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

The year is 1889 and Frank Lloyd Wright is astride his favorite horse and riding through the open fields just north of his new Oak Park home. As he finishes his ride, he takes the saddle and tack from the horse, and hangs them in the stable located to the rear of the house. Then, this young aspiring architect rubs the horse down, places the horse in a stall and feeds him.

Seventeen years later in 1906, one of Mr. Wright's clients, George Blossom, needs a place to store and maintain his quite expensive and tempermental new "beast," his automobile. Wright designs him a garage in the "Prairie" style to go behind the "American Revival" style house Wright had designed for Blossom in 1892.

The story progresses to the 1950s, when Wright was asked by a Purdue professor, Dr. John Christian, and Kay, his wife, if he would design a house for them. Enthusiastically, Mr. Wright agreed and designed SAMARA. For this late "Usonian" style home, Mr. Wright, like he had done since the mid 1930s, selected a carport for the storage of the "beast."

- What caused this progression from a closed stable-garage to the open structure carport and what effect did it have on the buildings involved?

The stables of the era before automobiles and the early garages were necessary to not only provide a place for the housing of the horse and buggy, and later the automobile, but also for the storage of fuel - hay for the horse and gasoline and oil for the car. In addition, the closed stable and garage provided security, a place to store tools and accessories, and a place to perform maintenance on the steeds and vehicles.

By the late 1920s, with the horse no longer a consideration and with fuel and maintenance becoming readily available at service stations, Wright was thinking of his own suburban type community, Broadacre City, with cars parked on public streets overnight. While these factors did not eliminate the need for garages, they did permit innovative ideas about alternatives, and the carport was born.

The SAMARA Carport

- What are the charactistics of a carport that Wright found to be desirable?

There are five main things that Wright considered to be significant in his decision to design the carport to replace the garage.

1. The carport provides the shelter needed to protect automobiles from the worst of the elements - sunlight, snow and rain.
2. A carport is less expensive to build and maintain than a garage - no doors or windows, and not much trim.
3. Like the elimination of the basement, the carport reduces clutter.
4. The carport is flexible in its structure by not only providing storage for the "beast", but provides a covered main entryway to the house, a large front porch, a place to do outdoor cooking and entertaining, shade on a sunny day, and a pleasant place to sit outdoors during a rainshower.
5. Last and probably not the least in Wright's vision of SAMARA, the carport provides an element to "break the boxiness" of the inline, narrow structure of the house by introducing an open-structure "L" to the building.

Since this series is looking at historical perspectives, it would be an injustice to not look for the roots of the carport because it had not developed strictly from the needs described above.

The term "carport" comes from "porte cochere" or covered portal, an architectural element common on fine homes and hotels during the 19th century. Its purpose was to allow the occupants of a coach or buggy to exit without being subjected to inclement weather.

Frank Lloyd Wright used this feature on several earlier houses, most notable the Winslow House in River Forest, IL (1893), and the remodeling of the H. P. Young House in Oak Park, IL (1895).

Historical Perspectives
Overview | Breaking the Box | A Roof to Fit the Site | A Fascia to Tickle the Eye | Storage for the Beast - and More
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 ]