Monthly Update
An Amazing Year — Thanks To You!
As we look back at 2024, we are taken aback by the many exciting ways in which the OA+D Archives continues to grow and achieve new milestones. In no small part this was due to the outpouring of financial support from all of you, for which we are extremely grateful!
Here are just a few of the highlights you helped successfully support:
• This year saw more groundbreaking journals published, including issues on Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, new scholarship on Wright's EZ-Polish Warehouse in Chicago, and the winter issue memorializing the tragic loss of Taliesin Architects' Ascension Lutheran Church.
• We were able to continue our efforts to produce special publications under the OA+D Archives Press publishing arm, including the work of architect Dan Duckham (which publishes in January 2025) and the upcoming book on the work of David Elgin Dodge (which releases in spring 2025).
• We hosted our first symposium event in early November in Chandler, AZ, held over three days in partnership with the Chandler Museum. The gathering celebrated Wright and the Fellowship's historic connection to the city, as well as other organic topics of interest. One highlight was hearing William Minnich discuss his family's working relationship with Mr. Wright on the Taliesin Line of wooden vases and accessories. It corresponded with a special exhibit of rare Minic Accessory prototypes in the OA+D Study Center.
• Work organizing the various collections under our stewardship continues at a brisk pace by our excellent volunteers, with significant updates added as well to the TA cataloging efforts on our online archival collections catalog.
• The OA+D Chandler Study Center continued to host scholars, building owners, and enthusiasts conducting important research towards understanding, preserving, and restoring organic architecture.
• OA+D continued its education mission to service requests for materials for scholars, researchers, building owners, authors, and students. This included a special exhibit of "Treasures from the OA+D Archives" on display at the Chandler Museum and objects lent for a special photography exhibit at the Driehaus Museum.
• The year brought several amazing donations of materials to the Archives, including rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed items, Taliesin Fellowship materials, important slide collections related to Paolo Soleri, various film and media materials we plan to digitize, and more!
• Finally, one of the most significant efforts we undertook was the documenting and saving of important TA-designed objects and furnishings from the doomed Ascension Lutheran Church, formerly of Paradise Valley, AZ.
A lot happened in just a year, but we're just getting warmed up!
2025 is set to become even more transformative and exciting thanks to a host of new publishing initiatives, exciting topics for our journals, expanded discoveries working with the TA Collection, further growth and development on our online catalog, participation in new exhibits, and the saving and preservation of more important archival collections.
But all of these exciting and important efforts require your financial support to help make them successful.
With the end of the year upon us, please consider making a tax-deductible financial gift so that we can start 2025 strong by acting on the many wonderful ways in which the OA+D Archives works towards preserving the legacy of Organic Architecture and Design.
Please follow THIS LINK to give and thanks as always for your ongoing generosity!
From The Archives
This month we feature a brand new acquisition to the OA+D Archives: a rare group of photographs and a Wright sketched/signed letter documenting the building of the prototype model for the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Cooperative Homesteads for the Detroit Autoworkers.
Wright designed a plan for Cooperative Homesteads for Detroit, MI, in 1942. The project was based on the ideas of a group of autoworkers, teachers, and other professionals in Detroit who wanted to build moderately-priced houses in the country. The group purchased a 160-acre farm in the late 1930s and planned to raise crops for food and extra income.
These photos were originally owned by Aaron Green, an apprentice at Taliesin. Green was the Taliesin apprentice who met with the group in Detroit in the early 1940s and was impressed by their plans. He believed that their ideas aligned with Wright's principles of decentralization, moderate-cost housing, and living in harmony with nature. Green encouraged the group to visit Taliesin to discuss their project, and Wright was interested in experimenting with rammed earth construction. But the Second World War intervened at the time, halting the effort and causing the project to become another War casualty.
This important group of over 30 photos and one Wright-signed letter document the construction of the rammed earth walls and a protective roof covering. It's hoped a future publication can explore this remarkable and little-understood Wright project in more detail.
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
Journal OA+D V12:N3 Now Available!
The newest issue of the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, titled "In Memoriam: William Wesley Peters' Ascension Lutheran Church," has arrived from the printer and is now shipping!
In early 2024 OA+D received an unusual donor request: save what you can of Ascension Lutheran Church before demolition to make way for new luxury homes. Efforts to save or repurpose the iconic 1961 church designed by Taliesin Architect William Wesley Peters had failed and a deadline was set for demolition plans to begin. OA+D responded with a series of visits, meetings with congregation leaders, and ultimately two days worth of careful deconstruction and removal of original design elements. Although important materials from the building were saved, the loss of this unique design merits deeper discussion.
This 40-page publication is a memorial to this lost work of organic architecture: its origins, the ideas behind its design, how it ultimately came to be built, and finally destroyed. It includes vintage construction photos, drawings, plans, and photo documentation of the building's exterior and interior features prior to its demolition. A final portfolio of photos documents OA+D's efforts to preserve what was possible from the building as a way to hopefully inform and inspire others to avoid losses like this in the future.
Regular subscribers have already started receiving their copies in mailboxes! If you want to order a copy, follow this LINK.
If you'd like to become an annual subscriber and never miss an issue, follow the link HERE.
Pre-Order The Elation of Creation: The Architecture of Dan Duckham
OA+D is proud to announce the upcoming release of our first publication of 2025, The Elation of Creation: The Architecture of Dan Duckham.
Since 1959 architect Dan Duckham has quietly but deliberately created a significant oeuvre of natural organic architecture that is appropriate to its time and place while fulfilling its purpose. The majority of his work was created for clients in the tropical region of the Fort Lauderdale / Broward County area of South Florida. Later in his career, after moving to the mountains of western North Carolina, his work continued to evolve while retaining its overriding consistency of originality, clarity, craft, and quality. This architectural monograph presents the creative life work of Dan Duckham, which spans more than 65 years during which he designed over 500 projects.
Hardcover with Dustjacket :: 296 pages :: 11" x 8.5" :: $60.00
By Randolph C. Henning. Foreword by Robert McCarter. With contributions by Dan Duckham, Donald Singer, and Anthony Abbate.
PRE-ORDER :: Will publish and ship in late January 2025
NOTE: This is a special publication and is not included as part of the Journal OA+D subscription. It must be purchased separately.
PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY HERE