Tag: Pittsburgh

My Impressions of Three Frank Lloyd Wright Houses

December 1, 2024

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House in Buffalo, built in 1904, would inspire any young man seeking a career in architecture (Darwin Martin was the CEO of the Larkin company). Stepping from the entrance porch, sheltered by a low overhang, into the lobby with a much higher ceiling conveyed a sense of warmth as if coming in from the cold outside. A massive fireplace dominated the right side of the lobby. A pergola, visible through a stained glass window, pointed towards the coach house. Entering, the lobby was dark with the surrounding walls made of sculptured stonework, using local materials.

The house layout was logical and straightforward; the reception room for entertaining guests opened on the left of the lobby. On the right was a large and extended room divided into the dining area, the living room, and the library at the other end. What gave elegance to all the spaces were windows all along the walls facing the outside, with colored patterns embedded in them. The windows illuminated the rooms and allowed occupants to view the surrounding landscaping designed for viewing from inside. Walking through the rooms was very comforting; I wanted to sit in the living room and enjoy the view through the windows.  

FLW was a total architect, designing not only the outside but also the inside of the house with most of the furniture, sometimes conflicting with the client’s wishes. For example, he created the bed for Mr. and Mrs. Martin in the main bedroom. It was esthetically pleasing but so short that Mr. Martin remarked that he could use it only while lying diagonally across the bed. Mrs. Martin had real trouble with the bed and decided to move to another bedroom with a larger bed in a few months.

Another example of the architect pushing his ideas was the grand piano the Martins wanted in their living room. FLW demanded that the piano be made of a specific wood to match the room’s color scheme. The piano would have taken a long time to manufacture and was so expensive that the Martins decided to buy one from a store, ignoring its color.

The design of the library floored me, I didn’t see any books. The books were in casbinets, designed by the architect, that swiveled to provide access to the books. It also surprised me that the library was furnished with a large table in the middle, against which were two bench seats facing away from the table on opposite sides. It seemed as if the architect did not want people to face each other when reading.

Impressed by the Martin House, we saw another FLW design, “Fallingwater,” a summer home for the Kaufman family of Pittsburgh, of department store chain fame. Fallingwater is one of FLW’s best-known designs, with a waterfall running through the building, built in 1936. Expansive balconies overhang cascading water; used in a famous building picture. The Kaufmans had one son, and the humongous living room was the most striking impression I had of walking through the summer house, created for only three adults. It was a vast open space with a few chairs and a massive balcony up front overhanging the waterfall. Windows covered three sides of the room. Against the back wall was a dining table of ordinary size with four chairs dwarfed by the oversized living room.

After seeing the main level of the house, the guide took us upstairs. Curiously, the staircase leading to the bedrooms had bookshelves; I understood that the son loved reading and insisted on having open bookshelves along the stairway and in his room, a design the exact opposite to the one in the Martin House library. However, his creative furniture design was evident in all the rooms; FLW designed a lamp for the night tables next to the beds with a vertical V-shaped wood construction that could be swiveled to throw light on a book when one read in bed. Equal attention was paid to window design; corner windows could swivel to open to let in air from two sides of the house and let the sound of the waterfall in from below.

In contrast to the two large houses designed by FLW, the Martin House and Fallingwater, we visited a 2.100 square foot Kentuck Knob, close to Fallingwater, also designed by him. The project was built in 1956 for the Hagan family for $90,000, who made their fortune in the dairy business.

The critical elements of the typical FLW style are all here: the house growing out of the land, situated to take advantage of the landscape, bringing natural elements into the house, and using local materials. It has long horizontal lines with a large overhanging roof. However, the design style has changed; the house has hexagonal instead of rectangular rooms. Designed by FLW, a long bench runs along the back wall of the elongated hexagonal living room, facing a window wall that overlooks the valley below. Sitting on the bench provides an excellent view of the panorama below. There are a couple of uncomfortable-looking chairs designed by FLW in the otherwise empty room. The long bench along the back wall was bizarre; would ten people sit side by side to watch the view in front? Not likely. A living room for me conjures up arrangements of chairs in a circle or in small groupings, where intimate conversations could take place.

Extending from the living room along the window wall, the dining room provides access to the kitchen and bedroom wing. The hexagonal kitchen features a twelve-foot-high ceiling and a skylight. The original design for the kitchen did not please Mrs. Hagan, who was an excellent cook and liked cooking meals (there were no servants in this household) and insisted that the kitchen be enlarged. The redesign narrowed the hallway connecting the kitchen to the bedrooms. The idea crossed my mind that FLW did not cook and did not have a high opinion of women to design such a miserly kitchen, especially without an outside window. That would be standard today.

Kentuck Knob is now owned by Lord Palumbo, a British property developer from London, England. Even at 89, he still visits the guest house on the property for a month every year. Today, according to our guide, this building, with a market price of three million dollars, would cost one million dollars to build. Kentuck Knob is meticulously maintained and in excellent condition, operating as a tourist attraction.

These buildings, and others designed by FLW, are national treasures, the product of arguably the most talented American architect. The architect’s ability to seamlessly integrate the last two buildings into the hillside, while capturing the best views of the surrounding countryside, really impressed me (in contrast, the Martin House sits on a suburban lot). The architect’s meticulous attention to detail, designing everything from the exterior and interior to the furniture, really impressed me.

Designing all the furniture came with some consequences, though. All three houses had surprisingly small bedrooms. As a result, the architect’s design, which included beds, nightstands, and built-in cabinets, made it impossible to use any furniture from the previous home. It’s not surprising that FLW’s strong personality caused friction with some members of his clients’ families.

FLW’s clientele consisted of three wealthy businessmen, all of whom had attained success in previous endeavors. Do people living in architecturally stunning homes experience greater success and happiness? We don’t. know. The only thing we know is that it was expensive to hire a renowned architect. After comparing architect-designed houses to basic shelters during my travels in Asia, the Middle East, and South America, I noticed that most people live in simple homes, making the field of architecture seem not so important in a global context.  

Climate Change in Fifty Years

August 2, 2024

While drilling a tooth in my mouth, the dentist asked me if I thought it was warmer in Ottawa now than a decade ago. Once he pulled out the drill from my mouth and my tongue got free to speak, I said yes. I said absolutely; this area is becoming a retirement community with a balmier climate that has superseded the cold winters. We now have longer, warmer summers and shorter, more tolerable winters.

The impact of climate change on winter sports is undeniable. The once long and enjoyable cross-country skiing season has been noticeably shortened. On the other hand, urban walking in winter has improved. With less snow, we can now stroll around town all winter, often with no snow on the ground.

But let me go back to the winter of 1974 when Ottawa’s average January temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit. In contrast, Ottawa’s average January temperature in 2024 was 21 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a significant upward move that has been gradual in my memory. The last few years have been mild and quite manageable, wearing light winter jackets.

Another example of the gradual warming is the number of days the Canal has been open for skating over the years. Dubbed the longest skating rink in the world, the Canal opened for skating in 1972 and was open for ninety days; the temperature was so cold that the ice on the Canal was three feet deep, the standard used for safe skating. It was open for twelve days in 2024 and never opened in 2023.

Leaving the dentist’s office, I met my friend, who explained that we have climate change, but he does not believe we have “global warming.” He agreed that climate change is real; this may be the hottest month in Ottawa, with daily temperatures in the nineties. He questions climate science and quotes periods when we have had warming and cooling over the last thousands of years.

He said Wade Davis’s chapter in his just-published book Beneath the Nature of Things provided the best and most balanced description of the climate issue he had ever read. Davis is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. In his essay, he provides a brief history of the climate change movement from its beginning in 1972 at the Copenhagen Conference.

Davis describes the cult-like followers of the climate crisis, including Greta Thunberg. He also mentions Steve Koonin (the science advisor to President Obama) and those who, although agreeing that the planet is in serious trouble embracing the carbon economy, believe technology will help solve the issue. There are also geopolitical issues: the South is asking for reparations; the North has had the time to create the problem while developing its economy and now asks the South to forego development based on the carbon economy. That does not seem fair. 

Davis intersperses his essay with fascinating facts, for example China approving the opening of 180 coal mines yearly and airline companies having 12,000 airplanes on order. These are examples of how these initiatives will increase rather than decrease the carbon economy. Also, 80 % of India has yet to fly, and sooner or later, all these people would want to experience flying, adding to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

The answer: Davis believes in setting action plans instead of target reduction plans; to date, the twenty-eight climate conferences have come up with watery plans, sometimes using misleading data, for example when the NATO countries came up with a target of 24% reduction when they had already achieved 12% of it by letting the ex-Soviet satellite countries join NATO.

Reading Davis’s essay made me wonder if I have ever done anything to reduce my carbon footprint. I belong to the group of people who do not feel the urgency of acting on a doomsday scenario that happens in decades. Polls show that although many believe in the danger of global warming, they are unwilling to act on it since it happens in the future.

Our new car is a hybrid EV. Did we get it because it is environmentally better than a carbon-fueled car? No, it was an economic decision: the mileage is much better than in a fully carbon-fueled car. We have not reduceed our travels to visit family and friends by air or automobile. And we have not downsized to save on heating fuel and AC. Should we?

Many factors influence the decisions to reduce our carbon footprint. The first one is to be convinced that the doomsday scenarios are real. But I have not had the experience that would convince me that we are on the threshold of a crisis.

If I travelled in an area with industrial pollution and massive car traffic resulting in hazy weather, I would put higher priority on solving air pollution resulting from the carbon economy. But that is not my recent experience.

Driving from Pittsburgh, PA, to Durham, NC, via West Virginia, we have seen vast expanses of beautiful open space with rolling hills. We have not seen any air pollution. We smelled fresh air. We also flew from Ottawa to Vancouver a few weeks ago and observed the vast lands underneath with no population. There is crowding with car pollution along parts of the East and West coasts, but most of the country in between is empty. So, I am not inclined to believe we have a climate problem based on my experience. I know there has been a gradual warming in the Ottawa area over the last fifty years. Beyond that, I have a minimal understanding of the future.