flw house rises from the grave

This is an interesting article. I think we all know that I'm obsessed with architecture. I also happen to like looking at Frank Lloyd Wright work (to the point that I bring guests to look, from the confines of a car, at the Ennis House, which is practically falling down).

I don't quite have my opinion fully articulated in my mind to convey to you the craziness going on in this story. Some looney bought an island, tore down an original FLW cottage, and has constructed a larger house based on FLW designs (incomplete construction drawings). He even got an architect and FLW "scholar" to help him finish it off. This guy can scream as much as he wants that it's a true FLW house ("his finest work," he claims), but we will always know it was posthumously created with incomplete drawings. He even thinks FLW would approve. I'm no expert on FLW, but I know enough to know that he's spinning in his grave. The man had a fit if you put up artwork in his house (he even purposely slanted the walls to prevent it) or brought in non-FLW furniture. You think he'd be clapping when you actually changed his designed and passed it off as an "authentic"? Dream on.

But this does bring up an interesting question. Is architecture like a painting that loses value when monkeyed with after the artist's death or like a piece of music to be improvised? Architectural historians cherish original construction drawings when studying buildings, but it never occurred to us to create unbuilt works, did it?

There are some 500 unbuilt FLW works floating out there. Oy vey.