Chandler Museum and OA+D Study Center :: Chandler, Arizona
Mark your calendars for a weekend celebrating the Organic Architecture and Design connections and traditions in Chandler, Arizona.
This inaugural event, hosted by the OA+D Archives in conjunction with the Chandler Museum, will feature special exhibitions, a symposium of engaging presentations, new publication launches, self-guided tours of regional Wright sites, fundraising social gatherings, and more.
It will also be a chance to reunite with other Fellows, meet new friends, and learn more about how you can help preserve our organic heritage.
Additional information will follow, along with details about how to sign-up so you don't miss what is sure to be an exciting and memorable event!
In the meantime, if you have questions or would like to consider sponsoring this event and supporting its development, please contact us at info@oadarchives.org