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FRANK LLOYD
WRIGHT:
LIGHT-SCREENS |
| The Boca Raton
Museum Of Art Presents
The Architect’s Stained-Glass Windows From
The Darwin D. Martin House |
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| RIGHT: Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright used stained-glass windows
to integrate interior spaces with the exterior
environment.
BELOW: Completed in 1906, the Darwin D. Martin
House in Buffalo, N.Y., is Wright’s
foremost example of Prairie House style. |
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In 1901, famed architect Frank
Lloyd Wright designed his first Prairie House
— a style he conceived based on his belief
that one’s home should interact with its
natural environment. In contrast to the vertically
oriented houses of the time, Wright’s
buildings were horizontal with low-pitched roofs,
and designed with balconies and terraces. Windows
played a key role in his structures, particularly
stained-glass windows, or “light-screens”
as he preferred to call them.
Of all the Prairie Houses he designed, the Darwin
D. Martin House in Buffalo, N.Y., is considered
to be his most definitive work. Martin, who
was affiliated with the John D. Larkin Co. in
Buffalo, |
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accumulated his wealth by rising up
through the company’s ranks to become secretary,
a position that was second in command to Larkin.
In 1903, Martin commissioned Wright to design five
structures on his property as a single composition:
a house for him and his wife, Isabelle; a house for
Martin’s sister Delta and her husband, George
Barton; a conservatory; a garage-stable; and a pergola.
As one of his unifying elements, Wright created light-screens
with a common nature theme and placed them throughout
each building in the ceilings, walls and floors. These
windows form the basis of “Frank Lloyd Wright:
Windows of the Darwin D. Martin House,” an exhibit
at the Boca Raton Museum of Art that will run from
Sept. 10 to Nov. 9, 2003.
Curated by Buffalo-based architect Theodore Lownie,
the exhibit was also designed by his firm, Hamilton
Houston Lownie Architects, LLC. “What we are
trying to portray to the visitor are some of Wright’s
ideas about the use of natural light, the connection
between indoors and outdoors, and the ways in which
those are unified,” Lownie says.
Rather than see a realistic depiction of the Martin
House, visitors will encounter an “abstracted
slice” of its first floor, which Lownie’s
firm devised using a black metal framework to represent
the interior. The framework also acts as a support
system for the approximately 100 light-screens on
display. Most of the windows are originals from the
Martin House, while others are faithful reproductions
that will eventually be installed in the house as
part of its ongoing restoration.
Reproductions of the barrel chairs that Wright designed
for the reception hall in the Martin House are also
part of the exhibit. “The reason we chose reproduction
barrel chairs was to encourage the public to sit in
the exhibit, as well as stand,” Lownie says.
“Wright designed the Martin House at a scale
that is most comfortable when sitting.”
When designing his light-screens, Wright drew inspiration
from the deciduous trees and wisteria plants surrounding
the Martin House and produced 14 different conceptual
variations on the theme. “Wright created an
abstraction of a particular natural form, through
which you look outdoors at the real thing,”
Lownie explains. “The windows became a way of
viewing the outside world as well as connecting to
it.”
The exhibit, which premiered in 1999 at the Burchfield-Penney
Art Center in Buffalo, had a successful second showing
in 2000 at
the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Its
popularity in Washington motivated George S. Bolge,
executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art,
to bring it to South Florida for a third appearance.
Citing “tremendous public interest in art glass”
as one reason for pursuing the exhibit, Bolge also
points to Wright’s strong ties to people and
places in Florida. In 1938, he designed the campus
buildings for Florida Southern College in Lakeland
— the largest collection of Wright structures
ever built on a single site for a single client. In
addition, architect Robert McCarter, one of the country’s
leading Wright scholars, is chairman of the department
of architecture at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Closer to home, architect Donald Singer, who de-signed
the Boca Raton Museum of Art, is also an ardent admirer
of Wright’s work. “The exterior detailing
of our building seemed to have been inspired by Taliesin
West,” says Bolge, referring to Wright’s
home in Scottsdale, Ariz. “The exhibit pays
homage to his genius as both an architect and an artist.”
For more information on the exhibit, contact the museum
at 561/395-2500, or visit www.bocamuseum.org. |
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