"When asked what was his best design, Frank Lloyd Wright would frequently reply, 'The next one.'"

The fascia designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for SAMARA is definitely unique to this home and property. But, there is also a historical perspective worth discussing.

- Why was the heavily ornamented fascia necessary?

At the time of construction in 1956, the building lot was void of most landscape elements and the house, with its heavy massing and flat roofs, stood out from its surroundings. However, the plan called for a site that was extensively landscaped with over 80 different species of plants in such a manner the house with its boxy massing would eventually disappear into Nature.

As a mature lot in the 1990s, with a full growth of trees and shrubs engulfing the house, a heavy copper fascia with its distinctively SAMARA ornamentation is necessary to define the exterior of the house within its surroundings.

- How was this effect accomplished?

First, the house is located at the top of the building lot. This is somewhat like a Louis Sullivan designed skyscraper, and with a heavily ornamented copper fascia on an otherwise very quiet house, the architect is saying, "Look up!"

Second, the ornamented blue-green colored copper fascia fits the landscape by defining the outcropping on the "cave-like" structure of the living room developed in part by the mass of the fascia itself.

Third, the play of sunlight on the three-dimensional shape of the ornamental fascia, emphasizes the very edge of the lower roof nearly all the way around the house. Even where the ornamentation is not essential to find the house, for example as one walks up the driveway, the geometry and texture of the fascia "breaks the box" of the unusually flat masses of the building and monolithic appearance created by the redish pink brick.

- What is the historical significance of the SAMARA fascia?

Many architects, but Louis Sullivan in particular, use ornamental trim near the upper areas of their buildings to draw the eye toward that portion of the building and to emphasize the building's vertical element. For a frame of reference, one only needs to visit downtown Chicago.

Wright used Sullivan's trim feature on many of his houses, usually emphasizing the underside of the soffits rather than decorating the fascia. The tendacy was to draw attention to the large roof overhang for the purpose of enhancing the horizontal, not the vertical, aspects of the buildings. This historical perspective is illustrated in the Dana House, Springfield IL (1902) and in the Robie House, Hyde Park, Chicago (1910).

In Unity Temple, Oak Park, IL (1906), Wright combined an overhanging roof, deep set stained glass windows, and decorative elements in the cast-in-place concrete walls to draw attention, like at SAMARA, away from a monolithic mass. At SAMARA, Mr. Wright was more interested in creating something to tickle the eye.

Overviews of Construction Innovations
[ Nature of Materials ]   [ Building on a Unit ]   [ The Owner's View ]   [ Building the Wright Way ]
[ Historical Perspectives ]   [ Manipulating the Spaces ]   [ Oriental Influence ]