The house Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son, David, is one of the renowned designer's "more unusual architectural specimens." Located in Arcadia, Arizona, the home is at imminent risk of demolition by developers.
Constructed from 1950-52, the David Wright House has been described by Neil Levine, architectural historian and Harvard professor, as “one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative, unusual and personal works of architecture.”
Levine continues, "it is the only residence by the world-famous architect that is based on the circular spiral plan of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, whose construction followed it by six years. When the house was first published in 1953, it was stated that no other Wright house since Fallingwater was as praiseworthy and remarkable. Since then its reputation has only increased and several architectural historians and architecture critics consider it to be among the 20 most significant Wright buildings."
According to Quirk, an online petition to the City of Phoenix has been set-up while the city deliberates "whether to bestow historic preservation and landmark designation upon the house...as of right now, they’re 360 signatures short of their 1,000 person goal."
www.change.org/...of-phoenix-save-the-david-and-g … ight-house
One of F.L. Wright's Most Innovative Houses Endangered
When the first floor cantilever deflected 1.75” immediately after the formwork was removed, suspicions were raised again. Mendel Glickman, the engineer who designed the cantilever, was notified by telephone of this deflection and after a brief check of his calculation; he is reported to have said, “Oh my God, I forgot the negative reinforcing!” (Feldman, 2005) This error clearly explains why the cantilever deflected so much upon removal of the formwork. Without sufficient reinforcing steel in the top of the girder, the existing steel most likely reached its yield limit and began to elongate. The increasing deflection of the cantilever proves that the steel had yielded and it was only a matter of time before it failed completely.
The concrete used in Fallingwater may not have been as consistent as one would expect in today’s construction industry. Workers were forced to make thousands of small concrete batches by hand in the field because the remote site was unreachable for concrete trucks. The amount of skilled workers was also limited because at the time of construction, the Works Progress Administration had just formed and was recruiting the area’s top stonemasons for work on government jobs.
I remember reading somewhere that after the workmen had built several huge wood molds into which concrete was poured to form the cantilevered terraces that jut many feet over the babbling creek, they were afraid to knock the supports out from under the tons of concrete they had poured. FLW had to step in and sledge-hammer several of the supports out to prove to them that the terraces would not fall since they were counterweighted way back into the bedrock which anchors the structure.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house opened a new chapter in American architecture, and is perhaps rightly considered Wright's greatest work, for he was first and foremost an architect of houses. In its careful yet startling integration of stone walls anchored to the bedrock and modern reinforced concrete cantilevered terraces hovering in space the house seems to hover while at the same time being firmly planted. To see a virtual tour of Fallinwater House go here:
www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd- wright/fallingwater-pictures/pictures-of -fallingwater.html