Day 274 - Frank Lloyd Wright room

 December 8, 2021

The walkway into Gallery 745, the living room of a Frank Lloyd Wright house, is roped off, but even so, the room is visible through thick glass windows  on both of its long sides, so I have a decent sense of it. The room seems to me to embody the key features of Wright's aesthetic: a strong sense of rectilinear design; the geometric simplicity of the tables, chairs, lamps, and other furnishings; the warmth imparted by the oak paneling that lines the walls and brings the outdoors into the room; and the emphasis on horizontals (for example, the stone and oak panels that extend beyond the width of the simple brick fireplace, the oak beams that cross the width of the gambrel-shaped ceiling).  

The room, I read, was part of a summer home built for a businessman and lawyer, Francis Little, and his wife Mary in Wayzata, Minnesota, overlooking Lake Minnetonka.  It's gratifying to learn that the Littles, for whom Wright designed an earlier house in Peoria, Illinois,  were founding members of the Art Institute of Chicago, and that Mary was an accomplished pianist. The room is very grand - I'd estimate at least 45 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 20 feet high at the center of the ceiling - but it also feels very livable. For one thing, the oak soffits roughly halfway up all four walls bring the eye downward and convey a feeling of intimacy. Facing the fireplace is a couch whose wide wooden arms could accommodate lots of books; presumably, the Littles enjoyed sitting there reading in the evenings or when the weather was poor. And window benches line both of the window walls, so they could sit there and watch the whitecaps on the lake. There are a few tables on which you can imagine the couple or their family and friends liked to play cards. I note that the room is furnished with at least two Oriental rugs as well as a small reproduction of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.  I wonder whether Wright approved of these decorative elements, but in any event, I suppose that an architect's control over his or her patrons is limited. It's nice to see a period room that is actually furnished with objects that came from that room, unlike the Met's other period rooms, where the furniture is of the period but did not come from the same houses as the rooms.

Two pairs of women look at the room, and in each, one of them comments on how uncomfortable the furniture was. And I feel like saying, "How do you know ? Did you ever sit on it?" To which, I am sure, the answer is no. I have also heard this about Wright furniture, of course, but it strikes me that this is a good example of how we accept on faith and repeat bits of "common knowledge" that have no basis in our own experience.

The Met's website answers my question about how the room came into the possession of the Met.  The answer is that the Mr. and Mrs. Little's daughter, who inherited the home, found it too expensive to maintain and wanted to build a smaller house on the property, but Wayzata zoning laws required that the earlier structure be razed. Fortunately,  the Met learned of the impending destruction early on and secured the room for the museum. .

And what happened to the couple's Peoria house? According to another website, it's still standing, occupied, and occasionally open to visitors.