Wright Design Series - 50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright Presented by Andrew Pielage

Virtual Wright Design Series
50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright
Presented by Andrew Pielage
Recorded Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Andrew Pielage is an architecture and travel photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. He has a personal mission to see each of the 431 existing Frank Lloyd Wright structures and capture their beauty through his photography. Pielage will share stories of his travels, and will also discuss the recently published book “50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright” that features his photography.

[@meadowrat8610]

So happy to have come across this site. Thank you for the fantastic tour.

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Lessons from Wright?
Sounds wonderful, but it's hard to actually do now.
There were plenty of Wright copycats from around 1910 up to the early 1970s. Lots of buildings were done by others that attempted to mimic his style with various levels of success. I'm serious, lots of buildings were put up that are his stepchildren. Some of those designers had apprenticed with him, others just studied his designs from magazine articles and books. But that almost all ended in the early 1970's when the OPEC embargo hit which motivated the implementation of strict energy use codes. Additionally, building codes were evolving coincidentally that placed more requirements on other aspects of building design.
Because of building codes, and changes in labor and material costs, it is very hard to reproduce what Wright did many decades ago. Most of his signature features are either illegal or prohibitively expensive now.
Modern building codes essentially outlaw some of his principles. We demand that buildings use far less energy today, so the amount of glass used is restricted, and significant amounts of insulation is required in walls and rooves. Combine those changes with the fact that minimum roof slope is now 3/8" in 12", and Wright's penchant for thin walls and rooves becomes impossible. Wright loved clerestory windows between roof levels. With the current energy code, and the 3/8" minimum roof slope, it's very hard to copy Wright's use of clerestory windows so they could look and function how he intended them to.
Also, hallways must be at least 3 feet wide now, and some of his other space saving ideas have also become illegal. The big cantilevers he loved would need much more steel today than he called for, and a structural engineer's seal would absolutely be required. Both drive the cost up.

Wright also used materials that are problematic today. His textile block concept would be virtually impossible to get approved without complete cooperation from and between a block manufacturer, and a structural engineer. I've heard of some architects trying to get a marriage like that set up for projects, but the projected cost has always been far too high. And this is to reproduce a block that Wright had intended to be virtually free. He meant for the client to make his own forms from cheap wood, and to dig the needed sand and gravel from his own site.
Brick is readily available nearly everywhere but it's labor intensive, meaning it's prohibitively expensive for many clients. There are problems created by Wright's insistence on having the material that a wall is made of show on both the outside and the inside. As sensible as that sounds, his desires aren't allowed today. First of all, brick is not considered a structural material without it having steel reinforcing embedded in concrete. To meet that requirement, some bricks are made extra thick, and they have large hollows inside of them. The bricks are laid, and then the hollows are filled with concrete that has steel reinforcing rids in it. That meets Wright's desire for the material to show on both sides, but it doesn't meet the code requirement for insulation. Where do you put the insulation? Lay another layer of brick inside, and insulate between them? That's how you jack up the cost. Because of the current building codes, brick used today is almost always just a veneer over walls that are actually "made" of concrete block, or wood frame. Wright did not like veneer.
Even his houses made of simple concrete blocks is harassed by the building codes in the same way that the structural bricks are. The current need for insulation in the walls complicates Wright's rule to show the block outside and inside.
And then there's Wright's prolific use of solid wood siding and trim. First of all, solid wood is expensive today, but mostly it gets destroyed by the weather so it's a maintenance headache.
Wright's floor plan ideas are hurt by the reduction in glass area, but the "open" plan that he preferred is possible with current codes. In fact, the great room idea has become standard. However, Wright laid out his houses in a much more nuanced way than just throwing living, dining, and cooking into the same space. And that's one of his ideas that should be copied.