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Nature of Materials Building on a Unit The Owner's View Building the Wright Way Historic Perspectives Manipulating the Space  Wally Rogers  Ted Osborn      SAMARA Home / Welcome |
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Construction Innovations"A building appears as of the landscape." Frank Lloyd Wright
The construction innovations of Frank Lloyd Wright had far reaching effects on producing a truly American style of architecture. From his earliest moonlighting adventures in Chicago during the 1890s to the his latest commissions of many homes across America during the 1950s, Frank Lloyd Wright was always daring and bold in his approach to designing buildings. In this study by individuals who interpret SAMARA, major construction innovations are identified and examined. The topic of Construction Innovations was selected for study because of limited documentation that is available on Wright's construction techniques performed at actual building sites.
Equally important to the study is the involvement of Dr. John Christian, client of Frank Lloyd Wright and owner of SAMARA. In addition to providing oral histories about the house, John provided the participants access to original drawings and design plans for the construction of SAMARA.
A most valuable archived document is a 12-minute video tape showing how SAMARA was built. The video tape, orginally recorded by the owner using 16 mm movie film traces the construction process from the time the lot was first bull dozed (1956) to the initial landscaping (1957) as specified by Mr. Wright.
Introduction [ Nature of Materials ] [ Building on a Unit ] [ The Owner's View ] [ Building the Wright Way ] [ Historic Perspectives ] [ Manipulating the Space ] [ Oriental Influence ] The John Christian Family Memorial Trust, Inc. and LEARNING ASSOCIATES This page was created July 6, 1999 Revision April 17, 2001 Latest revision January 13, 2007  |
SAMARA, as a late Usonian residence, exhibits more than 40 of Mr. Wright's innovations in the living room of the house alone. This has allowed the participants to draw heavily on the home itself as a living example of the results Mr. Wright had in mind when he first exhibited Usonian concepts with the emergence of the Herbert Jacobs First Residence (1936).
Photographs like these were made from individual frames of the movie and scanned electronically as part of our study. This is the first time that these photographs have been made available to the general public.
In addition, several of the participants contributed photographs from their own libraries to help build our construction innovation story. Some of the photographs of SAMARA were taken specifically for this study.