Fallingwater was as handmade as any of the early Modern experimental structures that, while earnestly seeking the hallowed label of prefabrication, were largely handmade, with lumpy (handcrafted!) white stucco that was smooth only if you were two miles away. Like finally seeing a real Mondrian, with all of its beautiful “imperfections,” much of building today still remains “handmade” even when it means the final connections that make a building sing. — Lamprecht archiTEXTural
Author, preservationist and historian Barbara Lamprecht takes on an earlier WSJ article called, "What's So Great About Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater?" Read her response to second question in the article: Is Fallingwater a work of modernism?
5 Comments
I always think that aesthetic of modernist architecture is a direct result of mechanical reproduction. Other modernisms in other fields are also. Wasn’t the manufacturing, serial production created the surplus trade and incorporated the agrarian society? The rest is ‘result.’ Modern lines were just what the doctor ordered for serial production. It is easier to look, at least for me, early ‘trophy’ examples of this aesthetic are done even the technology wasn’t sufficient. Just like today, Greg Lynn’s rubber walls are x-acto blade cut and gluegunned together. It is getting the idea done with whatever means necessary. Fallingwater is a an antihithesis to serial manufacturing even though it uses steel, concrete, glass and etc.. But so are the many new buildings we see today. If Fallingwater is not modern, neither EOM’s cartoonish buildings..
Interesting technology making its way into architecture today is robotics. Architecture is fairly new to this technology that has been around for many decades. A robot can be ‘many factories’ with the computational input. The critique of it however, this technological freedom is still used to create unmodern works like heavy handedly developed formal expressive architecture and sculptural escapades. We supposed to and eventually use the new technology for new architecture, not the variations of the same dead end street of ruling class spatiality. I degress before the conversation goes where it should really go; politics of space and its production.
Funny, I thought you started with the politics of space. But then I always read the modern aesthetic as desiring towards the grid of an accounting sheet much more than the plebeian problems of manufactory. The rest of what you say is tough to decipher past the many grammatical errors you made in this post (which are unusual enough that I wonder if your persona has bee hijacked). Still I'll offer these rejoinders: first, it was most likely the revolution in agricultural and sanitary sciences that produced a manufacturing society, not the reverse (see Fogel and DeCosta on technosocial evolution). Second, if you've bought lumber from Home Depot in the last five years, you ought to know that the lumpy (pardon me, organic) line is, in fact, cheaper to produce than the clean one.
I'm caught on a conundrum, however, with your third idea -- that we turn to robots for our salvation. How very un-post-modern of you-- haven't you seen the terminator movies? Perhaps we should be making robots to disassemble the mortgage industry and pave the way for more new construction. Then again, robots only generally work on film, and even then only after multiple takes.
Isn't everything in Home Depot manufactured, machined? Lumpy or straight, clean or rough? Isn't Home Depot's concept based on affordability to masses, like other big box retailers? Organic products are more expensive.
Where did you gather that I was referring or elaborating on the origins of the 'manufacturing society'? Isn't farming itself a mass production anyway, and with the machinery it further incorporated into serial production? What's your point?
Your seemingly clever response gives only indexing adjustments. C- for depth and width of the range with regards to connecting my words to the original article. I'll let you slide for grammar.
Your last paragraph is a knee jerk response. I was talking about car manufacturing robots, bending presses, stamping tools, robotic mills, etc.. You know what, I never seen the Terminator, those kind of films really bores me.
never seen the terminator films orhan? And aren't you an Los Angeleno? While I will admit that the last few (2-3) were bad the LA scape/aesthetic displayed personally colored my image (as a non resident) tremendously.
For instance those concrete, river chase scenes and nuclear apocalypse/mushroom clouds over the city if nothing else.
as for mespellrong 's post (i will also note here that honestly i just got the pun in that username for first time, today, even if i have seen it many times over years) I do think this point "But then I always read the modern aesthetic as desiring towards the grid of an accounting sheet much more than the plebeian problems of manufactory."
is one that is useful(?)/critical. never one i thought of much in that phrasing. some literal link maybe between the grid of a ledger and a Miesian grid? although i will admit that the idea of a link between standardization/reproductive manufacturing and cost/cutting-chasing isn't revolutionary to me.
Nam I have been living in LA for 35 years. Growing up with Turkish, Italian, French films, I did not see the city via a Hollywood production first. The reason it's worth mentioning this has to do with my initial reality based introduction to the city. I did a lot of growing up in this city, studied its architecture and urbanism on site with the street eyes of an Angelino, in addition to a student's engagement with it.
Btw, the Terminator owned a tourist trap restaurant on Main Street in Santa Monica called Schatzi and in its bathrooms were pumped dialogues from the movie. That is as close as I got to the film, that one time I was there for drinks.
I know this has little to do with original post, but I don't think about that anymore. Fallingwater modern or not, is a discussion that gets as interesting as the people who are making it a discussion. Otherwise it is a mute point. I think it is modern. I saw a means of production argument to identify a specific time in architecture text idea in Barbara Lamprecht's article for what it's worth.
I hope this post is easy to read, I agree, I am not grammar savvy, specially after receiving all red edit sheet from the editor for an upcoming publication which I have been working on all day today .;.)
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