horizontal | The Elizabeth Murphy House

Unfinished Business – Wright’s Cantilevers

Posted on September 16, 2018September 17, 2018 by Nick Hayes

Elements of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ASBH Model A203 design either never made it into the Elizabeth Murphy House, or, perhaps, were lost to reconstruction events sometime during her hundred year history. One missing element: decorative flower box cantilevers shown here in Wright’s drawings:

The details have been missing from the house since perhaps 1939 (the oldest known image), and certainly since the 1950s. It is unclear if they were included in the original construction.

In the drawings, the extended flower box crown is important to the flow of the facade, anchoring the main windows of the living area wall while stretching the edges of the built-in garden. The house looks boxy without it. We studied the drawings to find the geometries and proportions and matched the materials of the existing flower box trim (cedar) to construct new (or replacement) cantilevers.

Here is a before picture:

And an after picture:

The drawings show simple open extensions of the flower box crown with what appeared to be lateral braces. Were these braces meant for hanging baskets? With the project complete and some time to study its effects, we think that Wright’s main objective was to cast traveling angular shadows, lifting the house out and up, mirroring the louvres and art glass motif, and emphasizing, again, light, nature and the horizontal.

FLW Architectural Tiles

Posted on February 26, 2018February 26, 2018 by Nick Hayes

After fourth graders from Atwater School visited the Elizabeth Murphy House, they returned to Mrs. Hayes’ Art Class to create Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired architectural tiles, and added their own flare. Two fine examples are on display at the Shorewood Library, in the Shorewood School District Art Show, which continues ’til mid-week.

We’re impressed with some of the important details. Here, a bank of windows creates a wall of light:

…and in this piece, horizontal lines are key elements, and the door is hard to find:

Frank continues to inspire.

Emphasizing the horizontal

Posted on November 17, 2017November 19, 2017 by Nick Hayes

‘The horizontal line is the line of domesticity.’

– Frank Lloyd Wright

Horizontal lines are everywhere in this home. They guide your eye, contain your thoughts, and quiet your mind.

They are found in the trim, the eaves, the flower box, the banding, the shelves, between windows and in the overhangs. Layers of horizontal lines stack like cherished books on a nightstand, one upon the next.

After a year of living here, we stumbled upon more horizontal lines in a subtle, but historically significant place: the masonry of our small fireplace.

We learned, while touring the Gordon house in Oregon (a Usonian house designed in the late 50’s and built after Frank’s death), that Frank often insisted that grout in the vertical seams of a brick wall be smoothed to the brick surface, while grout in the horizontal seams be inset, creating an effect of horizontal stripes, as opposed to stacked cubes. It’s a common feature of Usonian homes, which are between 20-40 years younger than this home.

Often, Usonian brickwork is of large-form cinder block and is painted, like this wall of the Gordon House. (Here, he went so far as to extend seams between layers of brick into the trim between wood siding; calling your eyes to trace an unbroken horizontal line until they land, gently, on the nearby trees and shrubs.)

The same treatment is found in the Elizabeth Murphy House too, but it is so subtle that it is easily missed. First, the bricks are small and there are only a few of them. Then, the idea is executed in two different ways:

Within the narrow columns beside the fire-box, vertical seams are grout-filled to de-emphasize the vertical, while…
… in the wall of brick above the firebox, the bring is tightly spaced, leaving no room for grout. The brick-to-brick seams are smooth on their own and the horizontal pops.

We wonder: were these two approaches combined experimentally? Or was “smooth” specified by the architect and then executed in different ways by the construction team?

Either way, we’re looking at Frank’s fingerprints in the grout. He seems to be toying with an idea that would move in and out of his work for another 50 years.