This weekend, we are giving thanks for the friendships and the stories that continue to form about and around this historic, influential tiny home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Making Friends With Frank
A vintage wash basin for Frank Lloyd Wright’s water-closet
In a way, our quest to preserve this tiny home is like time travel. We want to understand what Frank Lloyd Wright intended at the time he intended it.
What We Can Learn About Historic Preservation from Frank Lloyd Wright
Though Wright designed over a hundred modest American System-Built Homes he quickly cancelled the program with only twenty or so built and filed away the drawings forever when he realized that his art would not be preserved if its occupants didn't themselves participate in the preservation.
Art by Committee
If you had created something, a piece of art, for example, that was subsequently altered by others in ways that you disapproved, would you want that object preserved?
Frank Lloyd Wright assumed that we would be kind to each other
Through features like the Place of Greeting, we can see that Wright assumed that working-class people - the people with modest means who would live in and visit his ASBH designs - were inherently kind, trusting and trustworthy.
Caring for the Forsaken
We bought Frank Lloyd Wright's Elizabeth Murphy House with a plan to restore and care for her, but quickly discovered a curious and unexpected form of stewardship. Like nuns in a 19th century orphanage, we find ourselves caring for the forsaken.
Three contemporaneous Wright draftsmen, three fates
Antonin Raymond and Rudolph Schindler escaped Frank Lloyd Wright's wrath when the American System-Built Program was summarily cancelled and covered up in 1917. Russell Barr Williamson did not.
The System within the System
Citing a vast body of drawings and plans, historians have called the ASBH project the largest single design effort by Frank Lloyd Wright.
What is it like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright House?
It is Captivating. You feel an Obligation; the need to be Vigilant, Attentive and Careful. But three words best describe living in this Frank Lloyd Wright house. They are Surprise, Wonder and Gratitude.
Back to School
The field trip is part of an architectural experience facilitated by their Art Teacher, who helps the kids to compare and contrast Wright's organic design philosophies with other design approaches.
The Elizabeth Murphy House 