Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture : Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright [1 ed.] 9781443866408, 9781443842884

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Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture

Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture: Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright

By

Naomi Tanabe Uechi

Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture: Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, by Naomi Tanabe Uechi This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Naomi Tanabe Uechi All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4288-5, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4288-4

Sanctuary of Unity Temple Photo by Balthazar Korab. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Sanctuary of Unity Temple Photo by Balthazar Korab. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Exterior of Unity Temple Photo by Balthazar Korab. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... ix List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... xi Abbreviations ............................................................................................ xv Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One................................................................................................. 9 Furness and Emerson: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 43 Sullivan and Whitman: The Chicago Auditorium Theater and the Transportation Building at the Columbian Exposition Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 75 Wright and Emerson: Unity Temple, Chicago Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 97 Wright and Thoreau: Taliesin, Wisconsin Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 123 Wright and Whitman: Taliesin West, Arizona Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 151 Wright and Transcendentalist Successors: Toward Contemporary Environmental Architecture Appendix ................................................................................................. 169 Bibliography............................................................................................ 175 Index........................................................................................................ 183

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I began this interdisciplinary project involving literature and architecture under David Hertz and professors at Indiana University in 1998. Paul Gutjahr and Sarah Burns continuously provided valuable insights, guidance, and direction for my research and publication. Specifically, David Nordloh suggested that I research why I could say that Frank Lloyd Wright was an Emersonian, rather than any other Transcendentalist, in his design of Unity Temple. In order to accurately answer this question, I contacted Margo Stipe at the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, and she introduced me to Joseph Siry at Wesleyan University. He encouraged me to explore the question, providing helpful information. Since then, Siry and the Wright Archive, including Director Bruce Brooks Pheiffer, Margo Stipe, and Oskar Muñoz, supported my research on Wright and Sullivan. As for my Frank Furness research, I greatly thank the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Furness scholars Jeffery Cohen at Bryn Mawr College and Michael Lewis at Williams College for their assistance. I have the deepest respect and gratitude for the above professors. Certain Transcendentalist scholars also continuously guided me. In particular, Laura Walls at the University of Notre Dame and Richard Schneider at Wartburg College provided me with valuable information about Thoreau and Thoreauvian studies. Ed Folsom at the University of Iowa offered information and suggestions about Whitman and Whitman studies. David Miller at Allegheny College carefully read and commented on my manuscript, indicating useful revisions. Scott Slovic at the University of Idaho and other members of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment also supported my research. I am greatly thankful for financial aide for my research from the Emerson Society in 2005 and from Indiana University in 2004 and 2005. Finally, I thank Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, The Concord Saunterer, Soundings, and American Studies for permitting me to use parts of my published articles in these journals for this book. Likewise, I appreciate the Wright Archive, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Balthazar Korab (1926-2013), who worked with Wright as an architect and was awarded the AIA Medal for Architectural Photography in 1964. All of them permitted me to use images of their architectural photographs for this book.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Dust Jacket: Photo by Balthazar Korab. Courtesy of The Library of Congress 1. Fig. 1.1. Original Exterior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 19th century. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 2. Fig. 1.2. Exterior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1960s. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 3. Fig. 1.3. Front Left: Flower Motif and Plates, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 4. Fig. 1.4. Dynamism of Composition, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 5. Fig. 1.5. Front Center of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 6. Fig. 1.6. Flower Window at the Gift Shop, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 7. Fig. 1.7. Iron, Brick, and Grass along the Broad Street, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 8. Fig. 1.8. Front Entrance of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 9. Fig. 1.9. English Minton Floor Tile, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 10. Fig. 1.10. Mid Arch over the Grand Staircase, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 11. Fig. 1.11. View from the Landing, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 12. Fig. 1.12. Washington Foyer of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 13. Fig. 1.13. Skylight in the Square Dome, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 14. Fig. 1.14. Floral Light Fixtures of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 15. Fig. 1.15. Landing of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 16. Fig. 1.16. Double Frosted Glass of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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List of Illustrations

17. Fig. 1.17. Oblong shaped Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 18. Fig. 1.18. Octagonal shaped Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 19. Fig. 1.19. Columns in the Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Copyright © the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 20. Fig. 1.20. View of the Three-Part Art Glass Window, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo: Naomi Uechi) 21. Fig. 2.1. Exterior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago. (Copyright © Chicago History Museum). 22. Fig. 2.2. Interior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago. (Copyright © Chicago History Museum). 23. Fig. 2.3. Interior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 24. Fig.2.4. Charles Holloway, Mural over Proscenium, Auditorium Theater (1889). (Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, December 11, 1889). 25. Fig. 2.5. Holloway, detail of Proscenium Mural, Auditorium Theater. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 26. Fig. 2.6. Albert Fleury, South Mural (Spring Song), Auditorium Theater (1889). (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 27. Fig. 2.7. Albert Fleury, South Mural (Poet in Spring Song), Auditorium Theater (1889). (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 28. Fig. 2.8. Albert Fleury, North Mural (Autumn Reverie), Auditorium Theater (1889). (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 29. Fig. 2.9. Albert Fleury, North Mural (Poet in Autumn Reverie), Auditorium Theater (1889). (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 30. Fig. 2.10. Transportation Building. (Courtesy of Lily Library at Indiana University, Bloomington). 31. Fig. 2.11. Golden Door of Transportation Building. (Courtesy of Lily Library at Indiana University, Bloomington). 32. Fig. 2.12. Golden Door of Transportation Building. (Courtesy of Lily Library at Indiana University, Bloomington). 33. Fig. 3.1 The Exterior of Unity Temple Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 34. Fig. 3.2. Sanctuary of Taiyu.in.byo in Nikko: a national treasure and international heritage. (Copyright © Rin.no.ji Temple in Japan). 35. Fig. 3.3. Architectural Drawing of Unity Temple Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 36. Fig. 3.4. Sanctuary of Unity Temple Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural &

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Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 37. Fig. 3.5. Sanctuary of Unity Temple Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 38. Fig. 3.6. Sanctuary of Unity Temple Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 39. Fig. 4.1. Architectural Forum (1938). Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 40. Fig. 4.2. Architectural Forum (1938). Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 41. Fig. 4.3. Dam, Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 42. Fig. 4.4. Architectural Drawing of Taliesin. (Copyright © 2012 The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ.). 43. Fig. 4.5. Wright’s Residence, Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi) 44. Fig. 4.6. Farm, Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 45. Fig. 4.7. Citation from Walden in Architectural Forum (1938). Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 46. Fig. 4.8. Citation from Walden in Architectural Forum (1938). Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 47. Fig. 4.9. Drafting Room of Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 48. Fig. 4.10. Drafting Room of Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 49. Fig. 4.11. Drafting Room of Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 50. Fig. 4.12. Drafting Room of Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 51. Fig. 5.1. Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 52. Fig. 5.2. Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 53. Fig. 5.3. Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery

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List of Illustrations

Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 54. Fig. 5.4. Inscription on the Slab, Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 55. Fig. 5.5. Fellowship Logo, Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 56. Fig. 5.6. Architecture Forum (1938). Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 57. Fig. 5.7. Architectural Drawing of Taliesin West. (Copyright © the Wright Archive). Courtesy of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ. 58. Fig. 5.8. Whole View of Taliesin West. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 59. Fig. 5.9. Geometric Design of the Drafting Room of Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 60. Fig. 5.10. Roof Edge and the Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 61. Fig. 5.11. Living Room of Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 62. Fig. 5.12. Theater Room of Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 63. Fig. 5.13. Wright’s Inscription of Laotsu’s Words in Theater Room of Taliesin. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 64. Fig. 6.1. Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Ritsurin Park in Kagawa, Japan. (Copyright © the Ritsurin Park). 65. Fig. 6.2. Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Taliesin West. (Photo: Naomi Uechi). 66. Fig. 6.3. Jacobson House II. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 67. Fig. 6.4. Architectural Drawing of Jacobson House II. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 68. Fig. 6.5. Price Tower. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 69. Fig. 6.6. Price Tower. Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. 70. Fig. 6.7. Interior of Price Tower. (Copyright © 2012 The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ.). Courtesy of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ

ABBREVIATIONS

The following abbreviations for works central to the discussion will be used in citation: ComWRWE JMNRWE ColWRWE FLWA FLWCW FLWWB FLWQ

The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson The Journal and Miscellaneous Notebooks The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly

INTRODUCTION

Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture: Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright demonstrates how American architects read literature and transformed abstract philosophy and literary form into physical substance. The book also traces the transformation of the Transcendentalist concept of “organic form” into modern environmental architecture. Frank Furness (1839-1912), Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) were inspired by such Transcendentalists as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, and embodied the concepts of nature, American identity, and Universalism in their architecture. Specifically, the central focus of the book is Wright’s Transcendentalist writing and architecture, which have also been influential in the development of contemporary environmental architecture, although Wright himself was not considered an “environmental architect” in the contemporary sense of the term. Notably, this is the first attempt to analyze this architecture from a Transcendentalist perspective. According to the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, no scholar has concentrated on analyzing Wright’s architecture by way of his Transcendentalist thought, although many scholars agree that Wright did embody Transcendentalist ideas in his work. This is also the first time that reproductions of Wright’s copy of Leaves of Grass and several tape recordings of Wright’s Sunday talks have been published. In tracing the Transcendentalist roots of Wright’s architecture, this book begins with an analysis of the architecture and philosophy of Wright’s Transcendentalist architectural forerunners, Furness and Sullivan. Then, the book examines how Wright embodied the ideas of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman in his different buildings. After examining several of Wright’s works, the book concludes with Transcendentalist architects’ importance for the contemporary environmental architecture movement on a global scale. This final chapter includes contemporary ecological Transcendentalist architects Paolo Soleri (Italian-American) and Glenn Murcutt (Australian). These examinations will reveal that Transcendentalism in literature has ceaselessly evolved in architecture throughout the world, just as Emerson believed that the soul and society continually progress.

2

Introduction

“Organic Architecture” and “Transcendentalism” In order to understand Wright’s architecture in this book, two concepts are essential: “Transcendentalism” and “organic architecture.” “Transcendentalism,” a core philosophy in Wright’s architecture, refers to an American school of thought that arose in the nineteenth century. Transcendentalism connected the philosophy and literary ideas of Romanticism with Unitarianism, which denied the doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, the miracles and deity of Jesus Christ, and everlasting punishment. 1 Transcendentalism generally esteems spirituality and intuition over physical experience and human reason, drawing from Greek philosophers such as Plato and Plotinus.2 New England Transcendentalists influenced by British and Continental Romanticism respected the concepts of self-reliance and individualism, and admired the beauty of nature. Transcendentalist writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman emphasized religious feelings toward nature and a direct correspondence between the universe and the individual soul. Among these Transcendentalists, Emerson was a leader in advocating for American cultural independence. In particular, in his 1837 lecture “The American Scholar,” delivered at Harvard University, Emerson urged Americans to develop their own cultural traditions, claiming, “our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.” 3 In this statement, Emerson encouraged both intellectuals and artists, including architects of the day, to fight for cultural independence from the weighty and ingrained traditions of European countries. Wright was embedded in both Unitarian and Emersonian thought through his family. Jenkin Jones, his maternal great-great-grandfather, contributed to the founding of the Arminian sect of Unitarianism in eighteenth-century Wales; therefore, most of Wright’s relatives were 1

William F. Schulz, “Our Faith,” The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, ed. William F. Schulz (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1993), 1-7; Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880 (California: Stanford University Press, 1999), 95-99. 2 Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson and Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930), 20-45. 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Robert E. Spiller, Alfred R. Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr, Wallace E. Williams, and Douglas Emory Wilson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1:81.

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Unitarians and Emersonians.4 Influenced by them, Wright also became an ardent Unitarian and Emersonian. Evidence that Wright was a Transcendentalist architect can be found in two bodies of source material. First, many of his writings and talks reveal his Transcendentalist influence. For example, in one of his Sunday morning talks in 1952 to his apprentices, Wright discussed the importance of philosophy for architects and encouraged each of his apprentices to “be more or less a propagandist” for his or her architectural philosophy.5 In the same talk, he cited Emerson’s words from “American Scholar” about American cultural independence and claimed: “If you don’t read [Emerson’s Essays], it’s your own fault. Especially the one on ‘The American Scholar.’ ‘The American Scholar’ was our thesis in architecture in literature enunciated by Emerson at Harvard so many years ago.”6 While in “The American Scholar” Emerson encouraged general American cultural independence from European countries, Wright adapted this concept of cultural independence to the field of American architecture. Wright’s words, calling Emerson’s lecture “our thesis in architecture,” are meant to convey the idea that American architects should design original architecture, not merely imitate European architecture. The second source of evidence that Wright was influenced by Transcendentalism comes from the words of his relatives, colleagues, and students. For example, Wright’s son John Lloyd Wright wrote that: “David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Emerson and Henry Van Dyke were Papa’s friends. [...] He spent long hours printing selections from their writings on tracing cloths. He would blue-print them and pass them out to his friends.”7 Likewise, Wright’s apprentices in the Taliesin Fellowship were almost forced to practice the Transcendentalist ideal life as proposed by Wright in Taliesin and Taliesin West. Wright identified himself and was identified by others with Transcendentalism. 4

Robert McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon, 1997), 11. Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1952,” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 1. Unpublished manuscripts of Wright’s Sunday talks now belong to the Wright Archive in Arizona. The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives Registrar Margo Stipe and I checked these materials together. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Wright’s apprentice and Director of the Wright Archive, recorded Wright’s Sunday talks from 1948 to the end of the 1950s, and published some of them in Frank Lloyd Wright: His Living Voice (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1987). 6 Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1952,” 1. 7 John Lloyd Wright, My Father Who Is On Earth, ed. Narciso G. Menocal (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 33. 5

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Introduction

The other significant term, “organic architecture,” which Wright often uses in his writing and talks, arose from European Romanticism in the eighteen century.8 Richard P. Adams examines the term in his 1957 article “From Coleridge to Wright: The Romantic Movement.” Significantly, Wright himself read this Adams article about the relationship between literature and architecture, and mentioned the article in one of his Sunday morning talks in 1957: “I saw a pamphlet on the desk, written by a man named Adams—‘From Coleridge to Wright: The Romantic Movement.’ And I wondered how many of the boys and girls there know the connotation of that word ‘Romantic’ in connection with architecture, or in connection with an artistic movement.”9 In this talk Wright emphasized the significance of the philosophy behind architecture, and noted that his organic architectural theory originally stemmed from Romantic theories of literature, which also played a significant role in forming Transcendentalism in the United States. According to Adams, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge popularized the concept of “the organic form” in England.10 Adams mentions that in an 1818 lecture on Shakespeare, Coleridge expressed admiration of Shakespeare’s works as organic works because, unlike traditional religious moral plays, they are neatly organized like “nature’s systems.”11 Coleridge’s words “nature’s systems” imply that Shakespeare’s works express human nature and England’s nature, separating his works from rigid religious plays. According to Coleridge, “[t]he true ground of the mistake lies in the confounding mechanical regularity with organic form. The form is mechanic. [...] The organic form, on the other hand, is innate.” 12 For Coleridge, the “organic” form relating to nature was preferable to the artificial, “mechanic[al]” form.13 A reason for this was that for Coleridge, the “mechanic” form was associated with traditional Continental “religious” or “moral” styles, while the “organic” form was meant in the context of unique British styles based on British land itself. In the United States, the first American writer to apply the concept of “organic form” to American architecture was the sculptor Horatio 8

Richard P. Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition: Coleridge to Wright.” American Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1957), 47. 99 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1957,” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 1. 10 Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition,” 47. 11 Ibid., 47. 12 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and Other English Poets, 1884, ed. T. Ashe (New York: Books for Libraries P, 1972), 229. 13 Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition,” 48-49.

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Greenough, Emerson’s and Rev. Frank Furness’s closest friend at Harvard University. 14 In an 1843 essay, “American Architecture,” Greenough advocates for American architects’ creation of an original American organic architecture: “The mind of this country has never been seriously applied to architecture. Intently engaged in matters of more pressing importance, we have been content to receive our notions of architecture as we have received the fashion of our garments and the form of our entertainments, from Europe.” 15 His words echo Emerson’s ideas of American cultural independence from European countries, and later inspired Sullivan and Wright. In the same essay, Greenough also advises his audience to consult nature, for nature’s law is fundamental for all living beings: “Nature spake of the laws of building, not in the feather and in the flower, but in winds and waves, and he [the human] bent all his mind to hear and to obey.”16 Greenough’s words assert the importance of focusing on the practical instead of the aesthetic aspects of nature, where he stresses the variety as well as the method of organic solutions for specific structural problems in architecture. He suggests that form should follow function, and that two identical structures should not exist, as they must each have their own individuality.17 In nineteenth-century America, influenced by Emerson and Greenough, Transcendentalists elaborated on and combined the ideas of organic form with their Unitarian beliefs, often discussing American architecture as a “possible test-case for organic creation.” 18 Just as Coleridge and his colleagues advocated for innate organic form in British literature, American Transcendentalists directly or indirectly encouraged American architects to abandon the old humanistic traditions of the Renaissance, Neo-Classicist, and Neo-Gothic styles, and to establish American architectural styles that expressed the new culture they celebrated. In early twentieth-century America, Wright, who was interested in Emerson’s ideas of American cultural independence from other countries,

14

Ibid., 49. Horatio Greenough, “American Architecture,” Form and Function: Remarks on Art, Design, and Architecture, ed. Harold A. Small (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1957), 53. 16 Ibid., 61. 17 Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition,” 50. 18 Ibid., 48-49. 15

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Introduction

further developed the ideas of organic architecture.19 Wright explains the term, “organic architecture,” in a 1931 essay: If we have occasion to refer to the visible world, we will use the term ‘External Nature.’ The word ‘Organic’ too, if taken too biologically, is a stumbling-block. The word applies to ‘living’ structure—a structure or concept wherein features or parts are so organized in form and substance as to be, applied to purpose, integral. Everything [that] ‘lives’ is therefore organic. The inorganic—the ‘unorganized’—cannot live.20

Wright’s concept of the “organic” therefore includes not only all living beings, but also organized systems of structures, including society. Organic architecture is thus an architecture informed by nature’s law, and the core idea of Wright’s architectural theories. Chapter One examines the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1871-76), in which Furness attempted to express his Transcendentalist ideas of American cultural independence in architecture. Since Furness’s father, Rev. Furness, was Emerson’s intimate friend, Frank Furness was strongly influenced by the Transcendentalist ideas of both men. While Furness was designing the Academy, Sullivan worked with him for a short period and saw the way that Furness incorporated Transcendentalist ideas in his architecture. The first section of Chapter Two discusses Sullivan and his work on the Chicago Auditorium Theater. The Auditorium Theater continues Furness’s attempt to incorporate Transcendentalist ideas into architectural form. While designing the interior of the Auditorium Theater, Sullivan came across a poem from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which inspired him to transcribe Whitman’s poem and a Transcendentalist poem of his own in the Auditorium Theater itself. Since Wright worked with Sullivan in designing the Auditorium Theater, Wright observed firsthand Sullivan’s 19

According to Donald Drew Egbert, in the twentieth century “organic expression” in American architecture developed in two main strands (“Organic Expression,” Evolutionary Thought, ed. Stow Persons [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950], 387). One stemmed from European Romanticism, and through the Transcendentalists was popularized by Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The other also stemmed from European Romanticism, but employed modern technology and machines, developed through the Werkbund and Bauhaus in Germany, and was refined by Walter Gropius and Ludwig Meis van der Rohe, all of whom were born in Europe and immigrated to the U.S. 20 Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture: Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1931), 27.

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incorporation of Whitman’s ideas into architecture. The second section of Chapter Two examines the Transportation Building, which Sullivan designed at the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. The exterior of the Transportation Building and the ornamented Golden Door at the entrance express a continuity of his Transcendentalist architectural theories about colours and arches from the Auditorium Theater. Chapter Three traces Emerson’s philosophical influence on Wright and demonstrates what can be called Wright’s architectural essence. Since Unity Temple (1905-06) is a Unitarian church and Wright was a member of its congregation, he incorporated his Unitarian beliefs there, specifically his understanding of Emerson’s ideas of nature, art, and American identity. Chapter Four takes up the particular embodiment of Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity in Wright’s summer residence, Taliesin, Wisconsin (19111959). When Thoreau wrote Walden in the mid nineteenth century, a serious economic depression attacked to the United States, and Americans were attracted to Thoreau’s writing and ideas of simplicity. When Wright constructed Taliesin and made the Taliesin Fellowship during the 1930s, the Great Depression attacked the United States and Wright recalled Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity in life and art. Chapter Five argues that Wright embodied his Whitmanian interpretation of “democracy” in Taliesin West, Arizona (1937-59), where he and his fellows stayed during the winter. In a speech delivered in Los Angeles in 1954, Wright explained his intention behind designing Taliesin West. The careful examination of Wright’s speeches and writings from the time will reveal why Wright inclined toward Whitman’s ideas of “democracy” in his latter days. Chapter Six explores how Wright’s specific organic architecture, in which Wright concerned environmental factors, has influenced contemporary environmental architecture. The first section clarifies the basic terms of environmental architecture. The second section discusses Wright’s architecture from the perspective of environmental issues. I discuss such works as Taliesin West in Arizona, Jacobs House II in Wisconsin, and Price Tower in Oklahoma. Subsequently, the third section of the chapter discusses contemporary ecological architects who have further developed Wright’s architectural ideas, focusing on Paolo Soleri (1919-) and Glenn Murcutt (1956-). Italian-American Soleri worked with Wright for eighteen months. Soleri has uniquely developed Wright’s ideas, and has expressed his architectural philosophy through his word “arcology” (architecture + ecology). Australian architect Murcutt, who identifies himself as a Thoreauvian and Wrightian architect, won the 2002 Pritzker prize and the

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Introduction

2009 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. These examinations reveal that Transcendentalism, far from being eclipsed as a cultural phenomenon, has developed and retained an influential role within American architecture, a role that is likely to become more prominent as we move through the twenty-first century.

CHAPTER ONE FURNESS AND EMERSON: THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS

Furness, Sullivan, and Wright Frank Heyling Furness (1839-1912) was one of the predecessors of Transcendentalist architecture in the nineteenth century. Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924) learned how to express his Transcendentalist ideas in his buildings and ornament while he worked with Furness. Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) in turn learned from Sullivan while he worked with him at the turn of the twentieth century, thus indirectly inheriting Furness’s Transcendentalist ideas in architecture.1 John Harbeson has said of the relationship among these Transcendentalist architects: “Frank Furness may [...] be considered as the architectural godfather of Louis Sullivan, and the spiritual grandfather of Frank Lloyd Wright.”2 In this chapter, I trace one aspect of this Transcendentalist architectural genealogy, examining how Frank Furness, in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, expressed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas of American cultural independence. In line with Emerson’s ideas, Furness’ building reflects the regional nature and culture of Pennsylvania. I will begin by explaining how Furness’s Transcendentalist ideas regarding the arts were formed in his early childhood and then developed

1

Biographical information is taken from Michael J. Lewis, Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001; James F. O’ Gorman, The Architecture of Frank Furness, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973; Mark B. Orlowski, “Frank Furness and the Heroic Ideal,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1986; and George E. Thomas, Jeffery A. Cohen, and Michael J. Lewis, eds, Frank Furness: The Complete Works, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. 2 John Harbeson, “Philadelphia’s Victorian Architecture 1860-1890,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (July 1943), 271.

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in his professional life as an architect. I will also examine the background of the Academy, and consider why it was designed to express the idea of American uniqueness through both cultural and religious means. I will then analyze how Furness attempted to express these ideas in the exterior and the interior of the Academy. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was one of the nation’s oldest art museums, originally founded in 1805 but redesigned by Furness and reopened in 1876. 3 The first American Academy of Fine Arts was organized in 1802 in New York, and the Philadelphia Academy, the former building of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was the second.4 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has collected and exhibited works by preeminent American artists such as Charles Willson Peale, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Eakins, and Mary Cassatt. Since their works have been crucial in the history of American cultural independence in the arts, it is worthwhile to examine how Furness also demonstrated American architectural independence in the Academy.5

Rev. Furness and Emerson Architect Frank Furness’s father, Unitarian minister Rev. Frank Furness, was one of Emerson’s cherished friends throughout his life, and both continuously inspired each other and their families.6 In an 1843 letter to Margaret Fuller, Emerson wrote: “[Rev.] Furness is my dear gossip, almost a gossip for the gods, there is such a repose and honor in the man.”7 In their childhood, Rev. Furness and Emerson attended the Public Latin

3

Wendell Garrett, “Preface,” Antiques (March 1982), 671. Ibid., 671. 5 Since Furness’s relatives and friends complied with his wishes to burn his writings after his death, only two articles written by Furness, “Hints to Designers” and “A Few Personal Reminiscences of His Old Teacher by One of His Old Pupils,” have survived (Cohen, “Styles and Motives in the Architecture of Frank Furness,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 92). Therefore, I examine Furness’s thought by using Furness’s words from these two essays as well as his architecture. 6 To identify the members of the Furness family, the following conventions are used: “Furness” refers to Frank Furness; “Rev. Furness” refers to his father; and siblings are referred to by full names. 7 Horace Howard Furness, Records of a Lifelong Friendship 1807—1882: Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Henry Furness. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1910, vi. 4

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School and received private tutoring from “Master Webb” together.8 Rev. Furness wrote about their experiences as 10-year-olds at the private school: “We two boys were allowed to sit apart from the other boys, where we pleased; we always sat together, Ralph and I.”9 Rev. Furness’s words show that his memory of Emerson was always cherished even in his latter days and that he was proud of their friendship. Their friendship continued, and after Emerson and Rev. Furness graduated from Harvard College and Divinity School, Emerson served as a minister in Boston until he resigned in 1832, while Rev. Furness worked at the New England Center for Unitarianism in Boston before moving to Philadelphia to be a minister in 1825. Even though they lived far apart, they frequently visited each other and Emerson often lectured at Furness’s church in Philadelphia.10 Besides being a Unitarian minister, Rev. Furness was a Transcendentalist, poet, translator, and hymn writer. In addition, he played a significant role in the development of American culture in Philadelphia as a member of the Art Union and a supporter of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which his son, Frank Furness, would reconstruct in 1876.

The Furness Family and the Transcendentalists Transcendentalism refers to an American school of thought that arose in the nineteenth century, and which connects the philosophy and literary ideas of Romanticism with Unitarianism, which denied the doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, the miracles and deity of Jesus Christ, and everlasting punishment.11 Transcendentalism generally privileged spirituality and intuition over physical experience and human reason, drawing from Greek philosophers such as Plato and Plotinus. 12 New England Transcendentalists, influenced by British and Continental Romanticism

8 Furness, Records, xiv. Rev. Furness writes about their childhood episodes in “Furness’s copy of Mr. Cabot’s Memoir,” handwritten by Horace’s sister and included in Records. 9 Furness, Records, xv. 10 George E. Thomas, “Flowering of an American Architecture,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 26. 11 William F. Schulz, “Our Faith.” The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide. Ed. William F. Schulz. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1993, 1-7; Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, 95-99. 12 Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson and Asia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930, 20-45.

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respected the concepts of self-reliance and individualism, and admired the beauty of nature. Transcendentalism pervaded the intellectual development of Rev. Furness’s four children: painter and portrait draftsman William Henry Furness Jr. (1828-1867); translator of German literature Annis Furness Lee (1830-1908); Horace Howard Furness, a Shakespeare scholar at the University of Pennsylvania (1833-1912); and architect Frank Heyling Furness. From childhood the children were acquainted with their father’s Transcendentalist friends; among them, Emerson was a crucial person. Rev. Furness’s children directly heard and absorbed Emerson’s ideas through their father or Emerson himself at their father’s church.13 Emerson often visited the Furnesses and presented gifts to Rev. Furness’s children. 14 For example, Rev. Furness appreciated Emerson’s gift of a stereoscope, a pair of binoculars that create the illusion of three dimensions, to his family, and wrote to Emerson in an 1854 letter: “I never told you of Frank’s great pleasure in the stereoscope. It was in his hand for days—.” 15 As these words suggest, Emerson helped Rev. Furness’s children develop an interest in observing nature. According to George E. Thomas, Rev. Furness frequently cited Emerson’s poems and essays in his sermons and lectures, including those given at architectural conferences.16 For example, at the final session of the American Institute of Architects conference held in Philadelphia in 1870, Rev. Furness gave a lecture on “The Architect and Artist” and emphasized American architectural independence from European architecture, quoting Emerson’s poem “The Problem” to illustrate his claims.17 The poem mainly discussed Emerson’s concept of architectural principles underlying nature, art, architecture, and the divine.18 According 13

Thomas, “Flowering,” 27. Ibid., 26-29. 15 Furness, Records, 97. 16 Thomas, “Flowering,” 33-34. 17 Richard P. Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition: Coleridge to Wright.” American Quarterly 9.1 (1957): 54. 18 The following is Rev. Furness’ quotation from Emerson’s “The Problem”: Know’st thou what wove you woodbird’s nest Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? Or how the fish outbuilds her shell Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred-pine tree adds To her old leaves new myriads? Such and so grew those holy piles While love and terror laid the tiles. 14

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to Richard P. Adams, in order to explain his own concept of the “bloodrelationship of Architecture to Nature,” Rev. Furness cited the poem’s fourth stanza, in which Emerson asserts that architecture is indispensable for humans, like “woodbird’s nest[s],” “shell[s],” and “pine trees” for living beings.19 Frank Furness, who also attended the conference, listened to his father’s lecture and his metaphor from Emerson’s poem. Besides imparting philosophical concepts to the Furness family through intellectual exchange, Emerson frequently introduced the Furnesses to other Transcendentalists in his circle. One of them was Henry David Thoreau. In an 1847 letter, Emerson wrote to Rev. Furness that “Henry D. Thoreau is a great man in Concord, a man of original genius & character.”20 When Thoreau visited Philadelphia to give a lecture in 1854, Rev. Furness wrote about his impressions of Thoreau to Emerson: Thoreau “was full of interesting talk for the little while that we saw him, & it was amusing to hear your intonations.” 21 The letter also reveals that although Rev. Furness could not go to the lecture, he heard that the general public did not always enjoy Thoreau’s talks. In an 1855 letter, Emerson also introduced Walt Whitman to Rev. Furness and asked about Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: “Have you read that wonderful book—with all its formlessness & faults ‘Leaves of Grass?’”22 Whitman, later in his life, lived in Philadelphia and maintained a close relationship with the Furnesses. Around 1879 Horace Furness founded a private club with two literary friends, and each of the founders chose another member; “Frank Furness was Horace Furness’s choice.” 23 On Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone; And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky As on its friends with kindred eye; For out of thoughts’ interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat. (from “The Architect an Artist,” quoted in Thomas, “Flowering,” 34). 19 Adams, “Architecture and the Romantic Tradition,” 54. 20 Furness, Records, 60. 21 Ibid., 103. 22 Ibid., 107. 23 Ibid., 142.

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March 26, 1879, Whitman was invited to the club as a special guest, and in an 1879 letter to John Burroughs, Whitman mentioned Horace and Frank Furness, “his brother, the architect.”24 Whitman was attracted to the club and its members, and he frequently attended the club after his first visit and exchanged his Transcendentalist ideas with Horace Furness and his relatives and friends. 25 Introduced to them by Emerson, many Transcendentalists had strong relationships with the Furness family, and directly influenced the formation of Frank Furness’s Transcendentalist thought.

Frank Furness and Transcendentalist Thought Three concepts formed the main Transcendentalist influences on Furness’s development of a cultural independence in architecture: selfreliance, anti-institutionalism, and abolitionism. Emerson’s concept of self-reliance was the most important and essential for Furness. In “SelfReliance,” Emerson notes: “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.”26 This statement encourages people to cultivate the ideas of self-reliance, emphasizing that they trust their own intuitions and not imitate other people’s opinions. Furness’s ideas of selfreliance echo Emerson’s statement, and one of Furness’s essays, “Hints to Designers,” reveals his basic ideas of architecture, especially the Emersonian idea of self-reliance: In all cases the student must go for knowledge to the fountain-head, Nature. If the author of the best book upon ornamentation gives original designs, he went to Nature for them: go and look for yourself, trust nobody’s eyes but your own.27

24

Walt Whitman quoted in Michael J. Lewis, Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001,143. 25 Ibid., 143. 26 Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Robert E. Spiller, Alfred R. Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr, Wallace E. Williams, and Douglas Emory Wilson. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1971, 47. 27 Furness, “Hints to Designers,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 348. Like typical Transcendentalists and some Romantic writers, Furness repeats “Nature” in his writing, and also uses a capital “N.” This fact recalls Frank Lloyd Wright’s words: “I think Nature should be spelled with a capital ‘N,’ not because Nature is God but because all that we can learn of God we will learn from the body of God,

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Furness’s words, “trust nobody’s eyes but your own,” echo Emerson’s words in “Self-Reliance”: “[i]nsist on yourself; never imitate.”28 Furness claims that imitation is worthless for artists and that therefore they must trust themselves and demonstrate their own ideas and designs. Furthermore, Furness’s words, “the student must go for knowledge to the fountain-head, Nature,” in the article reflect the ethos in Emerson’s famous 1837 lecture “The American Scholar.” Emerson states in his lecture that “the first in importance of the influence upon the mind is that of Nature.”29 While Emerson encourages the audience to trust themselves, Furness specifically focuses on artists and asserts that it is essential for artists to talk to nature to develop their original creativity. Furness’s idea of anti-institutionalism was also informed by Emerson and Rev. Furness. Rev. Furness’s ideas of anti-institutionalism share similar ideas with those of Emerson in Nature: “The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, —let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward.”30 In this passage, Emerson claims that scholars and artists should not adhere to the past, books, and institutions, but should create new ideas and works out of the more essential power of nature. Rev. Furness agreed with Emerson’s ideas of anti-institutionalism, disliked neatly organized education, and did not send his children to public school. According to Elizabeth Geffen, Rev. Furness sent his eldest son William Henry Furness, Jr. to a school in Philadelphia run by Amos Bronson Alcott until it was closed in 1833. 31 Although Alcott’s private school was called a “school,” in fact it was not like a typical public school, which forced students merely to memorize which we call Nature” (quoted in Brendan Gill, Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright, New York: Putnam, 1987, 22). In contrast, John Ruskin’s writing neither frequently uses a capital “N” for Nature nor repeats the word “Nature,” but he more specifically describes nature by using the words flowers, trees, sky, and clouds. 28 Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” 47. 29 Emerson, “The American Scholar,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 54. 30 Emerson, Nature, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 57. 31 Elizabeth M. Geffen, Philadelphia Unitarianism 1796-1861, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961, 165-67. According to Geffen, although Frank Furness certainly knew Alcott, it has not been documented whether Furness, Horace, or Annis worked with him (Orlowski, “Frank Furness and the Heroic Ideal,” 38, 47). Lewis’s recent research notes that Furness studied in Mr. Gary’s private school, a college preparatory program (Lewis, Architecture and the Violent Mind, 13, 256).

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information. Alcott’s school was a kind of private tutoring group, which esteemed students’ individuality and developed their creativity. Sharing similar ideas with Emerson, Alcott’s private school mainly taught students how to learn from nature and developed the students’ individual originality. Like Rev. Furness, Frank Furness thought that institutions and books would stop the progress of the individual soul and prevent the development of self-reliance. In fact, in “Hints to Designers” Furness notes that “books on ornamentation containing various patterns are useful only for this purpose—as a means of cultivating the memory of the eye— unless, indeed, you consult them in order to see how other minds have conquered the problem you are trying to solve.” 32 Furness thought that each person’s experience and practice were more important than written words in books. Thus, influenced by his father and his Transcendentalist friends, Furness went neither to college nor to Europe, but instead studied draftsmanship with John Fraser (1825-1906) in Philadelphia for a short period, and later learned architecture with Richard Morris Hunt in New York. 33 In this situation, it was no wonder that when a woman asked Furness to what school she should send her child, Furness refused to advocate formal schooling at all, and responded to her: “Send him to none. All schools are bad. They destroy the power of creative thought. Put him in an architect’s office and let him work out his own salvation. Give him a chance to upset the rules.” 34 Importantly, Furness’s disdain for formal education was attractive, much later, to Louis Sullivan. In The Autobiography of an Idea, Sullivan writes that when he first visited Frank Furness in the 1870’s, Sullivan had just left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “for he could see no future there. He [Sullivan] was progressive, aggressive and impatient. He wished to live in the stream of life.” 35 Hearing Furness’s idea of anti-institutionalism prompted Sullivan to work with him.36

32

Furness, “Hints to Designers,” 348. James F. O’Gorman, Three American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865-1915, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 18-19. 34 Furness, “Men and Things,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 363. 35 Louis Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea, New York: Dover, 1956, 189. 36 Furness suggested, as Sullivan himself later recalled in his third person autobiography, that “Louis was an idiot to have wasted his time in a place where one was filled with saw-dust, like a doll, and become a prig, a snob, and an ass” (Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 192). Sullivan admired Furness’s originality and wrote: “Frank Furness ‘made buildings out of his head’” (193). 33

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The Transcendentalists’ respect for individual intuition and liberalism under the law of nature also inclined them to abolitionism. The movement of abolitionism forced Furness to fight in the Civil War, and later greatly influenced Furness’s physiognomic architectural designs in expressing various kinds of cultures. 37 Although most Transcendentalists are often thought to have been ardent abolitionists from the beginning of the abolition movement, this assumption is not always true. For example, Emerson, at first, was a “rather cool and philosophical” abolitionist. 38 According to Len Gougeon, when Emerson delivered a speech about slavery in November 1837, many in the audience, who expected an enthusiastic “abolition oratory,” were disappointed at his philosophical speech about “the great moral and social issue of slavery.”39 Since slavery was against Emerson’s belief in “moral self-reliance,” he objected to slavery, but only moderately. 40 However, at the end, in “The Fugitive Slave Law,” delivered in March 1854, Emerson declared: “I respect the Anti-Slavery Society.” 41 Likewise, Transcendentalists were not always passionate abolitionists from the beginning but many Transcendentalists gradually came to agree with abolitionism because they believed in the equality of every human. Furness’s enthusiastic abolitionism can be traced back to his father’s influence and his childhood memories of the anti-abolitionist movement.42 Like Emerson, Rev. Furness was a moderate abolitionist until 1838, but he eventually “stood shoulder to shoulder with Frederick Douglass in New York, defiantly protecting him in the face of looming riot.”43 As a result, the Furnesses and their church were always threatened by anti-abolitionist terrorism. Seeing such terrorism since his childhood, Frank Furness came to hate racial discrimination, and was agitated by the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), which required the return of runaway slaves regardless of where they were situated at the time of their discovery or capture. The law forced citizens of Northern states to return runaway slaves to the South, and its passage accelerated the regional animosity that eventuated in the Civil War. At last, Furness joined the military, serving in the Civil War for three 37

Lewis, Architecture and the Violent Mind, 12. James Elliot Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1887, 426. 39 Len Gougeon, “Emerson and Abolition: The Silent Years, 1837-1844,” American Literature 54.4 (1982): 560. 40 Ibid., 562. 41 Emerson, “The Fugitive Slave Law,” 244. 42 Lewis, Architecture and the Violent Mind, 12. 43 Ibid., 12. 38

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years, and earned “the Medal of Honor during three years” in Northern Virginia as a member of “Rush’s Lancers of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry.”44 In this way, Frank Furness’s Transcendentalist idea that every American should be equal following nature’s law was embedded by Rev. Furness and his Transcendentalist friends, and even forced him to join in the Civil War. Above all, the Transcendentalist influence on Frank Furness’s life would become obvious in Furness’s own aesthetic in his architectural career, as can be seen in the later section on the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which strongly connected Transcendentalist ideas with architectural goals.

Influence of Transcendentalism and Other Theories on Frank Furness In addition to Emerson’s philosophy, Furness came to incorporate other architectural and art theories in his architecture as he grew up. However, Furness still kept his Transcendentalist ideas, especially the Emersonian emphasis on American cultural independence. Architect Robert Venturi regards Furness as “an American-Emersonian, individualistreformist, naturalist-artist, as one who follows at the same time the sturdy, continental, functionalist Gothicism of Viollet-le-Duc in France and the exuberant Italianate Gothicism of Ruskin in Britain.”45 As Venturi notes, in Furness’s day many philosophers and artists in the world expressed similar ideas about the relationship of nature, art, and the divine. Therefore, it is difficult to definitively establish Furness’s specific philosophical and architectural sources, but it is certain that Furness’s core ideas were based on Emerson’s ideas of American cultural independence. While scholars such as Jeffrey A. Cohen and Michael J. Lewis have examined Furness’s works from various perspectives, they acknowledge Emerson’s basic influence on Furness’s architecture alongside John Ruskin (1819-1900) and Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895), both of whom also influenced Furness’s architectural philosophy. Mark B. Orlowski examines the influence of Viollet-le-Duc and of Ruskin on Furness’s Academy. 46 However, Orlowski also mentions Ruskin’s indebtedness to Emerson: “Ruskin’s particular blend of art, nature and morality appealed to American readers. In many ways he reinforced Emerson’s ideas. Like 44

George E. Thomas, “The Flowering of an American Architecture,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 23. 45 Robert Venturi, “Furness and Taste,” Frank Furness: The Complete Works, 6. 46 Orlowski, “Frank Furness and the Heroic Ideal,” 217-49.

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the American Transcendentalists, Ruskin sanctioned the individual taste in matters of art.”47 In fact, Ruskin himself acknowledged his indebtedness to Emerson in one of the letters of Time and Tide, saying that “next to Carlyle, for my own immediate help and teaching, I nearly always look to Emerson.” 48 In other words, Ruskin explored Emerson’s ideas of American cultural independence in his works—possibly one of the reasons why Ruskin’s ideas appealed to Americans when his works were introduced in the U.S.49 Another important influence on Furness besides Ruskin was Furness’s architecture teacher, Richard Morris Hunt. Lewis Mumford, who points out Hunt’s influence on Furness, claims that since “the Transcendentalists did not produce a coherent aesthetic theory which was directly applicable to architecture,” American architects needed to learn the theories of the French Romantics. 50 Specifically, Mumford discusses the influence of theories of the French Romantics on Furness through Hunt. George E. Thomas asserts that the Hunt method, which was considerably influenced by the French Romantics, was obvious in Furness’s early works such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Northern Savings Fund Society, but he adds that “the flexibility and expressive potential of the style was obvious” in these buildings and therefore they were not carbon copies of the Hunt method.51 Furness first learned various arts and architectural theories, then mixed them, and produced unique American 47

Ibid., 222. John Ruskin quoted in Buell, Emerson, 328. 49 Lauren S. Weingarden examines a Ruskinian discourse in the work of Furness and Sullivan, and calls Furness one who followed a “Ruskinian/ Emersonian tradition under the tutelage of his father” (44). In order to prove Ruskin’s influence on Furness, both Orlowski and Weingarden refer to William Furness Jr.’s copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps (1849). This suggests that William Furness Jr., Frank Furness’ brother may have read the book, but it is not certain whether), this does not prove that Frank Furness was simply a Ruskinian. In fact, Frank Furness never referred to Ruskin in his writing, and Rev. Furness asserted in 1870 that “Mr. Ruskin is not altogether to my liking. He is too intolerant, speaks too much ex cathedra for one who is not exactly an artist himself, but an amateur” (“Closing Address” 394). Frank’s father, Rev. Furness did not like Ruskin even though he read his books, and William Furness Jr.’s copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps does not prove that Frank Furness was simply a Ruskinian. When Emerson met Ruskin, they had negative impressions each other; therefore, they had never written positive matters after that (Buell, Emerson, 328). 50 Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, New York: Brace & World, 1963, 27. 51 Thomas, “Flowering of an American Architecture,” 43. 48

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architectural theories. Thomas claims that at the final stage Furness even removed Hunt’s method from his later works and changed his architectural designs, “paralleling but no longer duplicating the work of his contemporaries.” 52 Here Thomas asserts Emerson’s great impact on Furness, and concludes in the last sentence of his essay: Furness’s “designs require an alternate explanation—for they are rooted in the Emersonian values and theories that he had absorbed before Hunt and that became the theme of his later approach to architecture.” 53 Furness evidently first learned how to design architecture with Hunt, but eventually created his own style, because throughout his career Furness’s ambition was to invent an original American architecture without relying upon European models.

The Background of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1871-76) demonstrates vividly Frank Furness’s ideas of American architecture.54 Specifically, the Academy expresses his basic Transcendentalist nationalism as well as his regional identity in Philadelphia. Furness’s Academy was the third Academy building. Furness’s High Victorian Gothic Academy building differed considerably from the style of the two earlier Academy buildings.55 The first Academy building (1805), designed by John Dorsey (1759-1821), was built in the typical Federal style with a wooden American eagle over the entrance and featuring a low, sky-lit central

52

Ibid., 43. Ibid., 43. 54 My description of the history and features of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is based on a pamphlet issued by the Academy; Richard J. Boyle, Wendell Garrett, Hyman Myers, Ephraim Weinberg, Antiques (March 1982); O’Gorman, The Architecture of Frank Furness, 19-39; and Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 217-249. According to Wendell Garrett, the first American Academy of Fine Arts was organized in 1802 in New York; the Philadelphia Academy was the second (671). In 1878, two years after he completed the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, his essay “Hints to Designers” was published in Lippincott’s Magazine. His basic ideas behind the architectural designs of the Academy can be seen in the essay. 55 For detailed treatments of Furness’s Victorian High Gothic styles, see Cohen, “Styles and Motives,” 91-120. 53

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rotunda about fifty feet in diameter.56 Because of a serious fire in 1845, the first Academy almost burned down, and the second Academy was designed by Richard A. Gilpin (1847). The second building’s features were more classical than those of the first one. Gilpin left the rotunda designed by Dorsey and added two wings, which had skylit galleries without windows. Twentieth-century critic and architect Hyman Myers claims that Gilpin’s building seemed to be more “modern” than Dorsey’s building at that time.57 However, mainly due to damage from a severe storm, the building was demolished in 1870.58 In planning the third Academy building, the building committee asked a small number of local architects to submit designs, because they wanted to reflect regional colors in the building. Orlowski asserts that there were two main reasons why the commission eventually went to Furness and his partner George Hewitt (1841-1916). The first reason was that the Furness family had a strong connection with the committee members. 59 In fact, most of them were acquainted with or related to the Furness family. Some were members of Rev. Furness’s First Unitarian Church, and their opinions affected the development of Furness’s designs for the Academy.60

56 In 1805, seventy-one citizens in Philadelphia assembled in Independence Hall, and planned to establish the Academy as one of the nation’s leading museums, including both a museum and school. The first president of the Academy was George Clymer, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and three out of the seventy-one founders were artists, including painter Charles Willson Peale; his son, painter Rembrandt Peale; and sculptor William Rush. Other founders came from prestigious families in Philadelphia, most of who were local lawyers and businessmen (Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 220-21; Boyle, “The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Its Founding and Early Years,” Antiques [March 1982], 672-78). 57 Myers, “The Three Buildings of the Pennsylvania Academy,” Antiques (March 1982), 679. Hyman Myers and the firm of Day and Zimmerman restored the Academy building in 1973-76 to the original Furness design (Stuart Klawans, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2003, 8). 58 Ibid., 679-80. 59 Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 218-19. George Watson Hewitt was born in Philadelphia. He joined the office of John Fraser (1825-1906) in 1859. In 1867, Fraser, Fraser and Hewitt hired Frank Furness in their office. Although Fraser left in 1871, Furness and Hewitt continued to work together until 1875. When the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was opened in 1876, Furness worked without a partner (O’Gorman, The Architecture of Frank Furness, 31-42; Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 241). 60 Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 219, 222.

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The second reason was that since most of the Academy’s directors came from the middle class and were self-made “industrialists and capitalists” in Philadelphia, their norms and values were quite similar to Furness’s and Hewitt’s. 61 Art historians such as Jeffery Cohen and Orlowski agree that the Academy can be seen as a church metaphorically and retrospectively. According to Orlowski, the directors envisioned the museum, when completed, as the “ideal church,” a “refuge from the material world.” 62 Originally, the Latin word museum (in Greek: mouseion) referred to a temple dedicated to the Muses, goddesses of the arts.63 Later, just as some preeminent people in the Middle Ages tried to express their religious awe through glorious churches, some materialists in the late nineteenth century sought to purify their spirits in museums. As J. Coleman Hart puts it, “religion and art cannot be separated. Religion is the mother of architecture, and Christianity invented the Gothic.” 64 In fact, Orlowski claims that Furness attempted to embody in the structure of the building his belief that the Academy should be thought of as an “ideal church.”65 Furness’s High Victorian Gothic style also recalls critic Hilary French’s comments about Gothic architecture: “the Gothic cathedrals represent a synthesis of God, Humanity, and Nature.”66

The Exterior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The exterior of the Academy metaphorically expresses Furness’s ideal America: a well-organized multiculturalism, in which various cultures gather together, not crushing but rather respecting each other (Figures 1.1 and 1.2). On the building’s exterior, one can see the influence of various cultures at a glance—European, African, Middle Eastern, and Asian cultures. George E. Thomas notes that Furness’s Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts seems to be dominated by Hunt’s influence, but it also demonstrates that “Furness’s personal sense of proportion and ironic juxtaposition of forms made them his own.”67 61

Ibid., 221. Ibid., 224. 63 Edward P. Alexander and Mary Alexander, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, Lanham: Altamira Press, 2008, 3. 64 J. Coleman Hart quoted in Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 225. 65 Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 224. 66 Hilary French, Architecture A Crash Course, New York: Watson-Guptill, 1998, 22. 67 Thomas, “Flowering,” 43. 62

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Furness’s Academy physically expresses his architectural theories in three ways: the architectural style, the composition, and the materials. While the Academy adopted the most fashionable High Victorian Gothic style of the day, it did not simply imitate the European style but expressed American nationalism based on the unique features of American culture.68 Keeping Hunt’s influence in High Victorian Gothic, Furness still attempted to symbolize America’s mixed cultures in the building. In particular, its façade adopts various nations’ architectural styles in addition to English and French High Victorian Gothic styles, and it also incorporates the styles of many architectural periods.69 Myers describes the mixed features of the façade of the Academy: There are Venetian Gothic colors and materials, Gothic arches and tracery, a French mansard roof, arabesque crenellations, a Greek frieze, Renaissance stone rustication, Byzantine tiles, medieval corbels, American Indian rug patterns, and stylized flower and leaf forms.70

The Academy expresses Furness’s ideal America, mixing various countries’ cultural values and beliefs, including indigenous American Indian cultures and aesthetics. Anne Monahan also claims that in the Academy one can see Islamic architectural traces, which she describes as “VenetianSaracenic or Hispano-Moorish,” and she points out the influence of Andalusian and North African architecture.71 The six sculptural plaques of sandstone panels on both wings under the roof, which were carved by Alexander Kemp, express a unique ornament and also indicate that the Academy includes a school (Figure 1.3).72 One critic of the day claimed that, although at first glance Furness’s Academy seemed like a “patchwork,” in fact he modified each architectural style until each original style was lost.73 In this way, Furness attempted to synthesize many 68

Cohen, “Styles and Motives,” 91. Ibid., 91. 70 Myers, “The Three Buildings,” 682. 71 Anne Monahan, “Of a Doubtful Gothic: Islamic Sources for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” Nineteenth Century 18 (Fall 1998): 28, 31. 72 According to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Archive, there is no information on Alexander Kemp further than that Furness asked him to make the panels. Kemp designed the scenes from a painting by Paul Delaroche in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The plaques show the meeting scenes of “the great painters, sculptors, and architects in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” (Klawans, Pennsylvania Academy, 2-3). The plaques introduce the exhibitions of the Academy and also indicate that the Academy includes a school. 73 “Centennial Exposition Memoranda,” 316. 69

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Fig. 1.1 Original Exterior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 19th century

Fig. 1.2 Exterior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1960s

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Fig. 1.3 Flower Motif and Plates, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.4 Dynamism of Composition, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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architectural styles from the past until he transformed them into a unique American architectural style. The composition of the Academy was innovative at that time and demonstrated Furness’s unique architecture. According to Mumford, its composition radically departed from traditional ideas, and showed Furness’s architectural theories, in which “all natural forms are dynamic.”74 Here, Mumford’s words suggest that Furness’s architecture also requires innovation and activity, and the Academy demonstrates these premises in its proportion and ornamental composition. While the Academy kept classical proportions, its composition expressed an innovative, nonclassical design suggesting the uniqueness and vitality of a growing America. Orlowski specifically analyzes its composition, and asserts that the Academy’s basic proportional structures were the classic ratio of the Golden Section (about as 3:5) and the ratio of the square (1:1). Measured from the top of the foundation, the elevation is circumscribed by a rectangle of the Golden Section. The centerlines of the three blocks are also found by applying the ratio of the Golden Section.75 While keeping the traditional architectural ratio of the square and the so-called Golden Section, the Academy emphasizes “a vital rather than a static system.”76 In short, although the Academy seems to show a quite radical composition, in fact it mixes basic and classical proportions with a new composition. The material composition of the Academy also has unique aspects that depart from the traditional rules of composition. Orlowski analyzes the dynamism of the Academy’s composition in this way: The intricate fabric of limestone, brick and granite lines and panels vibrates in a wild cacophony of colors, textures and forms. The effect is enhanced by sudden juxtapositions of mass and void, surface and shadow, light and dark. Lines and surfaces overlap. Forms seem to disappear behind others as vertical and horizontal elements intersect. [...] Patterns and rhythms stop and start.”77

The composition is consistently shifting, and in a broad sense the composition itself seems to be an ornament. Each part seems about to move in lines and surfaces, and masses and voids compress and expand, overlapping. As Figure 1.4 suggests, the combination of movement and tension appears constantly. The Academy also effectively weaves colors, textures, and materials together. These devices break the rules of 74

Mumford, The Highway and the City, 33. Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 240. 76 Ibid., 238. 77 Ibid., 236-37. 75

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traditional composition, which require rigidity and inflexibility. The building’s external decoration also displays the unique composition of the exterior. The central philosophy of Furness’s architecture lies in nature, and many flower motifs of the Academy’s exterior show the way to design active architecture. In his essay, “Hints to Designers,” Furness clarifies his way of using nature in his architecture: “Learn that Nature in any one flower—gorgeous poppy, cool white calla or unobtrusive daisy— presents every hour of the day a different combination of color for the instruction of those who seek it earnestly at her all-bounteous hands.”78 In accordance with Furness’s words, the Academy incorporates plentiful floral motifs with roses, tulips, dandelions, chrysanthemums, and lilies, all of which Furness learned from nature directly. The Academy has a second floor and an ornamented roof. The roof of the central building is decorated with vivid flowers between naves, with crosses on the top (Figure 1.5). On the second level, rosettes neatly stand side by side. Under these flowers are vivid yellow flowers with red centers set in green leaves. Furthermore, in the middle of the central building, two large light-colored flowers decorate either side of the arch, including the rose window. In the arch, most of the decoration relates to flowers, simplifying their leaves, stems, stalks, petals, stamens, and pistils. On the first floor, Furness also designed floral motifs in the arch windows of the gift shop on both sides of the building entrances (Figure 1.6). Notably, these floral motifs also resemble birds or insects, or even a human being, who seems to proudly conduct the harmony of the building.79 In fact, the Academy includes animal motifs as well as floral motifs. When Furness drew sketches or designs of architecture, he naturally remembered human faces and incorporated these figures in his designs. Stuart Klawans analyzes these human facial designs as examples of how Furness’s experience in the war as a cavalry officer affected his architecture.80 More specifically, Lewis observes that Furness deliberately included human faces and bodies in his architecture partly because he had loved drawing facial caricatures since his childhood like his father, and partly because he had served during the Civil War and felt the importance

78

Furness, “Hints to Designers,” 350. On the backside of the building, Furness also adapted floral motifs. On the top of the entrance of the back door, which is still used as the student entrance to the Academy, Furness designed a big, modest, and glorious flower as decoration. A diagonal iron band with flourishes decorates the entrance gate. Unlike the showy façade for visitors, the back door emphasizes morality and simplicity for students. 80 Klawans, Pennsylvania Academy, 5. 79

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of life.81 It is certain that Furness’s architecture is not still or frozen art, but a vigorous and vividly active living being, like humans themselves. In particular, Lewis analyzes Furness’s physiognomic architecture as follows: “Furness’s physiognomic architecture was in consonance with the demands of his age, which used aggressive imagery as a weapon for commercial competition. He took the transactions of modern life and depicted them in epic terms of a Darwinian struggle for existence.”82 As Lewis asserts in this statement, Furness’s aggressive architectural ornament certainly echoes the machine or industrial age movement of the late nineteenth century as well as his personal preference and experience during the Civil War. Materials also play a significant role in expressing Furness’s ideas of unique American architecture. Specifically, the Academy emphasizes regionalism, which requires natural local materials so that architecture can be part of the region. Among the many materials that Furness used in the Academy, brick and iron were essential. The red brick structure of the row houses was used to express an idea of regionalism in Philadelphia, although brick was also frequently used in Victorian Gothic architecture in Europe. Klawans proposes that the red and black brick symbolize “the rectitude of old Quaker Philadelphia.” 83 According to Lewis, since Philadelphia was founded by the Quaker leader William Penn in 1681, the city had been a “physical diagram of a society without aristocracy.”84 The Quaker meetinghouse had neither a minister nor a pulpit, and Quakers respected modesty and “plain speech and plain appearance” like modest red brick.85 In the nineteenth century, Philadelphia was made up of “selfcontained communities,” and people inherited their fathers’ occupations or those of other masters in a small community, while esteeming the concepts of “self-determination and free will.86 In this situation, “the row- house symbolized the culture’s value system [...] [and] the interdependence of individuals in the community.” 87 Thus, the red brick of the Academy evokes Philadelphia’s row houses and the city’s religious, economic, and political situation of the day.

81

Lewis, Architecture and the Violent Mind, 29-51. Ibid., 3. 83 Ibid., 3. 84 Ibid., 7. 85 Ibid., 7. 86 Ibid., 3. 87 Ibid., 3-4. 82

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Fig. 1.5 Front Center of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Fig. 1.6 Flower Window at the Gift Shop, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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Other important materials for Furness’s architecture were iron and steel, and Furness abundantly incorporated iron and America’s new technology in both the exterior and interior of the Academy. One might be able to see the similarities between Furness’s using iron and Emerson’s ideas about the new American technology. In an 1843 journal, Emerson states that “machinery and Transcendentalism agree well. Stage-Coach and Railroad are bursting the old legislation like green withes.”88 In an 1844 lecture, “The Young American,” Emerson was also quite proud of rapid American industrialization: “Railroad iron is a magician’s rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water.”89 Although later Emerson was disappointed at the railroad imperialism, as were many Transcendentalists, he certainly admired the railroads and iron production of the day. The use of iron in architecture surprised visitors at that time because many European critics, including John Ruskin, had insisted that iron would never become an important building material. In “The Lamp of Truth,” one of the chapters of Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin writes: [I]t may be perhaps permitted to me to assume that true architecture does not admit iron as a constructive material, and that such works as the castiron central spire of Rouen Cathedral, or the iron roofs and pillars of our railway stations, and of some of our churches, are not architecture at all.90

Contrary to Ruskin’s assertion, in the U. S. iron became an important building material.91 The roof on the wall of the Academy running parallel to Cherry Street was constructed of iron and glass, and also expressed the machine age characteristics of that time (Figure 1.7). In the Academy, Furness also adapted railroad track motifs “in the bridge truss on the side of the Academy,” 92 showing the importance of that technology (Figure 1.5). Lewis claims that Furness’s use of iron also reflects his personal experience in the Civil War, specifically in “turreted iron-plated machines, 88

Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 4, Ed. William H. Gilman, et al., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960-82, 207. 89 Emerson, “The Young America,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 225-26. 90 Ruskin, Seven Lamps, 40. 91 “Following the use of cast and wrought iron in buildings, steel was employed for tall structures, notably skyscrapers in America from the 1880s” (James Stevens Curl, Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, 2nd Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 635). 92 Thomas, “Flowering,” 45.

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living mechanical instruments whose form was shaped by the neutral principles of static and physics” of machine weaponry. 93 Thus, vital American eclecticism, European tradition, and regional culture all have a place in the Academy, and produce a remarkable work of original architecture.

Fig. 1.7 Iron, Brick, and Grass along Broad Street, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The Interior of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The interior of the Academy expresses Furness’s ideal America with the same philosophy evident in the building’s exterior: a well-organized multiculturalism, in which various cultures gather together, not competing but respecting each other. The basement of the Academy contains storage vaults, workrooms, boilers, and other technology. The art school occupies three-quarters of the first floor and contains a lecture hall, in addition to seven painting and sculpture studios. The structure of each room is simple, either square or rectangular. Furness’s architecture shows vitality and transformation like a growing living being, and the interior of the Academy 93

Lewis, Architecture and the Violent Mind, 34.

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effectively uses light and unique ornamentation to do this. Visitors are invited into the spiritual world of the “ideal church” when they enter from the front door on Broad Street. Specifically, Orlowski claims that “the interior sequence is a ceremonial transformation,” taking those who enter through “a religious ritual.”94 The Academy features two devices that suggest the museum should be viewed as an American church. 95 One of the devices is the building’s ability to create sublime moments by the manipulation of light, inspiring reverence in visitors. The experience of the sublime in light, as characterized by eighteenth-century philosopher Edmund Burke, comes especially during “a quick transition from light to darkness, or from darkness to light,” and Burke adds that “darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light.”96 In the Academy, visitors experience both sublime moments “from light to darkness” and “from darkness to light.” The first sublime moment is evoked by the dim foyer on the first floor97 (Figure 1.8). A pier separates the entrance into two parts, and results in narrow, dark voids framed by arches. When visitors enter the building, they cannot see the landing because the foyer is also narrow and dark. They can see only the English Minton floor tiles, which recall an exotic Oriental carpet (Figure 1.9). Visitors are led directly into the grand stair hall on the second floor, and have the initial impression from the foyer that the museum is quite small and dark. Since the massive Moorish arch obstructs the view ahead of them, visitors cannot see the second floor until they reach the arch in the middle of the stairs (Figure 1.10). The Academy uses darkness to represent a preliminary stage before the light of the divine. The second sublime moment comes when one moves from the darkness to the light and from the narrow space to the wide space in the Washington Foyer on the second floor (Figure 1.11). 98 When visitors climb the enormous, classical stairs to the huge Moorish arch, they are suddenly showered with a great deal of sky light from the ceiling and see the vestibule of the Academy and climbing the stairs, visitors experience two opposite forms of the sublime: darkness and light. The transition from darkness to light creates an increasing sense of comfort. In fact, Orlowski 94

Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 229. Ibid., 229-31. 96 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Ed. James T. Boulton, London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1958, 80. 97 Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 229-30. 98 Ibid., 230-31. 95

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regards the staircase of the Academy as “the most crucial and ideologically laden moment” in one’s experience of the building’s architecture. 99 Put differently, the staircase is a central element of the interior and plays a significant role in the ascension of visitors to a sacred place. The climax of the second floor is a heavenly square dome where natural light plays a powerful role. Through the double-frosted roof, natural light continuously pours onto the Washington Foyer (Figure 1.12). Psychologically, the darkness from the entrance to the Moorish arch is a passage of initiation, and the heavenly dome is meant to purify visitors’ minds so they can appreciate the art to come. By effectively using light from a high position, the Washington Foyer suggests divine revelation. The square dome under the roof is painted sky blue and studded with silver-foil stars (Figure 1.13). One might recall the nighttime outdoors, with the feeling that one is in a metaphoric courtyard, as at the Bibliotheque St. Genevieve in Paris. One might recognize that the Foyer is a kind of microcosm to inspire visitors’ imagination, whether it is the scene of the daytime or the nighttime. The other device that gives the Academy a church-like atmosphere is its ornamentation. In addition to high, natural light from the dome, artificial light from low positions, illuminating the Washington Foyer, is a unique ornamentation (Figure 1.14). Along the stairs to the second floor are flower-like lamps, each of which has five globes that resemble pistils and stamen, and which are supported by bronze petals, stalks, and leaves; as a whole, each five-globe lamp looks like one flower. These flower lamps lead visitors to the next religious stage. When visitors reach the landing, they are welcomed by a solemn arch, which is directly attached to the reddish-purple walls and evokes traditional images of heaven’s gates (Figure 1.15). As visitors climb the last staircase straight from the landing, they gradually come to see the rotunda and the central hallway, both of which develop the feeling of a mysterious, spiritual world. Like the dome in the Washington Foyer, the natural light that comes through the doublefrosted roof floods onto the galleries on either side. This double-frosted roof is also quite practical because “a large air space between the gallery skylights and the roof skylight serves as insulation, preventing extremes of temperature from reaching the galleries” (Figure 1.16). 100 In short, the double-frosted roof is effective both aesthetically and practically.

99

Ibid., 230. Myers, “The Three Buildings,” 685.

100

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Fig. 1.8 Front Entrance of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.9 English Minton Floor Tile, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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The interior of the Academy emphasizes the American museum as church, and is different from the traditional European museum in the shapes and colors of each room. In contrast to the simple shapes of the basement and the first floor, the gallery rooms on the second floor are of different shapes and sizes, some octagonal, some square, and the rest rectangular (Figures 1.17 and 1.18).101 Every room is painted in pink and white, in a simple design that does not distract from the art. However, across the second floor, festive columns made of cast iron or bronze attract visitors as they move among the rooms, because the columns are colorful and expressive representations of flowers and humans (Figure 1.19). Both the capitals and bases of the festive columns are painted in sky blue, and the capitals look like tribal masks, although the eyes under the masks also seem to be flowers. The shafts are white, and include sepals on their tops. Unlike pure white Greek and Roman columns, these colorful columns stress American uniqueness, expressing multiculturalism. When visitors turn back from the octagonal space of the rotunda, they see a rose window, which recalls traditional church stained glass (Figure 1.20). However, neither Jesus Christ nor the Virgin Mary is depicted; instead, circles and nature motifs, such as flowers and birds, dominate. The rose window is also meant to connect the inside with the outside. Through the light green and the light yellow glass, natural light pours into the interior of the Academy. The flower motifs on the window also echo the golden flowers on the reddish-purple walls, and indicate that art celebrates the divine found in nature. This is an example of Furness’s ideal architecture; that is to say, it is an architectural style in which nature and art complement each other. Currently, in the galleries on each side of the stairs, Benjamin West’s paintings enhance the religious feelings of the Academy. This choice of placement testifies to the notion that the Academy is a type of worship space.102 Furness’s Academy expresses his Transcendentalist beliefs, and so emphatic is the power of the religious feeling evoked by Furness’s

101

The basement of the Academy contains storage vaults, workrooms, boilers, and other technology. The art school occupies three-quarters of the first floor and contains a lecture hall, in addition to seven painting and sculpture studios. The structure of each room is simple, either square or rectangular. 102 Orlowski, Architecture and the Heroic Ideal, 232.

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Fig. 1.10 Mid Arch over the Grand Staircase, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.11 View from the Landing, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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Fig. 1.12 Washington Foyer of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Fig. 1.13 Skylight in the Square Dome, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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Fig. 1.14 Floral Light Fixtures of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.15 Landing of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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combination of these architectural elements, that even the present use of the space by the museum’s curators acknowledges it. Occupying the space in the galleries at each side of the stair are Benjamin West’s two paintings “Christ Rejected” (1895) and “Death on a Pale Horse” (1817), the latter an allegory from Revelation 6:8 (Figure 1.12). This placement further highlights Furness’s Transcendentalist tenets and reflects the philosophical trends in the latter half of the nineteenth century, anticipating, directly or indirectly, the Transcendentalist-influenced architecture of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Fig. 1.16 Double Frosted Glass of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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Fig. 1.17 Oblong shaped Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.18 Octagonal shaped Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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Fig. 1.19 Columns in the Main Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Fig. 1.20 View of the Three Part Art Glass Window, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

CHAPTER TWO SULLIVAN AND WHITMAN: THE CHICAGO AUDITORIUM THEATER AND THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING AT THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

I. The Chicago Auditorium Theater Sullivan and Ornament Frank Lloyd Wright respected Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924) and called him “beloved Master” throughout his life,1 stating in a 1914 essay that “Louis Sullivan was my master and inspiration.”2 As Wright conveys in this statement, his architecture owed a debt to Sullivan’s design and Transcendentalist aesthetics. 3 In this chapter, I examine how Sullivan embodied his Transcendentalist architectural theories and Walt Whitman’s concept of democracy in the Chicago Auditorium Theater through multiple art forms, including literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Like Frank Furness, Sullivan attempted to integrate regional features into his architecture; specifically, in the Chicago Auditorium Theater, the nature and culture of Chicago and the Midwest. Furthermore, Sullivan adapted into the building his concept of the relationship between the nature and culture of the region and of the common human experience. I begin by examining the historical roots of Sullivan’s interest in Whitman’s poems 1

Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, Vol. 1, Ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 194. 2 Wright, Collected Writings, 127. 3 Many philosophers and artists shared common notions of nature, art, and the divine in the 19th century, including Viollet-le-Duc and Ruskin. Joseph Siry specifically examines the influence of Hippolyte Taine on Sullivan in The Chicago Auditorium Building (Joseph M. Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building : Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002], 229).

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and ideas. I then demonstrate how Sullivan presented his Whitmanian Transcendentalist notion of nature’s cycle and democracy in the interior architecture and ornaments of the Chicago Auditorium Theater. These examinations will demonstrate how Wright learned to design architecture in a Transcendentalist style and also why he became interested in Whitman’s ideas of democracy in arts. Sullivan designed his main works with his partner, Dankmar Adler (1844-1900), about whom architect John Edelman remarked, “Adler had all the strong points, but was feeble in design and knew it.”4 This was one of the reasons that Adler hired Sullivan as his architectural partner from 1883 to 1895. Adler was a good partner for Sullivan as well because Sullivan could concentrate on expressing his philosophy in ornamental designs, leaving Adler to focus on the construction and mechanical parts of buildings. When Adler and Sullivan built the Chicago Auditorium Building (1886-1890), Sullivan mainly took charge of the building’s interior design. Later, Wright was to admire Sullivan’s achievement in the Theater’s interior, writing, “The Auditorium interior was the first great room for audience that really departed from the curious prevailing traditions. The magic word plastic was used by the Master [Sullivan] in reference to his ornament, and the room itself began to show the effects of this idea. The ideal began to enter into the Auditorium interior.” 5 As Wright’s words suggest, and as I will seek to demonstrate in this chapter, the interior ornament of the Auditorium Theater is representative not only of Sullivan’s architecture but also of his Transcendentalist vision of democracy. In an essay titled “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” Sullivan himself writes that “[t]he most notable of the decorations are, of course, to be seen in the main Auditorium.”6 Sullivan believed that “a building which is truly a work of art [...] is in its nature, essence and physical being an emotional expression. [...] [W]hile the mass-composition is the more profound, the decorative ornamentation is the more intense. Yet must both spring from the same source of feeling.”7 Thus, for Sullivan, ornament should be part of organic architecture “just as

4

Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 255. Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, Ed. Frederick Gutheim (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 108. 6 Louis H. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers, Ed. Robert Twombly (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 75. 7 Louis H. Sullivan, “Ornament in Architecture” Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers, 81 5

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a certain kind of leaf must appear on a certain kind of tree;”8 that is to say, Sullivan believed that ornament was indispensable in order to complete his architecture.

Sullivan’s Fan Letter to Whitman Lewis Mumford calls Sullivan “the Whitman of American architecture.”9 As Mumford mentions, Sullivan’s architectural ornament is similar to Whitman’s poems in their characteristic and stylistic combination of two opposing aspects—innovation and sensitivity, ornate beauty and simplicity, fierce nationalism and rugged individualism. Whitman’s influence on Sullivan began during the same period as his involvement in the Auditorium Theater. Sullivan became an enthusiastic Whitmanian upon finding Leaves of Grass at a bookstore in early 1886. Sullivan was fascinated by the book, and wrote a fan letter to Whitman on February 3, 1887:10 It is less than a year ago [1886] that I made your acquaintance so to speak, quite by accident, searching among the shelves of a book-store. I was attracted by the curious title: Leaves of Grass, opened the book at random, and my eyes met the lines of Elemental Drifts. You then and there entered my soul, have not departed, and never will depart.11

In “Elemental Drifts,” the poet is confronted by the sea, which provokes in him a strong anxiety that his poem expresses neither his self nor universality, and he fears that he may not be able to write aesthetically pleasing poems forever; in the poet’s vision the sea is a destructive place that reveals his mortality. Importantly, current critics such as Betsy Erkkila, Gary Weiner, and Eric Otto agree that “Elemental Drifts,” which was later included as the “As I Ebb’d” section of the “Sea-Drift” cluster in Leaves of Grass (1881), reflects Whitman’s concept of democracy. Specifically, Erkkila asserts that “As I Ebb’d” not only expresses the poet’s lament but also contains Whitman’s concern regarding the crisis between individualism and nationalism in American democracy.12 In the poem, on the seashore the poet feels at first as if he were only trivial 8

Ibid., 83. Lewis Mumford quoted in Sherman Paul, Louis Sullivan: An Architect in American Thought (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962), x. 10 On Sullivan’s fan letter to Whitman, see Paul, Louis Sullivan, 1-3. 11 Louis Sullivan quoted in Paul, Louis Sullivan, 1. 12 Betsey Erkkila, Whitman the Political Poet, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 163-69. 9

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“[c]haff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten.”13 However, eventually he recognizes that he and all others are part of the same human unit and equally experience the cycle of life and death.14 Whitman’s concept of democracy esteems freedom both in nationalism and individualism, including equality for citizens. This notion relates to his philosophical idea of “the self,” and his poem “One’s–Self I sing” suggests that Whitman’s “self” is meant to be “man’s identity, his innermost being, not his self in the usual sense.”15 Namely, Whitman’s concept of democracy is based on the idea that everyone is a fragment of the unit—in Whitman scholars’ words, “the Absolute Self”16—from which everyone comes and to which everyone goes back. In Whitman’s idea of the Absolute Self, even though individuals have their own self while they are alive, ultimately their self should reunite with the Absolute Self after they die; therefore, all races, genders, and classes should be equal, and nobody can be trivial. The date of Sullivan’s letter to Whitman indicates that he read Leaves of Grass during the process of designing the Chicago Auditorium Building. Hence, Robert Twombly surmises that the reference to “Elemental Drifts” in his letter reveals that Sullivan commiserated with Whitman’s agony of “artistic struggle.”17 In fact, Sullivan even sympathized with Whitman’s artistic position and encouraged him in the letter: “Be assured that there is at least one (and I hope there are many others) who understands you as you wish to be understood; one, moreover, who has weighed you in the balance of his intuition and finds you the greatest of poets.”18 Although Sullivan was an architect and Whitman was a poet, Sullivan was confident that they could understand each other as artists. In addition, Sullivan also found Whitman’s idea of democracy in the poem because Sullivan, as I

13

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley, New York: W.W. Norton, 1965, 254. 14 Ibid., 256. 15 Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley, eds., “Notes,” Leaves of Grass, New York: W.W. Norton, 1965, 1. 16 On Whitman’s concepts of “the Self,” “the Absolute Self,” and “the Soul,” see Ezra Greenspan, Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, New York: Routledge, 2005, Bettina L. Knapp, Walt Whitman, New York: Continuum, 1993, and Gay Wilson Allen, The New Walt Whitman Handbook, New York: New York University Press, 1975. 17 Robert Twombly, “Introduction,” Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988, xvii. 18 Louis Sullivan quoted in Paul, Louis Sullivan, 2.

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will argue, had already been interested in the concept before seeing Leaves of Grass.

The Background of the Auditorium Theater Prior to building the Auditorium, Adler and Sullivan were asked to design the temporary audience room for opera. In the mid-1880s, Chicago was undergoing a cultural Renaissance as a developing industrial city. Although Chicago had many working class people including immigrants with an opera tradition, the city lacked the place for them to enjoy art with the upper and middle classes. In 1885, capitalist Ferdinand W. Peck (1848-1924), who insisted on democracy and equality of all people, wished to build a great hall for multiple purposes, including grand opera, with only a very few boxes for “the haut monde.”19 Specifically, Peck was interested in politics, and wished to emphasize equality of the audience so that any person of any class could enjoy opera with any other person. Adler and Sullivan, who advocated for democracy in arts, agreed with Peck’s ideas. Peck was also concerned about technique of acoustics, and asked Dankmar Adler to oversee acoustical matters, because Adler had a reputation as an engineer who could design acoustics with neither reverberation nor echo. Using the old Exposition Building on the lakefront, Adler and Sullivan set up a large temporary audience room with a huge scenic stage for a two-week season of grand opera, to which worldknown opera stars were invited.20 Their efforts bore fruit, the Grand Opera Festival of 1885 succeeded, and the 6200-member audience enjoyed it. After the festival, Chicagoans became more eager to build their great permanent hall.21 Responding to such Chicagoans’ request, Peck decided to build a permanent opera house, the “Auditorium Building.” For all citizens, he decided the entrance fee should be inexpensive. Peck wished to incorporate democratic principles into the design. He again chose Adler and Sullivan for this project, a structure consisting of a hotel, office building, and a 4,250-seat theater. In the Auditorium Building plan, Peck provided the commission and the entire plan for the function of the Auditorium Building, Adler designed the whole architectural structure, particularly the construction of the exterior and mechanical parts of the whole building, and Sullivan engaged both the exterior and the interior 19

Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 292. Ibid., 293. 21 Ibid., 293. 20

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ornamental part, supervising the construction. Both Adler and Sullivan drew on Peck’s request to build the largest auditorium in America as a national monument, emphasizing American democratic ideals. In spite of a magnificent project, the planners were relatively young at the beginning of the four-year project: Sullivan was thirty, Adler was forty-two, and Peck was about forty.22 The power of these three young people was the driving force of this national scale project in a young city, Chicago. The building design ultimately evolved into “a ten-story (plus tower) edifice of 63,350 square feet in plan, 8,737,000 cubic feet in volume, and weighing 110,000 tons [...] containing a 4,200-seat theater, a 400 room hotel, 136 office units, and several other facilities.”23 Most importantly, Peck, Adler, and Sullivan attempted to design the Auditorium Theater for the democracy of Chicagoans. According to Joseph Siry, Peck was “the Gilded Age type, the capitalist-philanthropist, and one of phenomenal energy and executive ability.” Specifically, Peck endeavored to give opportunities to learn and enjoy music to working people after the fire of 1871. 24 While Peck’s and Adler’s concepts of democracy were mainly founded on political principles, Sullivan’s concept of democracy was based not on political principles but on Transcendentalist ideas; that is to say, his democracy indicated the equality of all living beings, rather than simply American citizens. However, while Whitman, whom Sullivan admired as his most respected Transcendentalist, was interested in politics throughout his life and his concept of democracy had direct political implications in his work, Sullivan’s concept of democracy did not. In this respect, Sullivan’s concept of democracy differed substantially from that of traditional historians and politicians. According to Robert Twombly, “Sullivan divided history into two epochs: feudalism and democracy,” and his feudalism meant “simply the absence of democracy.”25 More specifically, in the same essay Twombly writes that Sullivan believed “democracy—a political arrangement—could be brought about by cultural—in his case, artistic—effort. He also confused politics and culture by thinking that democracy could be achieved without political

22

Ibid., 294. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 74. 24 Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 35. 25 Robert Twombly, “A Poet’s Garden: Louis Sullivan’s Vision for America.” Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers, Ed. Robert Twombly (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press), 1988, 21. 23

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action.”26 Thus, Sullivan’s concept of democracy started not from politics but culture. Sullivan believed that not merely humans but all living beings, including plants and animals, were equal. Sullivan asserts that there are “two great rhythms discernible alike in nature and in human affairs, as of the same essence.”27 His “two great rhythms” are those of “growth and decay” in human and nonhuman nature, and they were an eternal cycle of life and death like the four seasons.28 Due to his distinctive Transcendentalist conception of democracy, Sullivan differed great from Peck and Adler on the role democracy played in public life. But all three certainly agreed on the urgency of embodying democratic ideals in the Auditorium Theater. The aspect of the Auditorium’s design that reflects this urgency most directly is in the architects’ arrangement of the auditorium’s seating. Peck and Adler changed the arrangement from the traditional style into a new style developed specifically for the Auditorium. Peck had studied the traditional opera houses in the U.S., such as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and recognized that the box seats occupied the best space in the theaters.29 He preferred the model of a more democratic, and less classdivided opera house, and asked Adler to design the Auditorium Theater with few boxes; as a result, only forty boxes were designed, which were set to “the sides of the theater in two tiers above the parquet,” and the most frontal boxes were “set back from the proscenium.”30 Thus, most of the privileged seats for wealthy people were removed, and the seats were designed for democracy and equality for Chicagoans. Furthermore, Adler designed an innovative, untraditional opera house with closed boxes in the center of the hall. The upper boxes of the Auditorium Theater were “like open dress boxes in older theaters,” while “the lower boxes, screened on all four sides with arches, had only curtains between and behind each box.”31 As a result, people in the box seats of the Auditorium Theater could not always see and hear performances better than other people because the box seats were not in their traditional, prime location. Adler also mechanically contributed to designing democratic space in the Auditorium Theater, not for the wealthy box-seat audience but for the large audience in the middle class and the working class. This 26

Ibid., 70. Louis Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 201. 28 Ibid., 201. 29 Ibid., 201. 30 Ibid., 201. 31 Ibid., 201. 27

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democratic seating design extended to acoustics: Adler attempted to provide equal views and acoustics of similar quality for all audience in a room of 4,237 fixed seats.32 Sullivan admired Peck’s plan and Adler’s design of the seats in the Auditorium Theater, and writes: We are democratic in America and the masses demand the best seats. The boxes, you see, are on the sides and do not furnish the best possible view. In the imperial theaters the boxes are closed and take up all the best part of the house. Those occupying boxes in America desire to be seen, more than they desire to see.33

The majority of theatergoers were not the wealthy but rather the common people who wanted to see and hear an opera. Influenced by Peck and Adler, Sullivan decided to participate in the effort to fulfill Peck’s democratic goal.

Fig. 2.1 Exterior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago (19th Century)

Just as Peck’s plan and Adler’s design of the Auditorium Theater expressed democracy through the construction and seating, so did

32

Ibid., 201. Siry specifically examines how Adler designed equal acoustics to every audience (Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 205-21). 33 Louis H. Sullivan, “Dedicated to Music and the People,” Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1889, 1.

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Sullivan’s interior design in the Auditorium Theater (Figure 2.1).34 In fact, as Frank Lloyd Wright later notes, the Auditorium Building “was entirely Adler’s commission and more largely Adler’s own building than Sullivan’s—where its constitution and plan were concerned. The dramatic expression of the interior was Sullivan’s.” 35 In particular, Sullivan emphasized natural colors in the interior, but kept the rich, gorgeous feelings of the traditional opera theaters because he wanted middle class and working class people to enjoy elegant feelings in an opera theater for an inexpensive price. The plastic and color decorations of the Auditorium Theater were remarkable, and its color scheme was, in Sullivan’s words, “broad, simple and grand, consisting of gold and old ivory in graded tones.”36 Since it was based on gold, the interior appeared stunning, yet still simple—in Whitmanian poetical fashion, as discussed above, it embodied two seemingly opposed extremes (Figures 2.2 and 2.3). Multiple arches of the ceiling became smaller toward the proscenium, and the decorative plaster of the curtain was set over an iron structure.37 These ornamental devices in the interior were Sullivan’s original designs, and Sullivan demonstrated his ideas of democracy more aesthetically than did Peck and Adler.

“Inspiration”: Sullivan’s Whitmanian Prose Poem Sullivan’s fan letter to Whitman indicates the influence of Leaves of Grass upon his own “Essay on Inspiration.” Sullivan wrote the fact in the letter: “at the time I first met your work, I was engaged upon the essay [“Essay on Inspiration”], which I herewith send you. [...] I send you this essay because it is your opinion above all other opinions that I should most highly value.” 38 As Sullivan notes here, he was impressed by Whitman’s poems, and in his prose poem “Essay on Inspiration” he incorporated Whitman’s ideas of nature as well as his poetical techniques. Art historian Lauren S. Weingarden writes about Sullivan’s “Essay on Inspiration”: “Sullivan rehearsed Whitman’s cosmic theme and literary style in order to establish a parallel between the human condition and the artistic process, on the one hand, and the cyclical order of nature on the

34

Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea, 228. Frank Lloyd Wright, “Chicago’s Auditorium Is Fifty Years Old,” Architectural Forum 73 (September 1940): 12. 36 Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 74. 37 Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 245. 38 Louis Sullivan quoted in Paul, Louis Sullivan, 2. 35

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other.”39 Later, in the Auditorium Theater, Sullivan interwove the words and essence of “Inspiration,” emphasizing the importance of inspiration as Whitman advocated. Before examining Sullivan’s intention in the Auditorium Theater, then, it is essential to turn to “Inspiration” and the Transcendentalist ideas Sullivan presented therein. The poem is constructed in three parts: “Growths: A Spring Song,” “Decadence: An Autumn Reverie,” and “The Infinite: A Song of the Depths.” The first section deals with ecstasy, the second with sorrow and bewilderment, and the third with a tragic appeal to the sea, and, in Sullivan’s words, “the transition from part to part [is] effected by two interludes.”40 Sullivan notes that for a long time he had watched “two great rhythms discernible alike in nature and in human affairs, as of the same essence,” which drove him to write this prose poem.41 For example, in the first part, “Growths: A Spring Song,” Sullivan writes: “In tender light of dawning spring the song’s incentive filters through the mists when the ardent sun, flushed and impatient pulsates holy toward the summit of the heavens.”42 In contrast to the cheerful feelings in “Growths: A Spring Song,” the second part, “Decadence; An Autumn Revere,” expresses sorrowful feelings regarding the end of life. Noticeably, the third part, “The Infinite: A Song of the Depths,” echoes Whitman’s poem “Elemental Drifts.” Sullivan depicts his struggle in the sea: “Lurking and trembling the lurid distant lightnings waver on the edge of the sea. In vain! The soft light disappears in murky night. No moon, no peaceful star. [...] Elohim! Elohim! In utter darkness I!”43 After the disappointment at his unsuccessful work, “clear morning light” begins to shine, and the artist comforts himself, saying “Deny me not, O sea [...]. Deny me not that I should garner now among the drifted jetsam on this storm-washed shore. [...] Deny me not that now, awakening, as the spring awakes from mystic flections winter sleep.”44 These words resonate with Whitman’s lament in “Elemental Drifts.” Sullivan sympathizes with Whitman, citing the transformation of seasons and nature’s cycles. Specifically, Sullivan asserts that the transformation of the four seasons Lauren Weingarden, Louis H. Sullivan and a 19th-Century Poetics of Naturalized Architecture (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Press, 2009), 225. 40 Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 302. 41 Ibid., 301. 42 Louis H. Sullivan, “Essay on Inspiration,” Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers, Ed. Robert Twombly (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 11. 43 Ibid., 23. 44 Ibid., 24. 39

Sullivan and Whitman

Fig. 2.2 Interior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago

Fig. 2.3 Interior of the Auditorium Building, Chicago

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equally comes to anyone and everyone—this is Sullivan’s concept of the impersonal law of nature to which all people must submit. Sullivan recited “Inspiration” at the convention of the Western Association of Architects in 1886.45 Although Sullivan was quite proud of “Inspiration” and regarded it as a powerful effusion of his ideas, most of the audience at the convention did not understand “Inspiration.” Sullivan then sent it to a Latin professor at the University of Michigan because he expected more educated people could understand his prose poem, but again Sullivan was disappointed to see the professor’s comments: “The language is beautiful, but what on earth you are talking about I have not the faintest idea.”46 Sullivan’s Transcendentalist prose poem could not be understood because it was difficult for a general audience to see through his obscure language to the Transcendentalist concepts concealed beneath. Despite the obscurity of the meaning, “Inspiration” contains key aspects of Sullivan’s Transcendentalist ideas. In fact, thirty-five years later, architect and critic Robert Craik McLean re-evaluated the poem as Sullivan’s “architectural thesis” based on nature and inspiration. 47 Furthermore, Weingarden asserts that Sullivan’s architectural thesis in “Inspiration” expresses his credo “form follows function” based on nature’s law and his “organic theory of art.”48 Nature’s law as identified by Weingarden is based on Transcendentalist ideas of nature’s tendencies toward cyclical movement and repetition. More profoundly, Siry asserts that “Inspiration” was the first essay of Sullivan’s three major essays about architectural theories in those years. Three essays, “Inspiration” (1886), “Style” (1888) and “The Artistic Use of the Imagination” (1889), claim that American architecture should express American originality, coming out of “sympathy with the emotions latent or conspicuous in our people.” 49 In “Inspiration,” Sullivan emphasizes that American architecture should not borrow traditional styles, and that “a spontaneous and vital art must come fresh from nature.”50 Thus, through “Inspiration,” Sullivan attempted to combine his architectural theory and Transcendentalist 45

Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 301. Ibid., 303. 47 Robert Craik McLean, “Louis H. Sullivan: An Appreciation,” Western Architect 23 (May 1924): 53-55. 48 Lauren Weingarden, “Naturalized Technology: Louis H. Sullivan’s Whitmanesque Skyscrapers,” Centennial Review 30 (Fall 1986): 480. Sullivan explains the intention behind his credo, “form follows function,” in a 1896 essay, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” (Sullivan, The Public Papers, 103-113). 49 Louis H. Sullivan quoted in Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 229. 50 Sullivan, “Essay on Inspiration,” 27. 46

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ideas of nature and inspiration in his writings and architecture. 51 Furthermore, in an essay “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” Sullivan exemplified how he embodied “Inspiration” in the interior of the Auditorium Theater through the paintings, especially the proscenium’s mural, he placed throughout the building.

Multiple-Arts: Sullivan’s “Inspiration” in the Auditorium Theater Sullivan’s most significant architectural theory is included in the proscenium stage arch of the Auditorium Theater. In Kindergarten Chats, Sullivan emphasizes three important elements in architecture: Pier, Lintel, and Arch.52 Sullivan mentions that the pier “is serene because within itself are balanced the two great forces, the simplest, elemental rhythms of Nature, to wit, the rhythm of growth, [...] we shall call the Rhythm of Life: and the counter rhythm of decadence [...] the Rhythm of Death.”53 Since the pier stands as “the ground-support into the air,” it is strong. “The rhythm of growth and the rhythm of death” are the same theme of his prose poem, “Inspiration,” which emphasizes cyclical natural movement. Sullivan also mentions, “when the lintel is placed upon the two piers, architecture springs into being not only as a science, and a useful art, but also as an art of expression.”54 Two piers and a lintel made ancient shrines in many countries. Finally, Sullivan refers to the arch: “The Arch is, of all constructive forms, the most emotional. It is susceptible in possibility and promise to the uttermost degree of fulfillment that the creative imagination can forecast.” 55 Examining Sullivan’s three key elements, Weingarden points out that Sullivan borrows “Whitman’s mode of revealing the ideal in the real in ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.’” Sullivan “first psychologized nature and then naturalized the pier and lintel and personified the arch” in

51

More recently, Edward H. Madden even claimed that Sullivan’s writings and architectural philosophy have come to influence late twentieth-century architects (“Transcendental Influence on Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 31. 2 [1995]: 287). This fact suggests that Sullivan’s Transcendentalist ideas have similarities to current architecture regarding to nature and inspiration in designing buildings. 52 Louis H. Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), 120-125. 53 Ibid., 121. 54 Ibid., 122. 55 Ibid., 124.

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order to make “symbolic functions” in architecture. 56 In other words, Sullivan first adapted Whitman’s poetical techniques into his architectural theory in “Inspiration,” and then designed the proscenium stage arch by following this architectural theory. Sullivan writes about the proscenium stage arch and the side paintings in the Auditorium Theater: “Their purpose is to express, allegorically, the two great rhythms of nature, namely, growth and decadence. [...] The central painting consists mainly of figures; the side paintings are outdoor scenes, containing each but a solitary figure, that of the poet communing with nature.”57 Although the mural of the proscenium was designed by Charles Holloway (1859-1941)58 and the side paintings were painted by Albert Francis Fleury (1848-1924),59 Siry claims that the whole interior, the mural of proscenium, and side paintings were coordinated by Sullivan, and these three artists would have always talked about the interior design in detail together.60 As a result, the paintings, the mural of the proscenium, and the scripture work together to contribute to the theater’s overall design, and each played a role in visually enlarging the interior space. Significantly, the Auditorium’s mandate was to provide “music for the people,” and Sullivan incorporated musical devices in the mural of the

56

Weingarden, “Naturalized Technology,” 490. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 75. 58 Midwest regionalism is reflected in the architectural design of the Auditorium Theater, specifically stressing nature in the Midwest. Therefore, a young Midwestern artist Charles Holloway (1859-1941) was selected to draw the mural of the proscenium arch because Peck wished to emphasize the Midwest’s “regional cultural independence” (Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 246-47). Holloway sketched “living models posing for each separate figure” in order to show “everything is true to nature” (“Pride of Chicago,” Chicago Daily News, morning edition, December 9, 1889). His way of sketching was similar to that of Sullivan, who always sketched nature and took hints directly from nature. 59 The side paintings were designed and painted by the French-trained artist Albert Francis Fleury (1848-1924), who later became famous for his paintings of seasons, landscapes, and street scenes. When Sullivan studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Fleury also studied painting there, although he had originally studied architecture (Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 249). He sketched a spring “scene near Highland Park,” a suburb on Chicago’s North Shore, emphasizing the Auditorium’s regional character, and also sketched the north mural’s autumn scene “from a Wisconsin dell” (“Pride of Chicago,” Chicago Daily News, morning edition, December 9, 1889). 60 A tour guide of the Auditorium mentioned this on January 10, 2006, and Joseph Siry agreed with it on May 22, 2005. 57

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proscenium and paintings. 61 As Sullivan indicated in “Inspiration,” he believed that music was an important element to stimulate the audience’s inspiration and imagination. Sullivan mentions the main theme of the paintings and the Auditorium Theater: “The direct expression of these painting tends toward the musical, for that ‘the utterance of life is a song, the symphony of nature,’ is the burden of the proscenium composition; in the proscenium composition ‘allegro’ [quick tempo] and ‘adagio’ [slow tempo] are expressed the influence of music.”62 This insistence upon the direct connection between nature, arts, and music underscores that music is indeed “for the people” because it is based on common experience of life’s rhythms or the universal truth.63 In Autobiography of an Idea, Sullivan explains in detail how in the stage proscenium arch he visually depicts “two great rhythms discernible alike in nature and in human affairs, as of the same essence” from his prose poem “Inspiration.” 64 Echoing these words, on the top of the proscenium arch, the main theme of the mural is inscribed: “The utterance of life is a song, the symphony of nature” (Figure 2.4).65 Facing a stage, a series of forty-five human figures is arranged from the right side of the stage toward the left side, and these figures express the natural transformation of humans from productive growth to decadence (Figures 2.4 and 2.6).66 Both the right proscenium arch and the right side painting echo the spring part of Sullivan’s essay poem “Inspiration.” For example, the spring scene of Part I in “Inspiration” begins as follows:

61

Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 199. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 75. 63 In addition to the musical devices on the proscenium murals and the side paintings in the Auditorium Theater, Sullivan also incorporated his respect for Wagner, whose music expressed what Sullivan called “a Mighty Personality” (Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 208), a similar sense of Transcendentalist individualism. Specifically, on the sides of curtains of the stage, the names of ten composers were inscribed: Rossini, Haydn, Schubert, and Berlioz were added to the six composers’ names over the proscenium of the Metropolitan Opera House— Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Wagner, and Gounod (Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 245). Noticeably, above the proscenium of the Auditorium Theater, the name of Sullivan’s favorite composer “Wagner” was inscribed instead of the name “Bach” (245). 64 Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 301. 65 Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium” 75. 66 My interpretation of the murals on the proscenium arch and the side paintings draws on Siry’s The Chicago Auditorium Building and Sullivan’s Autobiography of an Idea. 62

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Fig. 2.4 Charles Holloway, Mural over Proscenium, Auditorium Theater (1889)

Fig. 2.5 Holloway, detail of Proscenium Mural, Auditorium Theater

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Fig. 2.6 Albert Fleury, South Mural (Spring Song), Auditorium Theater (1889)

Fig. 2.7 Albert Fleury, South Mural (Poet in Spring Song), Auditorium Theater (1889)

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Chapter Two When birds are caroling, and breezes swiftly fly, when large abundant nature greets the eye, clothed in fresh filigree of tender green, when all is animation and endeavor, when days are lengthening, and storm clouds smiling weep, when fresh from every nook springs forth new life, —then does the heart awake in springtime gladness, breezy and melodious as the air, to join the swelling anthem of rejuvenated life, to mate with birds and flowers and breezes…67

The first sentence, “birds are caroling, and breezes swiftly fly,” depicts the top part of the right side of the proscenium arch. The last sentence, “the heart awake in springtime gladness, breezy and melodious as the air, to join the swelling anthem of rejuvenated life,” echoes the spring scene in the right side painting. These spring scenes express Sullivan’s ideas of the growth in life. Furthermore, in his essay “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium” Sullivan precisely explains his intention for the relationship between the “Inspiration,” the proscenium, and the paintings. He notes that the people on the proscenium are symbolic figures intended to demonstrate “the manifold influence of music on the human mind—the dance, the serenade, the dirge; while a deeper manning, conveying the rhythmic significance of life’s song, is embodied in special groups and figures wholly symbolical in character.”68 Since the purpose of the Auditorium Theater was to provide “music for people,” every figure relates to music. The right side mural of the stage expresses the spring scene, which gradually increases the visual tempo toward allegro, and the left side mural expresses the autumn scene, which gradually slows the tempo toward adagio. Specifically, the bottom of the right side mural begins with the male angel-like figure standing in front of a burning fire, which is meant to represent the beginning of life in spring. Above this figure, a trio of Muses, the depiction of “music and its inspirations, poetry and the dance,” is inscribed.69 Above this trio, a male-female couple and a malemale couple are dancing toward a musician. Since they are dancing and running within a narrow space, the tempo of the music and running seems to become faster and faster as one moves across the mural. Above this group, a male hero receives a garland from a woman. Above these figures, some symbolic figures are depicted: a mother holding a baby at the breast and a father coming back from the harvest; children and a tiger playing together, and birds flying happily over them; and a young couple lying on .

67

Sullivan, “Essay on Inspiration,” 10. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 76 69 Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 248. 68

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a green.70 A joyful spring, which Sullivan imagined as the most beautiful season, ends here. At the center of the proscenium mural, three more goddesses or muselike figures can be seen before the sign of “The utterance of life is a song, the symphony of nature” (Figures 2.5 and 2.6). Although the central woman with wings holds a lyre, she is not a traditional goddess in Greek and Roman myth but what Sullivan calls “a personification of the present.” Sullivan himself writes that the central woman, “[t]he present, a lyre in her hand, sits enthroned, the embodiment of song, of the utterance of life.”71 Moreover, Sullivan emphasizes the significance of the present, saying that “[t]he present is the magical moment of life; it is from the present that we take the bearings of the future and of the past.”72 This passage also expresses the delightful presence of new country America and of a new city, Chicago. On the left side, the mural expresses “decadence,” which demonstrates part of nature’s cycle for living beings. Both the proscenium and the left side painting of the autumn echo the autumn scene of Sullivan’s essay poem “Inspiration.” The autumn scene of Part II begins with this paragraph: In pathless wilds, in gray subsiding autumn, where brown leaves settle through the air, descending one by one to join the dead, while winds, adagio, breathe shrill funeral lamentations, tired Nature, there, her task performed, divested of her lovely many-colored garment, withdraws, behind a falling veil, and sinks to sleep.73

This paragraph precisely describes the autumn part of the proscenium, and “the dead,” “adagio,” and “funeral lamentations” reflect the figures on the proscenium. Sullivan visualized his prose poem in the proscenium, and depicted his concept of the decadence of life. Furthermore, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium” helps explain Sullivan’s intentions in the autumn scene of “Inspiration.” For example, the bottom of the left side mural begins with a female angel-like figure, who reaches down to a low fire, suggesting autumn. Above the autumn fire, four females, symbolizing the four seasons, are sitting on the stairs: three joyful females, who are spring, summer, and autumn, are together, and only winter with heavy clothes is apart from the three. 74 70

Ibid., 248. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 76. 72 Ibid., 76. 73 Sullivan, “Essay on Inspiration,” 14. 74 Siry, The Chicago Auditorium Building, 248. 71

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Above the four seasons, a group of monks holding a huge cross chants a dirge. Unlike the right side, the space between each figure becomes wider and wider; as a result, the tempo seems to become slower and slower. The allegorical depictions, which suggest the image of “death,” continue: an old woman holding a grieving or dying naked daughter, a young man holding his dead friend, and a bereaved wife with her dead husband. In contrast to the right mural, only one big crow, which images “death,” is flying. The top of the right mural ends with an old philosopher, who has a skull on one hand.75 In contrast to the right side, this left side shows the common human expressions of grief and mourning, associating these emotions with the coming of winter. The mural’s main sections clearly reflect the cyclical understanding of nature Sullivan developed in “Inspiration.” The side paintings, too, reflect Sullivan’s Transcendentalist ideas in “Inspiration” because on these side paintings, he directly inscribed the words from “Inspiration.” In fact, Sullivan himself claims that “the side paintings are further expressive of the symphony of nature, for in them her tender voice sings joyously or sadly to the attentive soul of the poet, awakening those delicate, responsive harmonies, whose name is inspiration,” 76 and under the paintings, Sullivan inscribed his exact words from “Inspiration.” In this sense, the side paintings with Sullivan’s words express his intention for the interior of the Auditorium Theater more clearly than the proscenium mural. Sullivan notes that the “Spring Song” on the south side, which is “a scene at dawn within a wooded meadow, by a gently running stream,” corresponds “with the allegro of the central painting” (Figure 2.6).77 The poet in the painting is “communicating with nature” and “abroad to greet the lark; the pale tints of sunrise suffuse the landscape; the early tinge of green is over all; the joy of this awakening life deeply touches the wandering poet” (Figure 2.7).78 Here, Sullivan claims that the poet sings the words from his “Inspiration” with ecstasy: “O soft melodious springtime, first born of life and love!”79 The words “the poet communing with nature” in “Spring Song” also express the Transcendentalist idea of the union of artists and nature. In contrast to “Spring Song,” Sullivan notes that “Autumn Reverie” on the north side corresponds with the adagio of the central painting (Figure 75

Ibid., 248. Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 75. 77 Ibid., 75. 78 Ibid., 75. 79 Ibid., 75. 76

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2.8). 80 The scene depicts, in Sullivan’s words, “the natural and calm decline of life,” and “is of pathless wilds, in gray, subsiding autumn, where brown leaves settle through the air, descending one by one to join the dead, while winds, adagio, breathe shrill funeral lamentations.” 81 A poet is standing and communicating with nature, “sadly musing” (Figure 2.9).82 Under the painting, Sullivan inscribed his words from his “Inspiration”: “a great life has passed into the tomb, and there awaits the requiem of winter’s snows.”83 After these words, Sullivan wrote melancholic words for the winter season in the human life, demanding that the viewer, “through the sad attuning of the mind[,] look out again upon the endless spread of life and dissolution.”84 The poet in “Autumn Reverie” shows his back, and looks into the sad and gray valley in dead trees. Most importantly, the poet in “Spring Song” and “Autumn Reverie” plays a significant role in connecting humans with nature. In his letter to Whitman, Sullivan writes his definition of the nature of the poet: To a man who can resolve himself into subtle unison with Nature and Humanity as you have done, who can blend the soul harmoniously with materials, who sees good in all and overflows in sympathy toward all things, enfolding them with his spirit: to such a man I joyfully give the name of Poet—the most precious of all names.85

This passage suggests that Sullivan gives a high status to the poet. Sullivan’s respect toward the poet relates to Whitman’s notion of poems and poets in the words of the preface to Leaves of Grass (1855): “The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”86 In the spring and autumn paintings in the Auditorium Theater, the poets sing “the fullest poetical nature” in the U.S. In this sense, one might read the poets depicted here as Whitman and Sullivan himself. Through such a reading of the paintings, Sullivan’s mysterious, dense “Inspiration” can be seen to dominate the interior design of the Auditorium Theater. In fact, Sullivan mentions that “these mural poems suggest the compensating phases of nature and of human life in all their varied 80

Ibid., 75. Ibid., 75. 82 Ibid., 75. 83 Ibid., 75. 84 Sullivan, “Essay on Inspiration,” 14. 85 Louis Sullivan quoted in Paul, Louis Sullivan, 2. 86 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 5. 81

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manifestations. Naturally are suggested the light and the grave in music, the joyous and the tragic in drama.”87 Sullivan’s prose poem “Inspiration,” which confused architects and scholars, was finally demonstrated through Sullivan’s architectural design, including Halloway’s mural of the proscenium and Fleury’s paintings.

II. Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building at the Columbian Exposition Like the Chicago Auditorium Building, the Transportation Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 exhibited Sullivan’s aesthetic interpretation of Whitmanian democracy in two significant elements: the colors and the arch. While the Auditorium Building sought human equality and democracy in nature’s law, the Transportation Building attempted to express a national democracy by emphasizing features of American geography and nature. The Exposition was the commemoration of the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, and referenced the past “all the way back to the year of the Philadelphia Centennial.” 88 The Exposition attempted to emphasize American individuality and demonstrate that despite its youth, America, with new technology, had become as great as ancient Greece and Rome and other developed countries such as England, Germany and France. For Sullivan, it was as a democratic nation that nineteenth-century America would demonstrate its individuality in the world. Although the Exposition succeeded overall, critics of the day claimed that the Exposition lacked a strong main theme and mentioned that “The Discovery of America” did not focus on a specific area of that broad topic. One critic of the day claimed that although the Exposition represented America as a nation of “boundless wealth” and “inexhaustible vigor,” the lack of a vision of the future left open certain questions about who Americans were and where America would go.89 As the critic pointed out, most of the architecture at the Exposition did not respond to these questions; however, Sullivan’s Transportation Building did attempt to respond to these questions about American identity and future.

87

Sullivan, “Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium,” 75. Stanley Appelbaum, The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, New York: Dover Publications, 1980, 1. 89 “The Discovery of America,” London Quarterly Review 177 (October 1893): 40. 88

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Fig. 2.8 Albert Fleury, North Mural (Autumn Reverie), Auditorium Theater (1889)

Fig. 2.9 Albert Fleury, North Mural (Poet in Autumn Reverie), Auditorium Theater (1889)

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Officially, Chicago was approved as the location of the exposition in the summer of 1890. Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was hired as a landscape architect of the exposition, and Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) and John Welborn Root (1850-1891) as chief architects of the buildings.90 As a Chicago School architect, Sullivan had been quite familiar with both Burnham and Root before the exposition. Sullivan had the impression that Burnham was a realistic businessman while Root was an idealist who could express his philosophy in his architecture.91 Root outlined the Exposition with the explicit goal of expressing American individuality through its architecture. Root’s plan was to express “American life and character” at Jackson Park on Lake Michigan’s South Side shore. 92 Root was quite concerned with the colors and forms of nature, and regarded “the biological basis of color and form as the basis for the ‘utility’ of the arts to mankind.” 93 Root’s theory was similar to Transcendentalists’ ideas of “organic architecture” because Root also believed that each region and country should have different colors in architecture and arts to match their geographies and nations. Hence, in the Exposition, Root advocated “a far ampler use of color than had hitherto been the practice.” 94 In going over the Exposition planning, Root and Sullivan agreed to emphasize colors to express American architecture.95 The Exposition’s original plan became in effect a colorful architectural festival to commemorate Columbus’s discovery. However, on January 15, 1891, at age forty-one, Root died of pneumonia and fatigue in preparing for the Exposition. At that point, Root had already laid out the whole enterprise to express his commands. 96 Not only five Chicago architectural firms but also five East Coast architectural firms had participated in the construction of the buildings. After Root’s death, Chief Director Burnham came to esteem the East Coast architects’ ideas, such as those of the New York architects McKim, Mead, and White, all of whom advocated the Neo-Classical style. The color of the main buildings was continually discussed in 1892. William Pretyman, Root’s friend, stepped 90

Appelbaum, Chicago World’s Fair, 1-2. Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea, 286. 92 Willard Connelly, Louis Sullivan as He Lived, New York: Horizon Press, 1960, 132. 93 Carl W. Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 50. 94 Connelly, Louis Sullivan as He Lived, 132. 95 Ibid., 132. 96 The Chicago Records’ History of the World’s Fair, Chicago: The Chicago Daily News, 1893, 9. 91

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down as Director of Decoration; Eastern painter Francis D. Millet replaced him, and claimed in print by December of 1892 that “white was the only suitable color for the Court of Honor.” 97 The color white was also effective in presenting a clean image of Chicago and sweeping off the dark image of it as an industrial city with many working-class people. This marked a radical departure from Root’s vision, and the committee announced a new vision of the White City, emphasizing the Neo-Classical style. Still, Sullivan attempted to design American democratic architecture based on American nature’s colors and to challenge the Neo-Classical white buildings as “a monument to the memory of John Root and a declaration of American style.”98 Immediately after Root’s death, the firm of Adler & Sullivan accepted a commission to build the Transportation Building, which would remove the transportation exhibits from the Machinery Building. Sullivan, however, was forced to design the building without Adler’s assistance only in less than a month, because the Department of Construction manager, Burnham, was assigned for Adler’s role in the Exposition.99 Among the white Neo-Classical buildings, the Transportation Building, a colorful horizontal oblong box, was certainly conspicuous (Figure 2.10). The building was like “a giant train shed, 256 by 960 feet, fronting a 425 by 900 annex.” 100 This horizontal architectural style, however, reflected to the prairie of the Midwest, which Wright later more successfully developed into the prairie style house. Sullivan’s building was meant to demonstrate his dictum “form follows function, Roman architecture, means, if it means anything at all, the function Roman; the form, American architecture, will mean, if it ever succeeds in meaning anything, American life.” 101 The Exhibition was held in Chicago, from which the horizontal prairie endlessly expanded; Sullivan designed the building to meet with Chicago’s Midwestern geography. For Sullivan, American nature and culture should predetermine and organize American architectural form rather than transposing Greek and Roman cultural icons into a new American context—a key principle of Transcendentalist “organic form.” This was also a key notion in his idea of democracy, which esteemed the individuality of people, of architecture, and of nations.

97

Appelbaum, Chicago World’s Fair, 5. Connelly, Louis Sullivan as He Lived, 142. 99 Robert Twombly, Louis Sullivan: His Life & Work, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, 260. 100 Ibid., 260. 101 Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats, 44. 98

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Fig. 2.10 Transportation Building

Unlike the artificial white serving as the basic color of the Exposition, Sullivan adapted the natural colors from American soil, plants, and flowers, all of which Sullivan had loved and sketched from his childhood. Specifically, in the exterior of the building Sullivan used polychromatic colors such as red, yellow, orange, marine, and dark green. These colors reflected Sullivan’s desire for natural American architecture; in fact, Sullivan compares European temples with holy American nature in Kindergarten Chats: Hereafter great Nature’s out-of-doors shall be my temple, far, far more beautiful, more holy, than the temple of the Roman or the Greek; and now and hereafter will I worship therein; and in the great out-of-doors of the oceans and lands of the world, of my own land and my own people, shall my spirit freely move.102

These words express Sullivan’s Transcendentalist ideas that find serenity in nature rather than in man-made ancient temples. By using the original colors in nature for the Transportation building, Sullivan attempted to show that such a wild American nature was not only much more attractive, but also more expressive of American democracy and divinity than the artificial white of the temples in Greece and Rome. Barr 102

Ibid., 118.

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Ferree, a critic of the day, praised Sullivan’s polychromatic devices as “the most ambitious and successful example of polychromatic architecture in America.” 103 Nevertheless, most of the visitors could not understand Sullivan’s intention of designing American democratic architecture but simply regarded the Transportation Building with polychromatic colors as bizarre in the White City.104 Another device Sullivan attempted in the Transportation Building was the arch of the Golden Door (Figures 2.11 and 2.12). The Golden Door and the West were unique as if they expressed the mixed races in the U.S. Since Transcendentalism makes much of originality and progress, Sullivan did not simply imitate the Mongol style but developed it into his architectural style to meet with American nature and culture. The Golden Door was significantly different from the entrances of the Neo-Classical buildings making up the majority of the Exposition. On the arch many kinds of sculpture groups designed by John J. Bayle and Sullivan were quite innovative. Specifically, the panel on the left side of the entrance under the lowest arches depicted objects to express the oxcart in the ancient world and the bicycle in the nineteenth century, and the panel on the right side depicted a brakeman with a diner in a Pullman car, which was the newest American train of the day.105 These panels visually showed the history of transportation; in addition, above one of the entrances, the quotations from the words of Bacon and Macaulay were inscribed. Bacon’s words were on the left side of the arch: “There be three things which make a nation / Great and prosperous / [...] / A fertile soil / Busy workshops / And easy conveyance / For man and goods / From place to place.”106 These words exemplified the depictions on the left side panel under the arch, and described past culture with old transportation. Likewise, Macaulay’s words were on the right side of the arch: “Of all inventions the Alphabet and / the printing press alone excepted / Those inventions which / bridge distance / Have done / Most for / Civilization.”107 These words suggest what have contributed to developing culture. Letters, newspapers, and books, have shrunk the world; these are all technologies that bridge long distances between people. Those plates and quotations from Bacon and Macaulay explain how humans have

103

Barr Ferree, “Architecture at the World’s Fair,” Engineering Magazine 5 (August 1893): 658. 104 Denton J. Snider, World Fair Studies, Chicago: Sigma Publishing, 1895, 154. 105 History of the World’s Fair, 91. 106 Ibid., 226. 107 Ibid., 226.

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Fig. 2.11 Golden Door of Transportation Building

Fig. 2.12 Golden Door of Transportation Building

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developed their communication, shrinking time and space through intellectual transportation. Another impressive sculptural decoration was the use of angels. Angels, in a sense an ancient communication tool bridging God and humans, were sculpted between the spandrels of the arches.108 Likewise, along the arcade of the Golden Door, angels whose faces were lifeless, sharp, and metallic were designed. Many visitors regarded the angels as bizarre, and Gustav Kobbé, a critic of the day, ironically observed that the angels symbolized “the many fatal accidents caused by the public conveyances of the time, the victims of which were then ‘transported’ to a better world.”109 Yet, the Transportation Building received French awards for its unique ornament. Andre Bouilhet, a representative in the Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs, admired Sullivan’s American originality and mentioned that “the Transportation Building was ‘well conceived and of fine proportions,’ and with ‘the special merit of recalling no European building.’” 110 The French critics, who observed the Exposition with different preconceptions than the average American visitor, could find American individuality in Sullivan’s building. The Columbian Exposition of 1893 turned Sullivan’s life in a negative direction. Sullivan’s horizontal, colorful, ornamented building seemed to be at odds with the white Neo-Classical buildings in the Exposition. This European style revival in the White City anticipated the near future of American architecture. Sullivan saw this trend as a decline of democracy and claimed: The Architecture died in the land of the free and the home of the brave, — a land declaring its fervid democracy, its unique daring, enterprise and progress. [...] The damage wrought by the World’s Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer.111

His words expressed his serious concern for developing an American democratic architecture that should reflect American cultural independence. For Sullivan, the revival of European architectural style signified the lack of an exemplary American architectural style, and therefore lacked true American democracy. In the years after the Exposition, Sullivan’s

108

Bancroft, The Book of the Fair, 545. Gustav Kobbé quoted in Appelbaum, Chicago World’s Fair, 58. 110 Andre Bouilhet quoted in Connelly, Louis Sullivan as He Lived, 159. 111 Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea, 325. 109

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reputation dramatically declined, and he died in obscurity and poverty in a hotel room in Chicago on April 14, 1924.

Toward Frank Lloyd Wright The Columbian Exposition of 1893 turned Sullivan’s life in a negative direction. Separating from Adler, Sullivan designed the entire Transportation Building for the Exposition by himself. However, Sullivan’s horizontal, colorful, ornamented building seemed to be odd the white Neo-Classical buildings in the Exposition. This European style revival anticipated the near future of American architecture. Sullivan saw this trend as a decline of democracy and claimed: “The Architecture died in the land of the free and the home of the brave, —a land declaring its fervid democracy, its unique daring, enterprise and progress. [...] The damage wrought by the World’s Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer.” 112 His words expressed his serious concern as a Transcendentalist architect for developing a uniquely American architecture that reflected American cultural independence. For Sullivan, the revival of European architectural style lacked an exemplary American architectural style, and therefore lacked true American spirit. In the years after the Exposition, Sullivan’s reputation declined; he finally died in obscurity and poverty in a hotel room in Chicago on April 14, 1924.113 During the Exposition, Wright left Sullivan, opened his own office, and began to demonstrate his own architectural individuality. When Wright visited Sullivan shortly before he died, Sullivan said to him: “I see in your manner of building the realization of a democratical [sic] architecture. Now I know what I have been talking about all these years. I could never have done it myself, but I believe that you would not have done it without me.”114 Seven years after Sullivan died, in a 1931 essay, 112

Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 325. Wright worked with Sullivan when he designed the Transportation Building at the Columbia Exposition. French judges acknowledged that in the Transportation Building Sullivan attempted to demonstrate American architectural independence by using motifs based on American natural colors. According to Reid Badger, Sullivan’s professional career began to decline in 1895 after the Exposition: he became partially deaf, developed an alcohol addiction, and also possessed a “host of personal difficulties, including his well-known arrogance and inability to get along with clients, and the severe depression-related contraction in the funds for new construction” (Reid Badger, The Great American Fair [Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1979], 116). 114 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 105. 113

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Wright noted: “He [Sullivan], the first in American architecture, was true to his country to the death. Architecture to him was really the life and beating heart of this country.” 115 Wright’s words suggest that Sullivan seriously attempted to demonstrate American unique architecture throughout his life. Although Sullivan’s individualism and unique nationalism were not accepted by Americans of his day, Wright inherited these characteristics, including Sullivan’s concept of democracy, and more successfully began to develop Transcendentalist philosophy in his architecture.

115

Ibid., 149.

CHAPTER THREE WRIGHT AND EMERSON: UNITY TEMPLE, CHICAGO

Wright and Unity Temple While many scholars have agreed that Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture reflects Transcendentalist ideas, in this chapter I examine the ways in which Wright embodied the philosophy of Emerson in his design of Unity Temple (1905-06), the famous Unitarian Universalist church in Chicago’s Oak Park. Current architectural historian Robert McCarter claims that “in designing Unity Temple, Wright first considered ‘the philosophy of the building,’ which for him involved a questioning of all preconceived forms.”1 In fact, Wright, a member of the congregation in Unity Temple, himself wrote about his intention and process of designing Unity Temple in a 1932 essay. An analysis of these writings and Unity Temple allows insight into the Emersonian ideas that led to Wright’s stunning and revolutionary architectural forms; therefore, this examination is quite valuable for understanding the essence of Wright’s Emersonian architecture in his early career. In Unity Temple, Wright developed Sullivan’s ideas of the relationship between nature, culture, and the environment, and emphasized the natural elements of Chicago and the Midwest both in the exterior and the interior. I begin with discussing how Wright’s Emersonian thought was acquired, and consequently examine Wright’s Sunday morning and evening talks to his apprentices, most of which I discovered in the Wright Archive research, and in which he expresses his enthusiasm for Emersonian ideas much more openly than he does in his books and journals. I then demonstrate how, through his conception of an organic order—and, more specifically, through his use of natural lighting in open space and geometric patterns—, Wright displays in Unity Temple an

1

Robert McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon, 1997), 79.

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understanding of the Emersonian Transcendental notions of nature, art, and American identity.

Wright and Emerson Wright’s great achievement was to embody Emerson’s abstract philosophy in his architecture and to demonstrate American architecture in the world. Since Wright’s maternal great-great grandfather, Jenkin Jones, was one of the founders of Unitarianism in eighteenth-century Wales, most of Wright’s relatives were ardent Unitarians. 2 Particularly, the enthusiastic Unitarian faith of Wright’s mother, Anna Lloyd Jones Wright, was the principal influence on Wright’s own Unitarianism. Anna even convinced her Baptist minister husband to become a Unitarian minister, often attended the Unitarian group at Concord with transcendentalists, and delivered papers about Emerson’s works at Unity House, which is a part of Unity Temple.3 In addition, Wright’s mother, who eagerly wanted him to be an architect, initiated his formal education using wooden blocks and what were called Froebel kindergarten methods, which paralleled Emerson’s idea that humans should learn basic ideas from the organic system of nature. The Froebel methods also encouraged children to study geometrical forms and organic unity in nature.4 As these facts suggest, Wright’s education as a Transcendentalist architect had been started immediately after he was born. Noticeably, Wright himself affirmed the importance of early–age education in the development of a good architect, and later wrote: “The education of the architect should commence when he is 2 days old (3 days is too much) [...] he should be brought into contact with Nature by prophet and seer until abiding sympathy with her is his.”5 Wright believed that both learning from nature and growing in nature are the most important for humans and architects, as Emerson advocated. Emerson’s philosophy pervaded the Wright family. For example, Wright’s younger sister, Maginel Wright Barney, recalled how pervasive the name “Emerson” was in the Wright household: Most impressive was the gleaming square piano at the end of the room. My brother [Wright] always claimed it was a Steinway, but I know very well 2

Ibid., 11. Joseph M. Siry, Unity Temple (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 12. 4 McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright, 11-12. 5 Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, Ed. Frederick Gutheim (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1941), 16-17. 3

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that it was an Emerson, because I remember the awe and admiration I felt, believing a man of that name could build pianos and write books, too— books that one’s mother, father, aunts, and uncles were always quoting: “As Mr. Emerson says . . .”6

This anecdote shows that Emerson was certainly a central figure within the Wright family’s thoughts. Later, Wright’s uncle, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, a Unitarian and Emersonian minister in Wisconsin, engaged Wright to create experimental designs for Unitarian churches and other structures, such as Unity Chapel in Wisconsin, All Souls Church in Chicago, and the Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago. 7 Influenced and educated by his maternal relatives, Wright naturally became a Unitarian and Transcendentalist architect. Additionally, as we have seen in Chapter One, Frank Furness’s indirect and Louis Sullivan’s direct influence on Wright greatly affected his career to be a Transcendentalist architect.

Wright’s Sunday Morning and Evening Talks Wright’s Sunday morning and evening talks, which Wright delivered to his apprentices in the 1940s and the 1950s, clearly show his enthusiastic inheritance of Emersonian thought from his maternal family. Therefore, I will cite Wright’s words as much as possible. Wright repeatedly encouraged his apprentices to read Emerson’s works. For instance, in a Sunday morning talk on August 28, 1951, Wright urged his apprentices to read Emerson’s works every day, suggesting that “Emerson today is the strongest, purest, finest mind this country has ever produced and everybody should read him daily. [...] He gave it [his thought] out of himself, and he was the living epitome of what he said and what he did. Read him!”8 From that point forward, Wright continually encouraged his apprentices to read and understand Emerson’s philosophy. Specifically, Wright’s two favorite essays were Emerson’s “American Scholar” and “The Over-Soul.” As we have seen in the introduction, Wright declared in a 1952 Sunday morning talk: “If you don’t read [Emerson’s Essays], it’s your own fault. Especially the one on ‘The American Scholar.’ ‘The American Scholar’ was our thesis in architecture

6

Maginel Wright Barney, The Valley of the God-Almighty Joneses (New York: Appleton-Century, 1965), 59-60. 7 Siry, Unity Temple, 11. 8 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1951 (August)” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 2.

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in literature enunciated by Emerson.” 9 Prior to this talk, Wright also discussed “American Scholar” in a talk on September 2, 1951: “I think Emerson, when he wrote the ‘American Scholar,’ described pretty much the thesis we ourselves have, concerning architecture.” 10 Subsequently, Wright read two-thirds of “American Scholar” to his apprentices, explaining that although he tried to select and read a few pages from “American Scholar,” he could not omit any pages because Emerson’s writing was so well organized. After reading two-thirds of “American Scholar,” Wright mentioned that Emerson was much more than a “mere philosopher” to Wright: “Don’t call him [Emerson] a philosopher. A philosopher is none too valuable an asset of our modern life, and I don’t think we should turn back too much into philosophy, when we have a man like that for a guide. So read Emerson.” 11 Wright concluded his talk for the day, exposing his strong Emersonian thought: “I’m off most of the philosophies. And I am giving each of you boys a copy of Emerson’s Essays—because he was not a philosopher. He was it. He was himself. [...] All [was] Emerson’s—his own soul, his own art became the thing he advocated and preached.”12

In this talk Wright regards Emerson as philosophy itself, not a philosopher. For Wright, philosophy is a set of original and substantial principles, while a philosopher is a person to interpret and convey philosophy. After the talk, Wright actually provided the copy to his apprentices as if it were the Bible for architects. For Wright, Emerson was truly the best public figure for proclaiming his belief and architectural philosophy. In this sense, it is not too much to say that Wright’s architectural core ideas stemmed from Emerson’s philosophy. For Wright, Emerson in Unitarianism seemed to be like Jesus Christ in Christianity. For example, Wright’s description of Emerson in the September 2, 1951 talk recalls Emerson’s description of Jesus Christ in “The Divinity School Address”: He [Christ] saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. [...] He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take 9

Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1952” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 1. 10 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1951 (September)” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 1. 11 Ibid., 2. 12 Ibid., 10.

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possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, ‘I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.’13

Emerson’s emphasis on the words from the Bible illustrates his Unitarian beliefs, and the words, “I am divine. Through me, God acts,” were also Wright’s principle in his architecture. In fact, in an issue of Architectural Forum, Wright writes: “I am God of architecture, time, old, modern as any.”14 The parallel between Emerson’s Christ and Wright’s Emerson shows the essence of Emerson’s concept of self-reliance: humans, including Christ, are equally part of the divine, and therefore they should trust themselves and their intuition as from the divine. Throughout his architectural career, Wright attempted to emphasize the concept of self-reliance, and also encouraged his apprentices to trust themselves and create new architecture with their own intuition. As well as Emerson’s ideas of cultural independence in “American Scholar,” his idea of the Over-Soul was also crucial to Wright. In brief, Emerson’s idea of the Over-Soul is that all humans come from the OverSoul and return there after death; that is to say, the Over-Soul is meant to be the mass source of human souls, which is also include part of nature and of God. Specifically, in his essay “The Over-Soul,” Emerson asserts that “we live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles” of the OverSoul from which all individuals come, that nature and the human mind always reflect each other, and that a human being’s ultimate purpose is reunion with the Over-Soul. 15 Wright’s talks and architecture often underlined Emerson’s idea of the Over-Soul. For example, on November 20, 1955, Wright was convinced that most apprentices had already read and understood Emerson’s idea of the Over-Soul and referred to it in his Sunday morning talk. However, the reality was opposite, and Wright claimed: “It was Emerson who called it the “Over-Soul”—ever read his essay on the ‘Over-Soul’? Emerson’s essay? My God, you boys don’t […] girls […] don’t read at all! […] Why don’t you read? […] Read these fine things, fine thoughts.”16 Emphasizing the significance of Emerson’s ideas of the Over-Soul for architects in order to understand nature’s law and the 13

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Divinity School Address,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Robert E. Spiller, et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1: 81. 14 Frank Lloyd Wright, Architectural Forum (1938), 104. 15 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Over-Soul,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2: 159-60. 16 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1955 (November),” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 2.

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soul’s progress, Wright again provided a copy of Emerson’s Essays to his apprentices. Truly, Emerson’s Essays were like the Bible for Wright throughout his life. Wright’s Sunday talks also reveal that he learned not only philosophy but also his writing style from Emerson’s essays. In a talk from January of 1952, Wright mentioned that Emerson was “a man who uses English precisely according to the best uses of the words he employs.”17 In fact, the similarities in the vocabulary and writing style of Wright’s essays show that Wright actually attempted to learn from Emerson. Consequently, in the talk, Wright urged his apprentices to learn good English from Emerson’s writings as he had done: “I think that an architect has an exceedingly good use for good language to be able to express his thought and his feeling by writing or by words, because, at this stage of the game, you must be more or less a propagandist.”18 Wright believed that the core of architecture should not be buildings themselves but architects’ philosophies, and that architects should express their imaginations through their architecture just as Wright had drawn inspiration from Emerson’s ideas through his writings and designed his architecture.

The Background of Unity Temple Unity Temple, a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park near Chicago that Wright, a congregant, designed between 1905 and 1906, is one of the most prominent of Wright’s works, and most clearly reflects an Emersonian impulse. Several events transpired that influenced Wright to embody Emerson’s poetics in Unity Temple. First, according to Joseph Siry, general Unitarian interest in Emerson crested with the centennial of Emerson’s birth in 1903, only two years before Wright began to design the building. 19 Second, Rev. Rodney F. Johonnot, the minister of Unity Temple, was heavily influenced by Charles Everett, his mentor at Harvard Divinity School, who advocated Emerson’s ideas. 20 It was under Johonnot’s leadership that Wright was asked to undertake the design in 1905. Third, at the time, Wright was still working on the Larkin Building, whose clients were also enthusiastic Emersonians; one of them, Darwin Martin, wrote a letter to Wright in October 1910, encouraging him to bring

17

Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1952,” (unpublished essays, ts., Arizona, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archive), 2. 18 Ibid., 2. 19 Siry, Unity Temple, 200. 20 Ibid., 201.

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Emerson’s ideas into the Larkin Building: “Do not forget Emerson. He gave it to us straight.” 21 These circumstances, in addition to Wright’s personal investment in Transcendentalism, contributed to his incorporation of Emerson’s ideas in Unity Temple.22 Before Christmas in 1904, Rev. Johonnot had begun to urge the congregation to donate money to construct a new church, insisting on its necessity, but apparently to little avail (Siry 1996, 69-70). 23 However, Johonnot again campaigned for a new building in a sermon on May 7, 1905, and the congregation began to consider it on May 24.24 Early on the Sunday of June 4, 1905, storms attacked Chicago, and “lightning struck the steeple of the old Unity Church.” A great fire occurred, and on June 9, the congregation had no choice but to vote unanimously for the construction of a new building.25 Many architects’ names were put forward, and Rev. Johonnot interviewed nine architects and discussed the new church with them on August 30. Finally, he announced on September 16 that his congregation had decided to ask Wright to design the new church.26

“Organic Architecture” in Unity Temple Unity Temple remarkably embodied Wright’s concept of “organic architecture.” An especially notable feature of Unity Temple, demonstrating Wright’s affinity to Emersonian Transcendentalism, is its exterior, in Wright’s words a stark “flat plane” without a traditional spire or a steeple (Figure 3.1).27 This is an example of Wright’s “organic architecture.” As an explanation for this, in his 1896 essay, Wright criticized the imitation of ancient Greek and Roman architecture in America, saying, And the classic? How the beauty-sophisticated Greek would shudder with impotent disgust if he could see the chaste proportions of his work 21

Darwin Martin, quoted in Jack Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building: Myth and Fact (New York: Architectural History Foundation, 1987), 102. 22 According to Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building: Myth and Fact, The Larkin Building’s executive, William Heath, and his wife, read and discussed Emerson’s works weekly with other Larkin executive families such as the Hubbards and the Martins, who even republished an edition of Emerson’s Nature in 1905. 23 Siry, Unity Temple, 69-70. 24 Ibid., 70. 25 Ibid., 70. 26 Ibid., 73. 27 Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings (New York: Meridian, 1960), 74.

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In this description, Wright does not deny the magnificence of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, but rather criticizes the deformed NeoClassical architecture of his day. This disdain for the artistically secondary in Wright echoes Emerson’s concept of organic form. Emerson admired the perfect organic form in Gothic architecture, which to his way of thinking resonated with nature and reflected the artist’s inspiration from the divine mind, but he hated its carbon copy in America. He complained of the lackluster original architecture in America and claimed that “we, no doubt, shall continue, in America, fancy free though we be, to build mean churches with pews for a thousand years to come, instead of those sublime old temples so lofty and many-chapeled, covered with the marble and gold of ages.”29 As Vivian C. Hopkins (1951) points out, Emerson felt that American architects should “absorb the best of European styles while maintaining their own integrity.”30 In other words, Emerson did not always deny incorporating European architecture but wished American architects to design unique American architecture flowing out from American geography and culture. As Emerson advocated, Wright emphasized that American artists see with their own eyes what ancient people saw—the universal principle in nature—and that they demonstrate this principle in their own art. Echoing the previously cited thought of his 1896 essay, in a 1932 essay Wright recalled that in designing Unity Temple, he had consciously avoided traditional, symbolic forms of church architecture based on European styles: Why the steeple of the little white church? Why point to heaven?...Why not, then, build a temple, not to God in that way—more sentimental than sense—but build a temple to man, appropriate to his uses as a meeting place, in which to study man himself for his God’s sake?31

28

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson quoted in Vivian C. Hopkins, Spires of Form: A Study of Emerson’s Aesthetic Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 89. 30 Hopkins, Spires of Form: A Study of Emerson’s Aesthetic Theory, 89. 31 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 75. 29

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When Wright began to design Unity Temple, in fact, three traditional churches with solemn steeples were already located along Lake Street.32 However, Wright thought that the slavish imitation of traditional symbolic forms in art was worthless, and his goal was not to adhere to such models but to create “a natural building for natural Man.” 33 As a result, like Wright’s prairie houses designed in the same era, Unity Temple emphasizes simplicity, horizontal lines, and harmony with nature, seeking to illustrate the beauty of organic architecture.34 From the outside, it might be difficult at first glance to recognize that Unity Temple—two separate, plain buildings connected by an entrance hall—is a church. Over the door to this hall, a large inscription, “FOR THE WORSHIP OF GOD AND THE SERVICE OF MAN,” expresses the purpose of the sanctuary, or Unity Temple proper, and Unity House, used for Sunday school, festivals, and various kinds of gatherings of the congregation. These words suggest Wright’s Unitarian Universalist belief; that is to say, churches and temples should be for men, not for God. Importantly, these words include the belief that not only Western churches should be respected, but also others. Scholars such as Kevin Nute, Tanigawa Masami, and Joseph M. Siry point out the similarities between the two functions in the church and the gongen-style of Japanese temples, constructed of a sanctuary reserved for God and an oratory for worshippers, with a narrow breezeway connecting

32

In front of Unity Temple, across Lake Street, is the First Congregational Church, built in 1873. The church displays typical Neo-Gothic architecture as a traditional Christian church. Two blocks west of the First Congregational Church is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1901-02. It was “a Romanesque style of roundarched openings, [featuring] a monumental tower over a portico and walls of polychrome boulders.” In front of the First Presbyterian Church stood Episcopal Grace Church, built 1901-06, the most expensive English Gothic style church in Oak Park, and lighted by sixty-three windows decorated with stained glass from England (Siry, Unity Temple, 61-62). In this context, Unity Temple appears as an especially strong statement of Wright’s independence from traditional architectural norms. 33 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 75. 34 According to Carla Lind, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Houses (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1994), the typical features of prairie houses are “dominant horizontal lines, open plans, simplified spaces, human scale (reduced ceiling heights and wood bands and decks that lower perceived heights), integral ornament, geometric plans, integrated windows and doors, integrated elements, organic siting, natural materials, and prominent hearth” (14).

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Fig. 3.1 The Exterior of Unity Temple

Fig. 3.2 Sanctuary of Taiyu-in-byo in Nikko

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these two buildings.35 In Japanese Shinto, any trees, stones, or men could be God, and the Japanese could build temples and shrines for them like Taiyu-in-byo in Nikko (Figure 3.2), a seventeenth-century temple for Iemitsu Tokugawa, the third Shogun of Tokugawa. Scholars agree that when Wright visited Japan in 1905 immediately before designing Unity Temple, he likely was inspired by Taiyu-in-byo, which is surrounded by natural trees, waterfalls, lakes, and rivers, harmonizes with nature and displays a Japanese version of organic form like the Gothic architecture Emerson admired. Margo Stipe also claims that Wright was impressed by organic form in Japanese architecture during his first trip, quoting his observation that Japanese architecture is “a perfect example of the modern standardizing” and “the question of modern architecture seemed more involved with Japanese architecture in principle than with any other.”36 In short, Wright found an ideal organic architecture in the Eastern style of architecture that was not in the Western. In this sense, Unity Temple reflects the common heritage of Emerson and Wright, Universalism, which equally accepts every religion in every country. In fact, Wright himself suggested calling Unity Temple “a temple rather than a church” and intended to express “the powerful simplicity of ancient temples.”37 In this way, Wright demonstrated Universalism in Unity Temple. However, unlike the ornamented Taiyu-inbyo, the two buildings in Unity Temple are more simple and powerful, and they are constructed mainly of massive, reinforced concrete slabs, which in Wright’s words were “proportioned according to concrete-nature—or the nature of the concrete.”38 As Emerson suggested, Wright incorporated the ethos of Japanese architectural style into Unity Temple but never simply imitated the style. Concrete columns, “whose geometric capitals abstract naturalistic leaf forms and repeat the cubic shapes of the building,” 39 are the strongest accents of the exterior). The leaf pattern of the columns echoes the foliage of trees surrounding the temple and recalls Emerson’s (1870) words, in his essay on “Art”: “The pleasure that a noble temple gives us is only in part 35

Kevin Nute, Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan: The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993); Masami Tanigawa, Wright and Japan (Tokyo: Kashima P, 1997); Siry, Unity Temple. 36 Margot Stipe, “First Trip to Japan,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 6 (1995): 23. 37 Frank Lloyd Wright quoted in Unity Temple Self-Guided Tour Script (Chicago: Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, 1996), 1. 38 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 82. 39 Unity Temple Self-Guided Tour Script, 4.

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owing to the temple. It is exalted by the beauty of sunlight, the play of the clouds, the landscape around it, its grouping with the houses, trees and towers in its vicinity.”40 Even in a tiny yard facing a busy street, Unity Temple also harmonizes with the surrounding green trees and bushes, recalling Emerson’s passage in “Each and All”: the poet brings the sparrow from its nest, but in spite of its singing, he does not enjoy it, because he “did not bring home the river and sky.” 41 Just as Emerson emphasized the significance of harmony with nature in this poem, Wright, in the midst of the bustling Chicago neighborhood, seems to have demonstrated Emerson’s idea, trying to “bring home” natural elements, even in concrete ornaments.

Fig. 3.3 Architectural Drawing of Unity Temple

Wright himself referred to the period of Unity Temple’s construction as “another Renaissance,” that of a return to the primitive and to harmony with nature, and the concept of organic architecture in Unity Temple was one of Wright’s demonstrations of this idea (Figure 3.3).42 In 1910, Wright wrote in the preface to Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, the definitive publication about his architecture up to that time, that 40 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Art,” The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Edward Waldo Emerson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903-04), 3: 46. 41 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Each and All,” The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 9: 370. 42 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 88.

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Appreciations of fundamental beauty on the part of primitive peoples is [sic] coming home to us today in another Renaissance to open our eyes so we may cut away dead wood and brush aside the accumulated rubbishheaps of centuries of false adoration. This Renaissance-of-the-Primitive may mean eventual return to more simple conventions more in harmony with Nature.43

Insisting on the significance of this “harmony with Nature,” Wright also noted that “attempts to use forms borrowed from other cultures and conditions other than one’s own must end as the Renaissance ends.”44 His words embody his view that architecture must reflect not just nature in general but the natural environment of its particular country specifically. Later, his idea of “organic architecture” that architecture should reflect its geometry and each regional feature led architects to the beginning of contemporary environmental architecture. Wright’s notion of architectural independence reflects Emerson’s own hopes for the independence of American culture “The American Scholar.” In a similar vein, in developing the concept of organic architecture, Wright writes that his prairie houses were meant to reflect the flat expanses of the Midwest, and claims that American architecture should be different from European architecture because the American climate, temperature, and landscape are different from those of European countries: “To Europeans these buildings may, on paper, seem uninhabitable [...] [a prairie house is] the only one here worthy of respect.”45 In a similar way, Unity Temple stands as a representative of Wright’s religious organic architecture, borrowing its shapes from the American natural environment and its sense of form and function from the beliefs and practical needs of its worshippers.

Natural Lighting in Open Space The most striking feature inside the sanctuary of Unity Temple is its broad, expansive interior space, suffused with natural light from windows in the walls and ceiling, which give a sense of connection with wide-open outdoor space (Figures 3.4 and 3.5). Wright adapted the sublime in the sanctuary, reflecting in particular Edmund Burke’s notion of the sublime as escape from an oppressive condition into “light” and delicate 43

Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted in Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 88. 44 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 90. 45 Ibid., 104.

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“Beauty.”46 As we have seen Furness’s Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Chapter One, the sublime effect in architecture was quite popular in the 19th and early 20th century. In fact, prior to Unity Temple, in 1895, Wright had already achieved the sublime effect in the playroom for his children in his Oak Park house. He created a low, narrow, dark, short hall to connect the playroom with another room so that, entering through the small passageways, one would perceive the room as larger and lighter than it actually is. Like the sanctuary of Unity Temple, in the playroom one might feel relaxed and comfortable after a feeling of unease. In Unity Temple, while passing through the narrow and dark cloister below the galleries and entering the sanctuary as into the divine reality, one might feel a sort of fear. Suddenly, the sublime moment comes when one moves from the darkness to the light and from the narrow space to the wide space in the sanctuary. When visitors enter the room, they are abruptly showered with a great deal of light from the ceiling and see the expansive space. The transition from darkness to light creates an increasing sense of comfort. In a 1938 essay, Wright himself affirms the importance of space and mentions: “the reality of the building is not in the four walls and roof but in the space enclosed by them to be lived in. [...] In Unity Temple to bring the room through was consciously a main objective.”47 Moreover, Wright specifically explains his intent to create one single, large, open space: Unity Temple has no actual walls as walls. Utilitarian features, the stair enclosures at the corners; low masonry screens carrying roof supports; the upper part of the structure on four sides a continuous window beneath the ceiling of the big room, the ceiling extending out over them to shelter them; the opening of this slab where it passed over the big room to let sunlight fall where deep shadow had been deemed “religious.”48

These words express the importance to Wright of bringing sunlight into the sanctuary, thereby connecting the interior space with the exterior natural world. In a 1955 interview, he also stated that in the sanctuary people could see the clouds passing by through the art glass windows and ceiling, and that these “features were arranged against that interior space allowing a sense of it to come to the beholder wherever he happened to

46 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Ed. James T. Boulton. (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1958). 47 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 231. 48 Ibid., 231.

Wright and Emerson: Unity Temple, Chicago

Fig. 3.4 Sanctuary of Unity Temple

Fig. 3.5 Sanctuary of Unity Temple

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be.”49 Unlike traditional churches dominated by solemn walls and explicitly didactic art glass, Unity Temple emphasizes space itself as a means of meditation and suggests that everyone equally came from the same source and now those fragments of spirits from the Over-Soul gather together in the large space. Moreover, in a 1932 essay, Wright notes that he had used the amber art glass in the ceiling of Unity Temple specifically in order to throw continuous natural light over the sanctuary, whether on fine or rainy days.50 This device, a large open space lit by skylights, is quite similar to the light court of the Larkin Building, in which, as Jack Quinan points out, Emerson’s concept of unity can be seen: “The light court exemplifies Emerson’s belief in the unity of all things in nature and the aspiration of all matter to a spiritual ideal” 51 The ceiling of the Larkin Building is largely comprised of square glass panels, which allow the natural sky light to come inside, and under which workers share a single space, just as the ceiling of Unity Temple disperses yellow-tinted sunlight throughout its sanctuary and over the entire congregation. Siry expands Quinan’s ideas and points out that this shared philosophy behind the Larkin Building and Unity Temple stemmed from Emerson’s concept of the Over-Soul, to Emerson’s mind the unifying element of the whole universe, encompassing nature, the divine, and human beings. 52 One can see two particular instantiations of the concept of unity with the Over-Soul in the Unity Temple sanctuary. The first, as Siry points out, is the unity of the congregation, each of whom is a part of the Over-Soul, and “all worshipers would see one another in a cubic volume focused on the central pulpit.”53 Siry, however, misses the second, more important element: the device of indirect light from the ceiling and side windows to demonstrate the mystery of the Over-Soul. Emerson claims, in “The Over-Soul”: Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence…The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present…is that great nature…that Unity, that Over Soul, within which everyman’s particular being is contained and made one with all other.54

49

Unity Temple Self-Guided Tour Script, 5. Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 78. 51 Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building: Myth and Fact, 108. 52 Siry, Unity Temple, 189-192; 199-202. 53 Ibid., 202. 54 Emerson, “The Over-Soul,” 268. 50

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The fact that the art glass of the ceiling and side windows partly obstructs but also transmits sunlight might seem to suggest that “hidden” source of the Over-Soul. Specifically, Wright’s skylights and windows connect inside and outside harmoniously. Through art glass, the natural light streams in from both above and along the sides, and the inner space seems to extend in all directions, again hearkening back to “The OverSoul”: “From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.”55 Certainly, the sanctuary is Wright’s attempt to demonstrate his religious tenets as a Unitarian and architectural devices as a Transcendentalist architect who esteems nature and natural light. In the sanctuary, in fact, we sense light and cloudiness only indirectly through the art glass rather than through completely transparent glass, and Wright himself specifically explains that he used opaque glass in some parts in order to throw a continuous yellow light over the room: Flood these side-alcoves with light from above: gets a sense of a happy cloudless day into the room. And with this feeling for light the center ceiling between the four great posts became skylight, daylight sifting through between the intersections of concrete beams filtering through amber glass ceiling light, thus the light, would, rain or shine, have the warmth of sunlight.56

The warm yellow light transmitted by the amber-colored panels of art glass in the ceiling was meant to convey the warmth of the sun or God. Since direct natural light is neither always comfortable nor always beautiful, especially on hot summer days, Wright’s artistic device is also practical, aiding the congregants in their worship and mutual service. This artistic device in the ceiling physically articulates Emerson’s theory of art, in which the concept of the Over-Soul again plays a significant role. According to Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson claimed that art is profoundly connected with an artist’s intuition from the OverSoul, and that art and nature are equal because both are “ideal imitations” of the divine mind.57 In Emerson’s theory of art in Nature, natural beauty is not perfect, and therefore art is a necessary complement to nature; that is, art is “a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first

55

Ibid., 270. Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 78. 57 Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson and Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930), 89. 56

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works.” 58 In “Journals IV for 1837,” Emerson also expounds on the relationship between art and nature, affirming the Neo-Platonic idea that a carved stone is more beautiful than a rough stone, because art has imparted design to the unformed rock. 59 Asserting, in “The Problem,” that “Art might obey but not surpass [nature],” Emerson finds beauty more in cultivated nature than in wild nature.60 Wright’s use of art glass in the sanctuary seems to echo Emerson’s idea of the necessity of artifice in perfecting nature. In a 1908 essay, Wright himself emphasizes that the beauty of nature is imperfect, saying that “as Nature is never right for a picture so is she never right for the architect—that is, not ready-made.”61 Wright even hated to depict nature without artistic change or development: “If you see a picture in which perhaps a cow is looking out at you ‘real,’ so ‘lifelike,’ rather buy the cow, because the picture in all human probability is worthless.”62 These words claim that simply depicting “lifelike” animals and plants is a worthless imitation because artists’ devices and originality do not partake in such works. Wright suggests that artists should carefully observe the principle of nature, compensating for the imperfections of nature through their intuition, and that artistic devices are indispensable to the creation of real beauty. As Wright himself claims, nature is not God himself but “the body of God.”63 Just such an artistic device, the single, open space of Unity Temple, suffused with light mediated through amber colored art glass, represents Wright’s attempt to connect outside and inside and to bring nature into the sanctuary.

Geometric Pattern Another notable feature of Unity Temple is the geometric pattern of its exterior and interior, a pattern based on repeating interconnected squares. In a 1932 essay, Wright writes about Unity Temple: 58

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1: 17. 59 Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson and Asia, 87. 60 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Problem,” The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 9: 7. 61 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 31. 62 Ibid., 7. 63 Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted in Brendan Gill, Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987), 22.

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One motif may be seen, the “inside” becoming “outside.” The groups of monoliths in their changing phases, square in character, do not depart from that single IDEA. Here we have something of the organic integrity in structure out of which issues character as an aura. The consequence is style. A stylish development of the square becoming the cube.64

This description suggests that Wright developed the square design of the interior to the cubed shaped of its exterior as yet another way of connecting interior and exterior. In the same essay, he insists on the significance of particular geometric shapes, and notes their specific meanings: “the cube or square, integrity; the circle or sphere, infinity; the straight line, rectitude; if long drawn out [...] repose; the triangle [...] aspiration, etc.”65 Since both the exterior and interior of Unity Temple are composed of cubes and long, linear slabs, we can consider that besides evoking the open, flat expanses of the American landscape, Unity Temple also implicitly suggests “integrity and rectitude.” Wright esteemed such geometric design because he thought that learning geometric designs from trees, plants, and flowers, and gaining a deep understanding of nature were prerequisites to being an architect: The education of the architect should commence when he is 2 days old (3 days is too much) [...] he should be brought into contact with Nature by prophet and seer until abiding sympathy with her is his. He should be a true child of hers, in touch with her moods, discerning her principles and harmonics until his soul overflows with love of Nature in the highest and his mind is stored with a technical knowledge of her forms and processes.66

In keeping with these sentiments, the geometric design of Unity Temple is obvious at first glance. Unlike traditional churches, the exterior of the building is composed of several simple, geometric blocks of concrete. When Wright designed Unity Temple, Rev. Johonnot suggested that “both the temple’s upper galleries and the ceiling above them” include the symmetrical, square, Greek cross, which express “the perfection of divinity.”67 Several independent cubes and squares in the exterior of Unity Temple are woven into the larger composition and construct a large cube. This geometric purity is meant to illustrate the perfection of natural forms as well as that of divinity, as Wright describes: “nature usually perfects her forms; the individuality of the attribute is seldom sacrificed; that is, 64

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 82. Ibid., 77. 66 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 16-17. 67 Rev. Rodney F. Johonnot, quoted in Siry, Unity Temple, 209. 65

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deformed or mutilated by co-operative parts.”68 The independent shapes in the exterior of Unity Temple, which on their own are simple in form, harmonize with each other as they form more complex geometric patterns. This harmony of interconnected shapes forming a unique final design reflects Emerson’s passage in “Each and All”: “All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.” 69 Considered in light of this Emersonian principle, the large square exterior of Unity Temple might be taken as an emblem of the universal mind, its neat arrangement of smaller geometric figures suggesting the wisdom and providence of God. Connecting the structure’s exterior and interior, the geometric design of the columns is also echoed in that of the high side windows, though while the columns suggest leaves, the windows simplify the former and seem to suggest flowers. The side windows are buried directly into the concrete, reducing the window framing and minimizing the effect of the walls between the exterior and the interior. In them, Wright designed neither life-like flowers nor leaves, but viewing trees as a principle of nature, he abstracted them into flower-like designs. Therefore, it might be difficult for people to recognize at first sight the abstract design of the windows, visitors come to realize that the abstract design of the windows relates to sky, windows as flowers. However, while seeing clouds going and coming through clouds, light and trees, and so discover principles of nature in the art glass. Like the windows, the ceiling is also comprised of geometric patterns. Four glass modules in the ceiling are constructed in the same shape simply turned different ways, as if they were independent; however, in fact, they make one panel as a whole. Each panel is neatly situated in the crossed ceiling, making strict geometric lines like other parts of the room. Wright’s device recalls Emerson’s principle of totality in Nature: “The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms. [...] Nothing is quite beautiful alone; nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace.”70

68

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 58. Emerson, “Each and All,” 4. 70 Emerson, Nature, 17. 69

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Fig. 3.6 Sanctuary of Unity Temple

Along with the windows and ceiling, the interior design of Unity Temple is replete with interlocking, symmetrical, geometric patterns, which are themselves interconnected by the colors of the designs (Figure 3.6). Wright says, “appliances or fixtures as such are undesirable. Assimilate them together with all appurtenances into the design of the structure.” 71 Thin oak strips connect with each part and even with the appliances, and all the appliances—lights, chairs, pulpit, and stands—also share geometric patterns with the interior design. The color scheme of the sanctuary of Unity Temple is dominated by many elements in yellowish hues of several colors: brown, gray, green, and cream. Like the geometric design of the interior, these colors connect to each other and become complementary, suggesting that even though the colors are different, they come from the original color, yellow, the color of the sun or of God. For example, the hue of fresh green flora is brought inside in the design of abstract natural leaves, creating another sense of continuity between exterior and interior. In a pair of green lamps, like abstract trees alongside the pulpit, one can see this device: the brown stands are the trunks, and the 71

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 33.

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green shades represent the leaves. These lamps also correspond to green accent panels in the walls of the sanctuary. Likewise, the oak grille behind the lectern hides the organ pipes with the same geometric color patterns as the rest of the interior design. Its simple straight lines of brown and yellow are echoes of the main module in the room and are repeated in the walls, the piers, the balconies, and the ceilings. Thus, we can find that just as the square develops towards the cube, the geometric patterns of color in the sanctuary “do not depart from that single IDEA” but are unified as a yellow-tinted whole.72 Finally, Wright also used a striking geometric design in the sanctuary’s hanging light fixtures, which seem to be meant to evoke the light of God shining in the darkness. In particular, “the round ball of the globe is a punctuation mark in the dominant rectilinearity of the room,” 73 and is reminiscent of the first line of Emerson’s poem “Circles”: “Nature centres into balls.”74 We can interpret the spherical light, a shape which to Wright signified the infinite,75 as symbolizing nature itself or the Over-Soul. The balls hanging from the high ceiling shine gloriously as if they were the revelation of God. The cubic lights, whose shape to Wright signified integrity,76 similarly symbolize the perfection of the divine. Wright may likewise have meant to express through these fixtures that people share the universal mind, centering it in their minds, just as the round balls illuminate the sanctuary. Inspired by Emersonian Transcendentalism, Wright designed the space of the sanctuary as a unified system of geometric pattern, and created a small vision of a beautiful, well-ordered universe in Unity Temple. Unity Temple succeeded in embodying Emerson’s ideas and added to Wright’s reputation as an architect, and its congregations have been rightly proud of “perhaps the most strikingly original of any church in America.”77 However, Wright’s most remarkable achievement is that he demonstrated how American architecture could successfully incorporate natural organic form, much as Emerson had suggested, and his philosophy of architecture about the importance of establishing national architecture has influenced not only American architects but also contemporary modern architects throughout the world. 72

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 80. Unity Temple Self-Guided Tour Script, 4. 74 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Circles,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2: 299. 75 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, 77. 76 Ibid., 77. 77 Siry, Unity Temple, 199. 73

CHAPTER FOUR WRIGHT AND THOREAU: TALIESIN, WISCONSIN

Wright and Thoreau Henry David Thoreau’s observations of nature and his experiments in the woods have exerted a great but under-recognized influence upon architects who are interested in natural architecture. Critic Theodore M. Brown asserts that “Thoreau’s ideas are fundamental to twentieth-century architectural thought [...] especially to that of Frank Lloyd Wright.” 1 Although until the 1930s Wright’s writing and talks were influenced less by Thoreau than by Emerson and Whitman, Wright came to cite quotations from Thoreau’s writing thereafter.2 The reason for this pattern stems partly from critics after the 1870s underestimating Thoreau’s writing, and partly from Thoreau’s writing and ideas of simplicity regaining popularity as the Great Depression became more pronounced during the 1930s. In fact, in the 1930s, Wright began to design the Usonian House,3 which, like the second Jacobs’ House in Wisconsin, is a simple, passive solar house—that is, one that contains neither mechanical nor electrical systems to support energy transfer. In the serious economic

1

Theodore M. Brown quoted in W. Barksdale Maynard, “Thoreau’s House at Walden,” The Art Bulletin 131 (1999), 308. 2 In Wright’s Collected Writings, which consists of five volumes, the name “Thoreau” does not appear in the first volume (1894-1930) or the last volume (1949-59); it appears once in the second volume (1930-32) and once in the fourth volume (1939-49). Only in the third volume (1931-39), which includes the essays during the Great Depression, does the name “Thoreau” appear five times, mostly when Wright discusses the U.S. economy and social system. 3 Wright’s “Usonia” means America. In “The American Way,” Wright argues about the term “Usonia”: “Samuel Butler called us Usonioans, and our Nation of combined States, Usonia. Why not use the name?” (Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, ed. Frederick Gutheim [New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941], 100).

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situation that America faces in the early twenty-first century, with its global ramifications, architects have begun again to design simple, ecological architecture—utilizing limited space, natural materials, or natural energy. In this chapter, I examine how Wright incorporates Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity into his writings and into the buildings of Taliesin, Wright’s summer residence in Wisconsin. In particular, Wright cited a passage from “Economy,” the first chapter of Walden, on the first page of the January 1938 issue of Architectural Forum, an issue that was “devoted to and edited by Wright.” 4 What’s more, Wright adopted Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity in his and his apprentices’ actual lives at Taliesin and, in particular, in the architecture of the drafting room. While Taliesin incorporates several Transcendentalist ideas in its different buildings, Wright specifically encouraged his apprentices to value Thoreauvian simplicity in the drafting room, which inspired the image of a spiritual world reflected in natural materials and light. 5 These examinations will show that this philosophical emphasis on economy in architecture relates significantly to aspects of contemporary environmental architecture.

Wright’s Thoreauvian Simplicity Thoreau’s concept of simplicity is to “invent something, to be somebody,—i.e., to invent and get a patent for himself,—so that all may see his originality.”6 Leo Stoller interprets his words as saying that “the simple life [...] aims at the most complete realization of the perfectibility innate in every person.”7 His words claim that every person is originally perfect and that a simple life leads humans to cast off materialism and realize their original perfection. As Stoller suggests, Thoreau’s words claims that every person is originally perfect and that a simple life leads humans to cast off materialism and realize their original perfection. Thoreau notes, “An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten 4 As a Publisher’s Note stated in 1964, Architectural Forum “first recognized his greatness by devoting the entire January 1938 issue to his work” (“Time Inc.’s Architectural Forum: 1932-1964,” 5). 5 For instance, part of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is inscribed on the left side wall of the stage in the theater of Taliesin, urging the audience to consider a relationship between the theater and wisdom. 6 Henry David Thoreau, Journal, vol. 14, ed. Bradford Torrey and Francis H. Allen (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906), 282. 7 Leo Stoller, “Thoreau’s Doctrine of Simplicity,” The New England Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1956), 443.

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fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”8 Humans should overcome their selfish desire, simplify their daily life, and keep their desires for material things at a minimum. 9 Furthermore, he proposes, “Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.”10 Thoreau advocates reducing life to its basics, a measured existence shorn of the expenses and calamity associated with modern living, because a simplified life helps humans both financially and spiritually. In fact, Thoreau clarifies these purposes of his simple life in the woods in Walden’s second chapter, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”11 Throughout Walden, Thoreau asserts that materialism instills in people unnecessary desires for physical goods and excessive competition with their neighbors in order to have more luxuries, with the result that they are exhausted, both physically and psychologically, from pursuing these inappropriate desires. Lawrence Buell suggests that the final aim of Thoreau’s simplicity is to pursue “a means to a richer inner life.”12 Put differently, humanity’s ultimate goal is not a simple life for its own sake, but for a higher purpose. For Thoreau, humans communicate with the divine and with nature more easily under simple, stress-free conditions, which help them both physically and psychologically.

8

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ed. J. Lyndon Shanley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 91. 9 Buell specifically analyzes Thoreau’s two types of simplicity: one is a kind of strict “hermit and stoic” simplicity, as Emerson advocated, while the other disavows the life of “a kind of monk,” imposing neither meditation nor vegetarianism in its less strict lifestyle (“Downwardly Mobile for Conscience’s Sake: Voluntary Simplicity from Thoreau to Lily Bart,” American Literary History 17, no. 4 [2005], 656-57). The former simplicity requires repressing the ego and materialistic desires, as most religions often require, and it inspired experiments, like Thoreau’s, in which people lived in “cabins in more remote areas” and experienced “withdrawal for longer periods of time” and “greater austerity of lifestyle.” The latter simplicity is for people for “whom voluntary downscaling clearly seems temporary and/or partial, not secession from society at large” (656). Buell asserts that the latter kind of simple life allows practitioners, in Elaine St. James’s words, to “simplify, simplify. And enjoy” (qtd. 656). 10 Thoreau, Walden, 91-92. 11 Ibid., 90. 12 Lawrence Buell, “Downwardly Mobile,” 656.

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Wright’s concept of simplicity is similar to Thoreau’s, as he clarifies in a 1908 essay: “Simplicity and Repose are qualities that measure the true value of any work of art. But simplicity is not in itself an end nor is it a matter of the side of a barn but rather an entity with a graceful beauty in its integrity from which discord, and all that is meaningless, has been eliminated. A wildflower is truly simple.” 13 Wright believes that true beauty exists in simple matters themselves, and that in order to see true beauty, humans should remove excessive matters in their lives and arts.14 Like Thoreau, Wright also believes that the ultimate goal of simplicity is not to simplify everything but rather to help humans to receive artistic intuition from the divine and from the natural world around them. Wright’s essay suggests why he became interested in Thoreau’s works and began to quote them in his talks and writings. The social and economic problems that dominated both the 1830s-1850s and the 1930s1940s likely influenced Wright’s espousal of Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity and his attempt to incorporate them in his design of Taliesin. In a 1939 essay, after seeing the dismal effects of the Depression on families and the housing industry, Wright encouraged architects to think of the significant role of architecture and architects during the Depression because they could design houses with a low cost and high quality. As he wrote, “Before the long depression we, as architects, did not think much of this [the architects’ role in society].”15 When Thoreau experimented with life at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847, the United States was coming out of a severe economic depression. After becoming President in 1829, Andrew Jackson undertook several failed economic policies, which eventually caused the Panic of 1837. By the summer of that year, the nation’s economy was paralyzed, and by the early 1840s it had barely recovered. Because of the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement, and the anti-Catholicism movement, social anxiety had increased; in addition, while Thoreau was living in the woods, the Industrial Revolution was developing and railroads were destroying nature and the environment. Similarly, when Wright published his architectural philosophy and Transcendentalist ideas in Architectural Forum during the 1930s, the United States was undergoing the Great Depression, and its economy had 13

Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (New York: Rizzoli Publications International, 1992), 1: 84. 14 Wright notes that these words were originally written in 1894. Wright was inspired by Thomas Carlyle: “The Ideal is within thyself, thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of” (Collected Writings, 1: 87). 15 Wright, Collected Writings, 3:297

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become the worst in its history. The increasing number of Wright’s citations from Thoreau during this period shows that Wright remembered Thoreau’s call for simplicity in architecture and was able to look back for inspiration to another American depression in the nineteenth century and to Thoreau’s response to that depression in Walden. Specifically, Wright was attracted to the first two chapters of Walden, “Economy” and “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” which he cited more frequently than any other of Thoreau’s works. In both chapters, Thoreau emphasized his concept of simplicity and exemplified a simple life in matters of food and architecture. Since Thoreau was writing shortly after a depression, the chapter entitled “Economy” emphasizes the changing American individual perspective and lifestyle that valued spirituality and a simple life over materialism. Thoreau writes in Walden how his success did not depend on monetary or material gain: “I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius [...]. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before.”16 Thoreau could be well off because he was succeeding in his self-sufficient life without a trade, and he was also achieving, in Buell’s words, “a richer inner life.” 17 Thoreau states that, lacking property and livestock, he did not need to worry about losing them; therefore, a simple life brought him to authentic freedom without anxiety for losing his property and money. A simple life, in which one valued spirituality more than material life, was the best way out of the economic depression.18 Stoller notes that Thoreau’s approach would also minimize what he called “a whole series of unnecessary intermediate activities” people tend to use in obtaining “the goods and services he actually needed.” 19 Thoreau’s words therefore encourage a simple life, in which humans produce food, houses, and clothes in small, local communities, without brokers and middlemen. 16

Thoreau, Walden, 56. Buell, “Downwardly Mobile,” 656. 18 More specifically, Thoreau writes about the importance of a simple life: “I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer. [...] Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks of haying, and it is no boy’s play” (Walden, 56). Thoreau exemplifies his purpose for a simple life in “Economy”: “Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed” (46). 19 Stoller, “Thoreau’s Doctrine of Simplicity,” 447. 17

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Simplicity: Wright’s Architectural Forum A Sunday morning talk given by Wright in 1952, entitled “Education and Culture, Freedom, and Missionaryism,” reflected Thoreau’s ideas of freedom and civilization. One of his apprentices asked Wright, “Do you think Henry Thoreau would have enjoyed working here in the Fellowship?” Wright replied that he did not think Thoreau could have adjusted himself to the Fellowship for a long time: Henry, I don’t think would have enjoyed working anywhere. In the first place I think Henry did not enjoy work very much. In the next place, he never would do a task except for Henry. And if he thought that he was doing a task for Henry, he’d work here, cheerfully. But he got away from it all—went up into the north woods and built one of the ugliest little cabins anybody ever saw and wrote the most sensible and remarkable things meantime that have ever been written. 20 It doesn’t seem to be at all necessary for a great writer to know anything at all about architecture, but he did know.21

Wright gave an example of how beauty comes from the inside out, and talked to his apprentices about the passage in “Economy” that discusses the natural spots on the tortoise’s shell: “I think I should read to you Thoreau’s essay on where the tortoise got the pattern of his shell and how all these things came in. He gave us the best essay on organic ornament I ever read.”22 In this statement, Wright addresses the importance of natural and simple ornament for architecture, much like the natural spots on the tortoise’s shell. In 1938, Wright had quoted the same passage on the tortoise’s shell on the first page of a special issue of Architectural Forum that was edited by Wright and “Dedicated to My Beloved Master Louis Henry Sullivan and Grand Old Chief Dankmar Adler.” It was Sullivan, his Liebermeister, who had introduced Wright to organic architecture and organic ornament. Wright studded the issue with bold-faced quotations from both Thoreau and Whitman, indicating the source of the architectural philosophy behind

20

Wright’s comments about Thoreau identify “Thoreau’s doctrine of simplicity” as “self culture,” which values an individual life rather than a community or the whole society (Stoller, “Thoreau’s Doctrine of Simplicity,” 443-45). 21 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1952” (unpublished essays, ts., Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, Arizona), 1. 22 Ibid., 1.

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each structure.23 Wright freely omits or adapts parts of quotations from Walden to meet his purposes in conveying his architectural theory. One of the most significant lessons that Wright borrowed from Thoreau was on simple organic ornament (Figures 4.1 and 4.2): True—there are architects—so called—in this country and I have heard of one, at least, possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. A sentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. What reasonable man ever supposed that ornament was something outward and in the skin merely—that the tortoise got its spotted shell, or the shell-fish its mother-of-pearl tints by such a contrast as the inhabitants of Broadway got their Trinity Church [...]. The man seemed to me to lean over the cornice and whisper his half-truths to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he. What architectural beauty I see I know has grown from within outward—out of the necessities and character of the indweller and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of life.24

The theme of this citation is that ornamentation should be like the tortoise’s spotted shell, which is natural, simple, and beautiful because it reflects “the necessities and character” of the tortoise and is not gaudy like the ornamentation of Trinity Church on Broadway. For Wright, the relationship between humans and architecture is similar to that between a tortoise and its shell because both houses and shells protect living beings from the heat, cold, rain, snow, storms, and wind. Both houses and shells also express living beings’ identity; therefore, they reflect “the necessities and character” of their dwellers. In this quotation from Thoreau, Wright alters or omits some of Thoreau’s words so that the meaning of each sentence would more accurately meet “the necessities and character” of his own architectural theory. The most remarkable omissions are some of the metaphors from Thoreau’s original text. For example, after “a revelation to him,” the end of the first sentence in Wright’s text, Wright omits from Thoreau’s original text the following metaphor about the sugar plum: 23 Wright consciously or unconsciously did not include Emerson’s words in this issue; it is likely that Wright considered that he had learned Emerson’s philosophy in his family and books by himself and learned the philosophy of Thoreau and Whitman mainly from Sullivan. 24 Frank Lloyd Wright, Architectural Forum 39 (1939), 1; cf. Thoreau, Walden, 46-47. In the original, Wright capitalizes all of the letters. I use standard capitalization.

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It was only how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that every sugar plum in fact might have an almond or caraway seed in it,—though I hold that almonds are most wholesome without the sugar,—and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might build truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of themselves.25

The cut is effective in clarifying Wright’s ideas of simplicity expressed in Architectural Forum, because Thoreau’s food metaphors are not appropriate for Wright’s architectural journal. Above all, Wright demonstrates his ideas of simplicity in language; that is to say, he prefers simple expressions without metaphors, just as his architecture does not include metaphorical decoration. Wright also uses ellipses to indicate his omission of another metaphor on gaudy ornamentation. In his quotation, “The tortoise got its spotted shell, or the shell-fish its mother-of-pearl tints by such a contrast as the inhabitants of Broadway got their Trinity Church [...] The man seemed to me to lean over the cornice and whisper his half-truths to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he,”26 the ellipses replace the following metaphor from Thoreau’s original text: “But a man has no more to do with the style of architecture of his house than a tortoise with that of its shell: nor need the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy will find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes.”27 This omission, too, shows Wright’s ideas about language; he prefers descriptions of simple and clear ideas without metaphors or excessive explanations. Furthermore, Wright omits specific words from Thoreau’s text. For example, when Wright describes “The man [who] seemed to me to lean over the cornice and whisper his half-truths to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he,” he omits “timidly” before “whisper” from Thoreau’s original; as a result, the sentence becomes more objective without specifying Thoreau’s feelings. Even more starkly, Wright revises Thoreau’s original from “What of architectural beauty I now see” into “What architectural beauty I see.” By omitting “of” and “now,” Wright streamlines this sentence, rendering it simpler, even though the meanings change slightly.

25

Thoreau, Walden, 46-47. Wright, Architectural Forum, 1. 27 Thoreau, Walden, 47. 26

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Fig. 4.1 Architectural Forum (1938)

Fig. 4.2 Architectural Forum (1938)

As the quotation in the Architectural Forum suggests, Wright read Thoreau’s essays from an architect’s perspective, and while he agreed with Thoreau’s ideas, he also adapted Thoreau’s words in his essays and architecture in order to suit his own purposes. In simplifying passages from Thoreau, Wright emphasized “Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity,”28 even simplifying Thoreau’s words in order to fit his purpose, because the 28

Thoreau, Walden, 91.

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simplified parts were the most essential ideas of his organic architecture theory.

Simplicity in Taliesin Wright adapted Thoreau’s ideas of “simplicity” not only in the Architecture Forum issue but also in his and his apprentices’ lives in Taliesin, his summer residence. 29 Before examining Wright’s life in Taliesin, it is important to understand the site’s background and why Wright started a self-sufficient life there. Before Wright named the Helena Valley site “Taliesin” in 1911, it had already helped shape his early career as an architect and farmer. It was originally the place where his pioneering Welsh grandfather, Richard Lloyd Jones, a Unitarian preacher and farmer, had settled with his family during the early 1860s. Although Wright’s parents did not live there in those days, Wright had often played there in his childhood, and he had worked at his maternal uncle James’s farm in the valley during the summers of the late 1870s and early 1880s, cultivating his agrarian experience and sympathy for the agrarian life. Later, developing from this juvenile experience as a farmer, Wright advocated a self-sustaining life for his apprentices and designed agrarian architecture there.30 In 1886, Wright first assisted Joseph Silsbee in building Unity Chapel near Lloyd Jones’s farm in the Helena Valley community of Hillside. It was a simple Unitarian chapel near the Wisconsin farms, “a small Richardsonian,” “shingle style building” made of natural materials.31 The following year, Wright’s maternal aunts asked him to build a coeducational school, Hillside Home School. The building was the first structure that Wright had designed by himself, “a shingle style wooden building.” 32 The school esteemed equality and the observation of 29

For further historical and architectural information about Taliesin, see Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1943); Neil Levine, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Princeton University Press, 1996); Robert McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon, 1997); Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin (Tokyo: A.D.A. EDITA, 2002); and issues of the Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly. 30 Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 80-87. 31 Ibid., 80. 32 Ibid., 80.; 12 In 1896-97, for “the landmark at the top of the hill,” Wright also designed a windmill, “Romeo and Juliet.” In his words, this structure represented the “first engineering-architecture” in the U.S. to express the purpose of the school (“Hillside,” 8). Referencing Shakespeare’s play, Wright explains that “Juliet

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simplicity in nature: boys learned sewing and cooking with girls, and girls participated in physical activities, farming, and nature study with boys. Students were required to watch the change of seasons, plant their own gardens, and travel on foot. Most importantly, each child had his or her own room and pursued “learning by doing.” 33 These principles of the Hillside Home School became the basis for Wright’s architectural school in the Taliesin Fellowship. Above all, both Hillside School and the Taliesin Fellowship, following the Transcendentalists’ general ideas, esteemed practical lessons in nature more than book learning. Wright named the property “Taliesin” because he wanted to express its relationship, in its emphasis on the natural world, to the Welsh poet and mythical hero named Taliesin. Wright, who was descended from a Welsh Unitarian family, was proud of his ethnic and religious identity and wrote about the name Taliesin in his An Autobiography: “Taliesin was the name of a Welsh poet, a druid-bard who sang to Wales the glories of fine art. [...] Literally the Welsh word means ‘shining brow.’”34 As Wright adds, “many legends cling to the name in Wales.”35 Neil Levine claims that the Taliesin legend is a conflation of nature and myth.36 The book’s mythical hero, Taliesin, is Wright’s ideal figure: For example, in “The Battle of the Trees,” Taliesin reveals his supernatural figure and declares, Not from a mother and father was I made; As for creation, I was created from the nine forms of elements: From the fruit of fruits, from the fruit of God at the beginning; From primroses and flowers of the hill, from the blooms of woods and trees; From the essence of soils was I made,

cuddles alongside to support and exalt [Romeo]. Romeo takes the side of the blast and Juliet will entertain the school children” (Wright, An Autobiography, 132). His words suggest that the purpose of the co-educational school is that boys and girls support each other like Romeo and Juliet (see details in Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 81-82). 33 Suzette Lucas, “Hillside: Where the Past and Future Meet,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 12, no. 2 (2001), 9. 34 Wright, An Autobiography, 167. 35 Ibid., 170. 36 Levine suggests the possibility that Wright may have seen “Book of Taliesin,” first published by W. F. Skene in 1868 and in a facsimile edition by J. Gwenogvryn Evans in 1910 (Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 96). Levine examines the “Book of Taliesin,” which collects thirteen Welsh folk tales and poems (Ibid., 96).

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As these examples suggest, the name Taliesin refers to Welsh mythic heroes who were born from natural elements such as grains, trees, and plants. Such heroes were attractive to Wright with his interest in incorporating natural elements into his work. The root of Wright’s Unitarianism was his Welsh grandfather, and in the assembly room, which later became the living room of Taliesin, Wright honored his grandfather by inscribing oak beams with passages from Isaiah that his grandfather had expected the family to learn.38 Figures and shapes in the room were also inspired by Wright’s Welsh background: “the andirons’ ‘straight-line’ pattern were made because they resembled Welsh hats, from cones the village blacksmith used in making iron rings.”39 By putting them in the room, Wright attempted to remember his Unitarian Welsh ancestors, who helped him establish his religious and poetical beliefs. Taliesin has been built and rebuilt three times. The buildings burned down twice between 1911 and 1925, and each time Taliesin was rebuilt, it was gradually expanded.40 Taliesin I was built in 1911 when Wright came back to the United States from Europe, two years after he had left his family in Oak Park and eloped with his client’s wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. This first version of Taliesin was called the “Frank Lloyd Wright Bungalow” by neighbors of the Spring Green area because of “the low, one story building of the original house and studio.”41 Taliesin II was built in 1914 after a servant, Julian Carlton, had set fire to the living wing and murdered seven people, including Mamah Cheney. The re- construction followed much the same configuration as Taliesin I. 42 Taliesin III was started in 1925 and was repeatedly rebuilt until Wright died in 1959.43 Finally, a drafting room was added to Taliesin III in the late 1930s, bringing the complex to essentially the shape of Taliesin today.44

37

The Mabinogi and Other Welsh Tales, trans. Patrick K. Ford (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1977), 185-186. See also Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 97. 38 Wright, Architectural Forum, 18. 39 Ibid., 18. 40 Pfeiffer, Taliesin, 34. 41 Ibid., 34. 42 Ibid., 36. 43 Ibid., 48. 44 Ibid., 48.

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Fig. 4.3 Dam, Taliesin

When Wright constructed Taliesin I, he made an artificial pond that faced out over a water garden below. At first glance, Wright’s pond recalls the image of Walden Pond, although there is no document in which Wright specifically referred to his pond’s connection to Walden. However, Anne Whiston Spirn summarizes words from Wright’s An Autobiography: “the dam creat[es] a lake that mirrored the clouds and bounced light from the sky back up to the windows of the house.”45 These words are similar to those in the “Ponds” chapter in Walden: “[I]n September or October, Walden is a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water.”46 In order to connect the cattle and orchards in the valley, Wright dammed the stream at the base of the hill and made a “water garden” (Figure 4.3).47 The dam was made of local yellow limestone and naturally expanded the stream into a pond with lagoons and islands, and the pond also created a pond for ducks and geese. 48 Wright’s writing shows that the pond was 45

Ann Whiston Spirn, “Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect of Landscape.” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 11 no.4 (2000), 23. 46 Thoreau, Walden, 370. 47 Wright, An Autobiography, 173. 48 Ibid., 173.

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designed for all living beings, including the wildlife and livestock as well as human beings;49 in addition, Spirn notes that water falling from the dam produced electricity for the Taliesin complex into the 1940s.50 Thus, the pond also had practical use for the self-sufficient life in Taliesin.51 It was in 1932, during the Great Depression, that the Wrights founded the Taliesin Fellowship and opened the new architectural school program.52 To house the Fellowship, the Hillside buildings were constructed a quarter mile away from Wright’s residence (Figures 4.4 and 4.5). These buildings included a theatre-playhouse, dining room, and other spaces for drawing storage,53 rooms that played a role in expanding the unique community. Above all, Wright and his apprentices began to pursue and experiment with a simple, self-sustaining life similar to that advocated by Thoreau. In his An Autobiography Wright describes this initiative: Taliesin, of course, was to be an architect’s workshop, a dwelling as well for young workers who came to assist. And it was a farm cottage for the farm help. Around a rear court was to be farm buildings, for Taliesin was to be a complete living unit, genuine in point and comfort and beauty, yes, from pig to proprietor.54

These words recall Thoreau’s ideas of self-subsistence because Wright wanted the place “to be self-sustaining if not self-sufficient and with its domain of two hundred acres, shelter, food, clothes and even entertainment within itself. It had to be its own light-plant, fuel yard, transportation and water system.”55 Wright’s words reflect the early 1930s in the United States, when the American farm was changing, and as “the farmer became a symbol of the true defender of American democracy,” a

49

Ibid., 173. Spirn, “Architect of Landscape,” 23. 51 See details about the pond and dam in Spirn, “Architect of Landscape,” 23. In 1953 Wright made a narrow long balcony called the “Bird Walk,” which connected Mamah Cheney Wright’s room and the living room, and the same year he also extended his own bedroom toward the terrace outside (Pfeiffer, Taliesin, 50-52). With the “Bird Walk,” Wright attempted to remove a border between the outside and the inside. It was important for Wright that he always lived in nature, took an essential hint from simplicity in nature, and incorporated it in his architecture. 52 Pfeiffer, Taliesin, 48. 53 Ibid., 48. 54 Wright, An Autobiography, 170. 55 Ibid., 171. 50

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“noble yeoman.” 56 As Wright’s words suggest, in Taliesin apprentices experienced a simple life and adapted to a primitive, unmediated living system. The architects themselves built their accommodations, made an artificial pond, grew fruits and grains, and raised cattle (Figure 4.6). Wright aimed at a self-sustaining life not only to enjoy economic benefits during the hard times of a depression, but also to benefit from getting closer to the feelings from the land, as the Transcendentalists had advocated. Most importantly, the Taliesin Fellowship inherited the principle of “learning by doing” from the Hillside Home School;57 in fact, a motto of the Taliesin Fellowship was “learning through doing.”58 The comments by the Taliesin fellows about their actual experiences there recall Thoreau’s life in the woods. For example, Kevin Lynch, who worked at the Taliesin Fellowship in 1937 and later became “a theorist of urban design and planning,” writes: The new apprentice must learn how to handle a tall bundle of cornstalks, or how to cut a green oak plank, or how to translate a drawing for a building or how to lay plaster, or even the most efficient method of scraping oatmeal from a pot. [...] It is the attempt to grasp the new ideal of hard work, of creative activity, or “learning by doing.”59

Lynch’s words suggest that just as Thoreau built his cottage in the woods and lived the self-sufficient life, the apprentices were farmers as well as architects and worked in nature, taking a hint from it for their architecture. Curtis Besinger, who worked with Wright and later became a professor, describes how the Taliesin Fellows practiced “learning by doing” through their kitchen work. Besinger notes that apprentices, working in pairs, cooked meals in turn, peeling vegetables, washing dishes, and setting the table. 60 Thus, the Taliesin Fellows spent many private and official hours together so that they could understand each other and learn together. Charles Robert Schiffner, a member of the Taliesin Fellowship from 1968 to 1982, also reflects on his experiences: “I learned how to see the inner relationship between heart and architecture—so that the teaching, and what I have learned, and what is expressed in the whole

56

Frank N. Owings, Jr., “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Regionalists: Visions for America,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 14, no. 1 (2003), 8. 57 Lucas, “Hillside,” 9. 58 Spirn, “Architect of Landscape,” 24. 59 Kevin Lynch quoted in Spirn, “Architect of Landscape,” 24. 60 Curtis Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 33.

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person—that architecture and life and work and play are all one.” 61 Schiffner’s words suggest that the Taliesin Fellows learned not only from work but also from play, discovering that all these activities are related each other. Ling Po, who became an apprentice in 1946 and left Taliesin for a Buddhist monastery in 1994, likewise discusses Wright’s daily life with the Fellows: “not only did [Wright] teach us, but he exemplified [a model of a good architect and farmer] in his own life. [...] He would rise at sunrise and fling off the covers” even in his eighties.62 Keeping a motto of “learning by doing,” Wright himself worked as a farmer and an architect throughout his life. The simple, self-sufficient life in Taliesin was intended to increase the happiness and creativity of the participants, providing “a means to a richer inner life.”63

Fig. 4.4 Architectural Drawing of Taliesin

61

Charles Robert Schiffner quoted in Indira Berndtson, “Architecture and Life: A Taliesin Continuum,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 13, no. 4 (2002), 7-8. 62 Ling Po quoted in Berndtson, “Architecture and Life,” 8. 63 Buell, “Downwardly Mobile,” 656.

Wright and Thoreau: Taliesin, Wisconsin

Fig. 4.5 Wright’s Residence, Taliesin

Fig. 4.6 Farm, Taliesin

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The Drafting Room: Simplicity Even more than the daily life of the fellows in Taliesin, the design of the drafting room expresses “learning by doing,” and the room was constructed so that the apprentices could develop an understanding of their rich inner selves by recognizing the importance of simplicity in nature. In fact, in the Architectural Forum issue Wright included photographs of the drafting room alongside Thoreau’s words, written with block letters, taken from the “Economy” chapter in Walden about the importance of practical experiences (Figure 4.7). As with his other quotations from the Thoreau, Wright omits and adapts Thoreau’s metaphors and repetitions: How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? If I wished a boy to know something of the arts and sciences I would not pursue the common course which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor where anything is preferred and practiced but the art of life. As with our colleges so with a hundred “modern improvements” there is an illusion about them, there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them.64

This passage states that practical experiences are more important than knowledge from schools and teachers. In order to simplify and shorten Thoreau’s original, Wright omits examples in which Thoreau criticizes colleges. For example, in the omitted part before the clause “As with our colleges,” Thoreau compares “the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted” with “the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a Rodgers’ penknife from his father,” suggesting that the former could learn more than the latter. 65 In a preceding statement, Thoreau explains his ideas more specifically: “I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation [of their college] themselves.”66 Thoreau values practical experiments over traditional theoretical education so much that when someone asks him whether “the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads,” he answers that he does not necessarily deny it. 67 By publishing Thoreau’s words with the photographs of the drafting room in the Architectural Forum, Wright shows that the drafting 64

Wright, Architectural Forum, 18; cf. Thoreau, Walden, 51-52. Thoreau, Walden, 51. 66 Ibid., 50. 67 Ibid., 51. 65

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room serves as a place to learn the practical design of architecture and the importance of simplicity in nature. Wright designed the drafting room as a forest, which recalls Thoreau’s life in the woods near Walden Pond. Wright also emphasized the beauty of simplicity in nature by ornamenting the room with natural materials such as fire, trees, and light. In fact, Wright specifically notes his intention for the ornamentation of the drafting room, under the photographs of the drafting room (Figures 4.7 and 4.8): “Memorial Fireplace. Green Oak Trusses of the New Drafting Room. Abstract Forest. Above Entrance ‘What a Man does that He Has.’” 68 Wright designed the “Memorial Fireplace” at the front of the drafting room in honor of his Welsh Unitarian ancestors,69 and he notes that the “Oak Trusses” and “Abstract Forest” are practical as well as ornamental, because they support the “counterbalance of the central spans across the room” and the roof of the drafting room is independent from “the outer walls for support,” depending on trusses instead. The words “What a Man does that He Has,” taken from “Spiritual Laws” by Thoreau’s mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, are carved on the panel of the entrance at the end of the room. 70 This passage echoes a core passage in “Spiritual Laws”: “Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion.” 71 Thus while the whole room is designed to reflect Thoreau’s ideas of simple ornamentation, each ornament—like the fireplace or the panel—demonstrates various influences on Wright. Among them, the abstract forest is essential to inspire the architects in their work. 68

In the original, Wright capitalizes all of the letters and again, I use standard capitalization. 69 Wright, Architectural Forum, 18. 70 Joseph M. Siry, interview conducted via email, August 4, 2008. Buell claims that “Thoreau practiced what Emerson merely preached,” although Thoreau had both Emersonian and anti-Emersonian aspects (“Downwardly Mobile,” 299). As Emerson mentions in “The Transcendentalist,” the Transcendentalist in general “does not deny the presence of this table, this chair, and the walls of this room, but he looks at these things as the reverse side of the tapestry, as the other end, each being a sequel or completion of a spiritual fact which nearly concerns him” (quoted in Buell, “Downwardly Mobile,” 330-31). Emerson’s original text reads: “What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid, but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists” (Emerson, “Spiritual Laws,” 8384). 71 Emerson, ”Spiritual Laws,” 82.

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Fig. 4.7 Citation from Walden in Architectural Forum (1938)

Fig. 4.8 Citation from Walden in Architectural Forum (1938)

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Wright has specific ideas about how trees and forests are related to the divine, which he describes in a 1928 essay: The Greeks supposed trees the earliest dwellings of the gods. Zeus spoke his truest oracles through the rustling of the leaves. [...] [T]he falling leaf has been metaphor of everything that dies, the forests correct our faith, for we know now that the race of leaves grow off and do not fall off, and owing to natural science their “speech” is more a marvel of sensibility today than in the twilight of the “Gods.” In a finer poetic sense, too, the leaves fall to a new glory.72

Like Thoreau, Wright is interested in a broader, ecological spirituality. Wright mentions that “owing to natural science [the trees’] ‘speech’ is more a marvel of sensibility today than in the twilight of the ‘Gods.’”73 Like Thoreau, Wright observes leaves and forests from a scientific and ecological perspective rather than from a point of view that appreciates only a mythical or Christian tradition. His comment that “the forests correct our faith” suggests that it is wrong to think that trees die when their leaves fall off, a phenomenon typically taken by poets as a metaphor for death. In fact, forests will never die because new leaves and trees are born in nature’s cycle. Thoreau’s idea that leaves relate to the origin of living beings is unique. For example, Thoreau writes: “No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it.” 74 Furthermore, Thoreau expands his ideas toward the whole society and mentions that “[t]he whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.” 75 Just as Emerson believed that the soul continuously progresses, Thoreau found the principle of evolution in leaves, which repeat birth and death and become trees and forests. Wright similarly understood the Transcendentalists’ principle of the evolution of 72

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 119. Ibid., 119. 74 Thoreau, Walden, 306. John M. Anderson (“Romantic Democracy,” American Quarterly 2, no. 3 [1950]) asserts that this passage may have come from Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants (1790), but “the metaphoric embodiment of it in sand foliage is entirely original. So are the punning etymologies by which Thoreau extends the universal leaf form” (“Romantic Democracy,” 243-44). Quoting Anderson’s passage, Philip F. Gura disagrees with Anderson’s statement. See Gura, The Wisdom of Words: Language, Theology, and Literature in the New England Renaissance (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1981), 186 n38. 75 Thoreau, Walden, 307. 73

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living beings, and attempted to embody the idea in the drafting room. Like Thoreau, Wright learned this idea not from a traditional God but from nature, and the rebirth of trees suggested that “[i]n a finer poetic sense, too, the leaves fall to a new glory.”76 More specifically, Wright’s ideas about the relationship between trees and forests reflect the influence of Walden’s penultimate chapter, “Spring,” which discusses the connection between the natural world and the “laboratory of the Artist.” Thoreau writes about sand flowing like leaves falling from trees: When I see on the one side the inert bank [...] and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me,— had come to where he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about. I feel as if I were nearer to the vitals of the globe, for this sandy overflow is something such a foliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body.77

Thoreau’s description of “the laboratory of the Artist” recalls Wright’s drafting room, where artistic trees form an abstract forest and an authentic relationship between art and nature. Natural light flooding through the abstract trees also plays a significant role in expressing Wright’s Thoreauvian ideas. Trees and light interweave with various upside-down open triangles (Figures 4.9 and 4.10). These triangles compose an abstract forest with boughs and trunks of trees. Wright comments: “[T]he tree is efflorescence subject to light, imprisoning heat. [...] The tree in this sense is a flower of light. The stick is the natural post. It is also the natural beam. Post and beam constructions were, by nature, first wood.”78 In order to grow blossoms on trees, light is indispensable.

76

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 119. Thoreau, Walden, 306. 78 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 118. 77

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Fig. 4.9 Drafting Room of Taliesin

Fig. 4.10 Drafting Room of Taliesin

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Fig. 4.11 Drafting Room of Taliesin

Fig. 4.12 Drafting Room of Taliesin

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Light is a nutritional source for trees; therefore, branches develop toward light. Each triangle tree is growing toward light, and the tops of the triangles seem to be, in Wright’s words, “a flower of light.” In this sense, the drafting room is filled with flowers of light as well as a forest. Since the sidewalls are completely closed, one cannot see the outside (Figure 4.11). The top light in the drafting room is interconnected with the multifaceted structure and is effective for bringing in natural light (Figure 4.12). As a result, the natural light pours into the drafting room through various triangle spaces, and the intricacy of simple light and trees makes unique spaces in the room. Working in these unique spaces, the apprentices could use light to “flower” in their creativity.79 In this way, the drafting room encourages apprentices to see beauty and simplicity in the woods, the fire, and the light. The most important common principle of both Thoreau and Wright was “learning by doing”—learning from carefully observing nature and developing individual creativity. Thus, the drafting room is a metaphorical figure of the festival of light and trees, and also a small cosmos embodying Thoreau’s ideas of simplicity in the forest.

79

Ibid., 118.

CHAPTER FIVE WRIGHT AND WHITMAN: TALIESIN WEST, ARIZONA

Wright and Taliesin West Walt Whitman emphasizes the importance of literature when he mentions in “Democratic Vistas” that the “central point in any nation, and that whence it is itself really sway’d the most, and whence it sways others, is its national literature […].” and that few “are aware how the great literature penetrates all, gives hue to all, shapes aggregates and individuals, and, after subtle ways, with irresistible power, constructs, sustains, demolishes at will.”1 In recent years, the practical disciplines of science have enjoyed greater prestige, at literature’s expense. However, Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by Whitman’s notion of democracy in Leaves of Grass, and attempted to incorporate it in his winter residence, Taliesin West in Arizona. This chapter demonstrates an example of the significant contribution of philosophy and literature to society and environmentalism through an examination of its influence on architecture, specifically focusing on Wright’s interpretation of Whitmanian democracy in Taliesin West. First, I clarify Whitman’s concept of democracy and compare it with Wright’s. Next, I examine Wright’s notes in the “Chants Democratic” sections of Leaves of Grass, his favorite book, and analyze how Wright gained architectural hints from the book. Finally, based on a speech delivered by Wright in Los Angeles in 1954, I examine how Wright attempted to embody Whitmanian democracy in Taliesin West.

1

Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas,” The Collected Writings of Walt Whitman vol. 2, Ed. Floyd Stovall (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 365-66.

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Wright and Whitman Wright’s Admiration for Whitman Wright’s son, John Lloyd Wright, writes about Whitman’s influence on Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture: “I have often wondered if [Wright’s] inspiration for Broadacre City did not come from Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of the Broad Axe’: The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch’d wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits or produce merely...”’ 2 Wright’s “Broadacre City” was his plan for an idealistic democratic city, a utopia for American citizens, based on the idea that every American should have one acre of land and live an equally happy life.3 In fact, Wright often cited Whitman’s words in his writing and was specifically interested in Whitman’s definition of “democracy.”4 Because Wright’s great-great-grandfather, Jenkin Jones, had contributed to the founding of the Arminian sect of Unitarianism in England in 1726, and most of Wright’s maternal relatives were ardent Unitarian Universalists and Emersonians, Wright was greatly influenced by Emerson’s thoughts.5 Although scholars have a harder time pinpointing exactly when Wright gained an interest in Whitman, it is likely that Wright became aware of Whitman’s ideas and poems through Louis Sullivan. Wright began to work with Louis Sullivan in 1887, shortly after Sullivan wrote an enthusiastic fan letter to Whitman about the inspirational effect of Leaves of Grass.6 Willard Connelly claims that Sullivan “should like to be the Whitman of American architecture,” and that Sullivan and Wright often dined together, where Sullivan talked to Wright about Whitman, Wagner,

2

John Lloyd Wright, My Father Who is on Earth (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994), 33. 3 Because of a lack of funding, the plan did not come to fruition. Wright wrote about his ideal city in Frank Lloyd Wright the Living City (Horizon Press, 1958). 4 In a 1918 essay Wright had already used the phrase “the highest form of aristocracy” to describe “democracy,” and in a 1953 morning talk used the same term in the same way. This fact suggests that the term “democracy” was important to Wright throughout his later career, to the extent that it included the same meaning as earlier in his career. See Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, ed. Frederick Gutheim (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 94. 5 Robert McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon, 1997), 11. 6 Whitman Sullivan’s fan letter to Whitman is quoted in Paul Sherman, Louis Sullivan: An Architect in American Thought (Princeton, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 1-3.

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and Spencer until the last streetcar stopped running.7 Because Wright met Sullivan just after Sullivan had become an ardent Whitmanian, he would naturally have been involved in Sullivan’s passionate engagement with Whitman. Particularly, Sullivan was quite interested in Whitman’s concept of democracy, and discussed this concept, as well as the rhythm in Whitman’s poems, with Wright.8 Sullivan’s interest in Whitman precluded him from sharing Wright’s appreciation for Emerson. A prominent difference between Emerson and Whitman is that Sullivan viewed Emerson as valuing only the soul, whereas he saw Whitman as esteeming both body and soul. Emerson advocates casting off the body, as his famous “transparent eye-ball” shows: “Standing on the bare ground [...] I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all [...]. I am part or particle of God.”9 On the other hand, Whitman asserts a “sexual union between Body and Soul,”10 and in “Song of Myself” Whitman writes about his ideas of the body and the soul: “You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,/ And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,/ and reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.”11 Immediately after these words, Whitman feels God through the body: “Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that/ pass all the argument of the earth,/ And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,/ And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own.” 12 In the 1860 version of Leaves of Grass, Whitman also writes: “All comes by the body.”13 In short, for Whitman, it is through the body that the spirit can feel God. This idea is also essential in order to understand Whitman’s concept of democracy. In his talk titled “What Do We Represent?” Ed Folsom claims, “Whitman’s democracy begins with the body, because the place to begin to break down distinctions, he sensed, was in the frank recognition of the physical urges 7 Willard Connelly, Louis Sullivan as He Lived (New York: Horizon Press, 1960), 128-29. 8 As to Whitman’s “organic rhythm,” see details in The New Walt Whitman Handbook, ed. Gay Wilson Allen (New York, New York University Press, 1975), 230-239. 9 Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Nature” in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson vol. 1, ed. Spiller, et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 10. 10 See Larry J. Reynolds and Tibbie E. Lynch, “Sense and Transcendence in Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman,” The South Central Bulletin 39, no. 4 (1979): 150. 11 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (New York: W.W. Norton, 1965), 33. 12 Ibid., 33. 13 Ibid., 109.

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we all shared.”14 Given the physicality of architecture, it is understandable that Wright, as an architect, was inclined to Whitman’s ideas and words and identified architecture as an organic body to exemplify his own ideas.

Whitman’s Democracy and Wright’s Democracy Whitman’s concept of democracy esteems “freedom” both in patriotism and individualism, including “equality” for citizens. Whitman adapted these ideas of democracy both in his political activities and works. In fact, Nick Aaron Ford asserts that Whitman regarded democracy “as freedom from restraint, as liberty to do as one pleases” and also “as equality for all.” 15 Ford claims that, like Emerson’s ideas of cultural independence from mainly European countries, Whitman’s concept of freedom includes American cultural independence in art, specifically emphasizing “the democratic ideal of freedom from the feudal past of Europe.” 16 While Whitman advocated nationalism, he also esteemed individualism. John M. Anderson claims that Whitman “argues for a democracy true not only to the sense of American place [...] but true also to the immediate and fundamental experience of human dignity.”17 In fact, Whitman emphasizes the importance of individual freedom in the first line of the opening page of Leaves of Grass (1867): “One’s-self I sing, a simple, separate person, / Yet utter the word Democratic, the word EnMasse.” 18 Gay Wilson Allen observes that in this sentence Whitman esteems “individualism” even in the masses. 19 In short, Whitman’s advocacy of American democracy was fundamentally advocacy for his notion of individual democracy. Moreover, Harold W. Blodgett notes that the “One’s-self” in Whitman’s sentence suggests “man’s identity, his innermost being, not his

14

Ed Folsom, “What Do We Represent?: Walt Whitman, Representative Democracy, and Democratic Representation,” 2006 Presidential Lecture at the University of Iowa, http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/preslectures/folsom98/index.html (accessed June 10, 2006). 15 Nick Aaron Ford, “Walt Whitman’s Conception of Democracy,” Phylon 11, no. 3 (1950), 201, 206. 16 Ibid., 204. 17 John M. Anderson, “Romantic Democracy,” American Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1950), 255. 18 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1. 19 Gay Wilson Allen, New Walt Whitman Handbook, 119.

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self in the usual sense.”20 As Blodgett mentions, Whitman’s concept of self suggests that everyone is a fragment of, in Whitman’s words, “the Absolute Self,”21 from which everyone comes and to which everyone goes back; therefore, all races, genders, and classes, in Whitman’s view, are equal. Ford observes that Whitman’s “equality is the equal consciousness on the part of all men of the dignity, the distinction, the irreducible value of the individual being, whoever he may be.”22 Thus, Whitman’s concept of democracy particularly emphasizes the pursuit of individual freedom and equality because all individuals have the same source, the Absolute Self. As we have seen in the first section of Chapter 1, the Whitmanian notion of the Absolute Self was explored architecturally in Louis Sullivan’s Chicago Auditorium Building. Wright’s concept of democracy is similar to that of Whitman in the aesthetic level. In a Sunday morning talk to his colleagues and students in April 1953, Wright clarified his own definition of “democracy”: A definition of democracy I replied [...] was the highest form of aristocracy the world has ever seen. [...] Because it is aristocracy innate with the individual, of the individual, and maintained by him every hour of his life and he cannot pass it on. It is no privilege in itself conferred upon him. It is really him, or it doesn’t exist.23

In this description, Wright redefines “aristocracy” as human equality and individual originality, creativity, and freedom. Anderson mentions that Whitman “finds man’s nature royal, not as derived from the fountain of great aspiration, but royal in itself.” 24 Here, Wright’s “aristocracy” replaces Whitman’s “royal[ty]”; that is to say, Whitman’s use of “royal” to indicate the importance of individual ideas and freedom is similar in meaning to Wright’s “aristocracy.” In particular, Wright emphasized that democracy for artists meant their ability to express their uniqueness. In fact, in a 1918 essay, Wright writes about democracy in art: “In art, democracy means that some thought of your own, some feeling you have 20

Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley, eds., “Notes” in Leaves of Grass (op. cit.), 1. 21 Ibid., 1. As for Whiteman’s concept of “Self,” see Blodgett and Bradley, “Notes,” Ezra Greenspan, Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (New York: Routledge, 2005), Bettina L. Knapp, Walt Whitman (New York: Continuum, 1993), and Gay Wilson Allen, The New Walt Whitman Handbook. 22 Ford, “Whitman’s Conception of Democracy,” 204. 23 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Sunday Morning Talk, 1953 (April),” unpublished essay, ts. (Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, Arizona), 3. 24 Anderson, “Romantic Democracy,” 255.

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about the thing yourself, should enter into everything you have or do, so that everything you have may be your own and everything you do be sincerely yourself. Democracy in the true sense is really the highest form of aristocracy the world has ever known.”25 Wright stresses the positive aspects of freedom, and advocates “the highest form of aristocracy,” which esteems artists’ uniqueness or individual feelings, which is comparable to Whitman’s ideas of royalty. As can be seen, Wright’s concept of democracy, which respects individual talents, was quite similar to that of Whitman.

Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass Wright’s copy of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, now in the Wright archive at Taliesin West, is an important source for understanding Wright’s concept of democracy. Wright’s edition of this poem shows that Wright’s interpretation of Whitman’s poem did not always agree with Whitman’s intentions or with Whitman scholars’ common interpretations. The book shows that Wright carefully read Whitman’s poetry, particularly the section “Chants Democratic,” and even rewrote it as he read.26 The book contains 451 pages, and Wright marked 88 pages of the volume’s pages with his words and check marks. He wrote throughout the book, but the frequent notes in “Chants Democratic” suggest his particular interest in this section more than any other. Wright’s marks in that section show his way of reading the book; specifically, he was interested in the words “architecture” and “America.” For example, on page 110 of “Chants Democratic 1,” Whitman writes (Figure 5.1):

25

12

Ages, precedents, poems, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles.

13

Mighty bards have done their work, and passed to other spheres, One work forever remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.

14

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,

Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 94. In the later versions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, each poem in “Chants Democratic” was separately categorized, but the main theme of the poems remained virtually the same, celebrating America and its optimistic future. 26

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Fig. 5.1 Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass

As Figure 5.1 shows, where Whitman writes in the thirteenth stanza: “One work forever remains, the work of surpassing all they have done,” Wright revised this line as “Our work forever remains, the work of surpassing all we have done.” In Whitman’s concept of “the self,” “I” includes every human because everyone is a fragment of the Soul. 27 Wright changes “One” in the thirteenth stanza to “Our” and “they” into “we.” Here, into the poem Wright incorporates himself, his colleagues, and other architects. Wright read the line “America brings builders, and brings its own styles” in the twelfth stanza as written specifically for architects and as challenging architects’ views of their role in designing unique buildings. So Wright includes himself as one of these “builders” and revises the next stanza: “One work” as “Our work,” and “they had done” as “we have done.” Wright’s marks ignore the first sentence of the thirteenth stanza, “Mighty bards have done their work, and passed to other spheres.” When we read the poem directed by Wright’s guidance, this sentence is connected to “America brings builders, and brings its own styles. / [...] / 27

Blodgett and Bradley, “Notes,” 1.

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Our work forever remains, the work of surpassing all we have done.” As a result, the whole meaning becomes considerably different from that of Whitman’s poem. While Whitman’s original anticipates new American poets instead of old European and Asian poets, Wright’s version expects great American architecture designed by Wright and his colleagues. As these revisions suggest, Wright read Whitman’s poem to fit Whitman’s general poetic themes into his own architectural vision. Wright’s marginalia continue on page 111, which begins with Whitman’s poetic reincorporation of the Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass (Figure 5.1): 14

Does not repel them or the past, or what they have produced under their forms, or amid other politics, or amid the idea of castes, or the old religions, Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the eating and sleeping rooms of the house, Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days, That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, And that he shall be fittest for his days.

15

Any period, one nation must lead, One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.

16

These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations,

Here again, Wright’s marginalia indicate how and why Wright read this poem as an architect, because the words “the eating and sleeping rooms of the house” relate to architecture, specifically recalling humans’ living places. Significantly, Wright underlined “he” and “his” in the last sentence in the fourteenth stanza. It is possible to interpret that by “he” Whitman meant America, and Wright strongly agreed with the words “he” and “his.” As Figure 5.1 shows, on the left side of the fifteenth stanza, Wright drew a remarkable straight line, which seems to suggest Wright’s agreement that the promising “one nation” and “one land” in the fifteenth stanza should be America. Wright’s ultimate wish for America is condensed in the fifteenth stanza: “Any period, one nation must lead,/ One land must be the promise and reliance of the/ future.” The straight line suggests that Wright was concerned that America should be one nation and the leader in the world. Interestingly, Wright’s mark again ignores the first sentence of the sixteenth stanza “These States are the amplest poem,”

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and emphasizes the second sentence “Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations” with double vertical lines on the left of the sentence. Namely, Wright’s marks suggest that Wright was quite interested in Whitman’s democratic and nationalistic ideas, and in the ways in which these ideas directly related to the challenges of American architecture. The clearest indications of how Wright read Leaves of Grass appear in Wright’s notes on page 121 of “Chants Democratic 1” (Figures 5.2 and 5.3): 34

Give me the pay I have served for! Give me to speak beautiful words! take all the rest; I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despised riches, I have given alms to every one that asked, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others, I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown […].

As visible in Figure 5.3, under Whitman’s “Give me to speak beautiful words!” Wright wrote “Give me to build beautiful buildings!,” clarifying that the protagonist of the poem in Wright’s book was not Whitman’s speaker, but Wright himself. The note suggests that Wright was reading from his own highly personal perspective. Wright also marked every beginning “I” in the rest of this page. While Whitman’s “I” included other people, because he believed everyone was a fragment of the same Soul,28 Wright’s marks on “I” seem to strongly express himself and his agreement with Whitman’s ideas in the following sentences. As can be seen, since Wright mainly marks the places which relate to architecture, his markings in his Leaves of Grass (1860) suggest that Wright read the book as an architect, one who eagerly wished for an American architectural independence.

Taliesin West Taliesin West and Wright’s Speech on the Inscription from “Song of the Universal” In a speech entitled “What’s the Matter with America?: ‘Culture,’ ‘Organic Architecture,’ ‘American Spirit,’ and ‘Integrity,’” delivered in Los Angeles in 1954, Wright explained his intention behind designing 28

Blodgett and Bradley, “Notes,” 1.

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Taliesin West. Throughout his talk, Wright emphasized the word “democracy” and discussed how humans can accomplish and reach the goal of democracy. In order to exemplify his point, Wright cited an anecdote from Whitman: “Someone asked Walt Whitman what the cure was for the evils of Democracy and Walt Whitman said, ‘More Democracy.’ Now, if you understand that answer, you will understand mine tonight.”29 Whitman’s words, to which Wright referred in this talk, suggest Wright’s understanding of Whitman’s concept of democracy— American democracy was still incomplete and only a perfect democracy would solve the problems and contradictions within American society. While Wright explained each term of his subtitle separately, throughout his talk his main topic was Whitmanian democracy. After Wright mentioned that America lacked its own culture, he stated: “The basis of culture is Architecture. That is what this country does not seem to know. Our blind spot, in our national struggle for a culture, is Architecture.”30 Wright specifically proposed his way to express American cultural independence through organic architecture. Wright explained why organic architecture was so important to express democracy: When we say organic—we do not mean something hanging in a butcher shop! We mean something where part is to whole as the whole is to the part, where entity is complete. Now, what constitutes entity? Study it and you will see what we mean when we speak of Organic Architecture for America. That is the American architecture of today.31

This statement literally says that “organic” does not mean insecticidefree vegetables and meats. Rather, Wright uses the word “organic” to exemplify the relationship between individuals and the country. In short, “organic” means that each American is a part of the whole, together composing America. Moreover, philosophically, Wright’s statement echoes Whitman’s ideas of the relationship between the Absolute Self and the individual self in democracy. Throughout his talk, Wright explained his democratic intentions for Taliesin West. In the statement quoted above, Wright’s “entity” in architecture suggests the whole Taliesin West community, and the “part” suggests each house or room. Moreover, when one considers Transcendentalists’ nationalistic ideas, Wright’s words, “part is to whole as the whole is to the part,” can be interpreted to mean that Taliesin in Arizona is an example of the expression of regional 29

Wright, “What’s the Matter with America?” (Unpublished speech delivered in Los Angeles, 1954. The Wright Archive typed his speech.), 2. 30 Ibid., 5. 31 Ibid., 8-9.

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identity in the United States of America. Thus, Wright’s statement about “organic” suggests the relationship between parts and the whole, and exemplifies his intention of Whitmanian democracy in Taliesin West.

Fig. 5.2 Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass

Fig. 5.3 Wright’s Notes in Leaves of Grass

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In expanding on the third subtitle in his speech, “American Spirit,” Wright emphasized the importance of individuals, citing the name of Walt Whitman again: “What is the American spirit? You have it. I know it is here. Walt Whitman knew it.”32 After these words, Wright mentioned that “American Spirit” should be built “our own way, for ourselves, with our new tools and our great advantage,” separating from the “symbol of culture” in European countries.33 Here again, Wright echoes Whitman’s ideas of “the democratic ideal of freedom from the feudal past of Europe.” 34 As for the last word of the subtitle, “integrity,” Wright’s explanation is similar to that of “American Spirit,” saying that it is “integral, organic, natural—something of the thing, not on it!”35 Here, the difference between “of” and “on” shows that, as Whitman’s “royal” and Wright’s “aristocracy” suggest, “integrity” should come from the inside, not from the outside. Wright concluded by emphasizing his main thesis and finally ended in this way: “When that [integrity] becomes the motive behind being yourself—and you want to be yourself because you want to see that come true—that is the American Spirit.” 36 Thus, Wright’s understanding of Whitmanian democracy was democracy as each person’s expression of uniqueness and originality, and Wright believed that expressing individual uniqueness could lead the nation to the American Spirit.

Taliesin West: The Inscription on a Slab This section examines how the inscription on a slab at the entrance to Taliesin West echoes Wright’s Whitmanian concept of democracy, to which Wright referred in his speech, “What’s the Matter with America?: ‘Culture,’ ‘Organic Architecture,’ ‘American Spirit,’ and ‘Integrity.’” Around the late 1940s or the early 1950s, Wright adapted part of the fourth stanza of Whitman's “Song of the Universal” from the section 32

Ibid., 6. Ibid., 7. 34 Ford, “Whitman’s Conception of Democracy,” 204. The idea of “cultural independence” from other countries can be traced back to Emerson’s famous lecture, “American Scholar,” which was delivered at Harvard University in 1837. However, in the speech, Wright cites Whitman rather than Emerson, mainly because Wright was explaining the inscription from Whitman’s poem in Taliesin West, and also partly because it was more appropriate for Wright to borrow Whitman’s ideas when he explained architecture as body. 35 Wright, “What’s the Matter with America?” 10. 36 Ibid., 18. 33

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“Birds of Passage” in Leaves of Grass, and inscribed the stanza on a large red concrete slab.37 At the beginning of his 1954 speech, Wright recited that inscription.38 The inscription reflects Wright’s Whitmanian philosophy on architecture in Taliesin West, emphasizing American accomplishment, American possibility, and American space (Figure 5.4): AND THOU, AMERICA, THOU TOO SURROUNDEST ALL, EMBRACING, CARRYING, WELCOMING ALL, THOU TOO BY PATHWAYS BROAD AND NEW, APPROACH THE IDEAL. THE MEASURED FAITHS OF OTHER LANDS, THE GRANDEURS OF THE PAST, ARE NOT FOR THEE, BUT GRANDEURS OF THINE OWN, DEIFIC FAITHS AND AMPLITUDES, ABSORBING, COMPREHENDING ALL, ALL IN ALL TO ALL. GIVE ME, O GOD, TO SING THAT THOUGHT, GIVE ME, GIVE HIM OR HER I LOVE THIS QUENCHLESS FAITH, IN THIS, WHATEVER ELSE WITHHELD WITHHOLD NOT FROM US, BELIEF IN PLAN OF THEE ENCLOSED IN TIME AND SPACE.

Wright’s inscription expresses his concept of American democracy, borrowing Whitman’s words. The first stanza stresses the American ideal of equality by using the words, “surroundest all/ embracing, carrying, welcoming all.” The second stanza emphasizes America’s huge space and a new time by using the words, “the measured faiths of other lands,/ the grandeurs of the past, are not for thee,/ but the grandeurs of thine all.” The third stanza prays for the optimistic American future, within the framework of “time and space.” 37

A tape of Wright’s lecture now belongs to the Wright Archive in Taliesin West, Arizona. The tape indicates that listening to Whitman’s poem from Wright’s viewpoint, the audience sometimes laughed, applauded, and understood Wright’s intention of designing Taliesin West, and also that Wright carefully chose words so that the audience could be impressed by a large-scale America, which includes a mysterious past, progressing present, and positive future in its vast space. 38 According to Director of the Wright Archive Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, one day around the later 1940s or the early 1950s, Wright himself brought the red concrete slab to the front of the main buildings near the entrance (author’s interview with Mr. Pfeiffer).

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Fig. 5.4 Inscription on the Slab, Taliesin West

Noticeably, just as Wright marked and changed words in his Leaves of Grass, he also adapted several parts in the inscribed poem. The most remarkable adaptation in Wright’s inscription is that he cut the last line of Whitman’s original poem, “Health, peace, salvation universal.” Tony Puttnam observes about Wright’s omission that Wright consciously emphasizes “time and space” in his architecture of Taliesin West and uses his architectural devices to embody his philosophical position about the words, “time and space.” 39 In particular, Puttnam asserts that Wright’s architecture in Taliesin West emphasizes the Arizona desert’s unique features, hugeness, and age. In his speech “What is the Matter with America?,” Wright discusses why and how “time and space” in the West were significant to American democracy: It is going to be the biggest city in the world because Los Angeles [...] has a soul. [...] This place is still becoming, is still free—that there is a spirit of freedom here that America can still live and will. [...] I do not think it can be on a cinder strip in the East. I do not believe that freedom will find its cultural soul there.40

39

Tony Puttnam, “A New Architecture in a New Land,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 1, no. 4 (1999): 17. 40 Wright, “What’s the Matter with America?” 13-14.

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In Wright’s view, while the American East had inherited traditional European culture and therefore did not have the fullest possibilities to develop its culture and freedom, the American West, expressed in cities like Los Angeles, could still develop its own culture because it enjoys the long time and vast, open space that democracy requires. Wright’s idea recalls Whitman’s words, which Wright quoted in the same talk, that the cure for the incomplete aspects of democracy is only “More Democracy.” 41 Wright felt that the West had the potential to develop more than the East. Whitman’s words in the anecdote suggest that in order to complete democracy, both society and individuals always need to be progressing toward a perfect democracy. In particular, as an example of the significance of “time and space” in Taliesin West, Neil Levine observes that in the process of designing Taliesin West, Wright drew a spiral pattern. Specifically, Levine asserts that Wright’s architectural design “was enacted in real time and space in the spiral pattern determined by the rotated square of the plan.” 42 As Levine asserts, Taliesin West was designed from the inside toward the outside, making a spiral figure; this architectural drawing recalls Whitman’s “royal[ty]” and Wright’s “aristocracy,” both of which expand and develop from the inside toward the outside. Levine also claims that the spiral pattern “was represented in symbolic form in the Fellowship logo adapted at the time Taliesin West was under construction” (Figure 5.5).43 41

Ibid., 2. Neil Levine, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Princeton University Press, 1996), 274. 43 Ibid., 274. It is reasonable that Whitman’s original song sounds like a minister’s prayer because a main theme of the 1881 version of the poem in Leaves of Grass is a prayer for an eternal Universal peace. Whitman had originally considered “Song of the Universal” for a special section of Leaves of Grass entitled “Centennial Songs” (Blodgett and Bradley, “Notes,” 226-27). That section celebrated one hundred years of American independence and the American dream. Although Wright did not mention this fact in his 1954 speech, Wright’s intention coincidentally agreed with Whitman’s intention in the “Centennial Songs” version in celebrating America. In order to emphasize and embody America’s own grandeur and organic architecture, Wright selected specific portions from Whitman’s poem that helped him express his intention for Taliesin West. In doing so, Wright attempted to celebrate America’s democracy. Like the omission of Whitman’s last line, Wright also slightly edited the extract in four places for the inscription: from “To the ideal tendest” to “the ideal” in the second stanza from “measur’d” to “measured” in the third stanza from “All eligible to all” to “All in all to all” in the third stanza 42

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In fact, Wright himself drew a spiral pattern in a 1938 issue of the journal Architecture Forum (January 1938) that he edited during the construction of Taliesin West, and this spiral pattern figure seems to embody Wright’s emphasis of “time and space,” as Levine suggests.44 Furthermore, on the outside back cover page of Architecture Forum, Wright quoted Whitman’s “Chanting the Square Deific,” writing at the side of the red square: “Chanting the square deific, out of the one advancing out of the sides; out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine, solid—four sides—all the sides needed. I am time, old, modern as any” (Figure 5.6).45 Wright again reiterates these last words through his own supreme confidence in his field, stating, “I am God of architecture, time, old, modern as any.” Whitman’s original intention in these words might help the audience understand Wright’s intention for this extract. Gay Wilson Allen and Charles Kemnitz claim that in Whitman’s concept of the universe and God, God is continuously moving to “the ideal,” and exploring himself. 46 It is uncertain whether Wright fully understood Whitman’s concept of time and space, but since Wright extracted from “In Thy Ensemble” to “in this” in the fourth stanza All of the changes are based on Wright’s interpretation of the poem. 44 Ibid., 274. 45 Frank Lloyd Wright, Architecture Forum (Jan. 1938): n.p. According to the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, Wright first designed the Fellowship logo as early as 1932. Although the current Fellowship logo forms a double-square spiral, the original logo, which appeared in the pamphlet for the Taliesin Fellowship in December 1933, was a simpler square logo. In the 1940s or the 1950s, Wright designed a double-square spiral logo and put it on the top of the Light Tower in the garden of Taliesin West. See the details about the Fellowship logo in Kathryn Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Taliesin West (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), 124-27. 46 Allen, op. cit.; Charles Kemnitz, “A Construction of Hegelian Spirit in Whitman’s ‘As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life,’” Walt Whitman Review 26, no. 2 (1980): 59. Kemnitz and Allen point out the similarities between Whitman’s ideas of time and space and the Hegelian dialectical idea that the universe is a continuous process of change and progress. As for Whitman’s square spiral, George L. Sixbey claims that Whitman “may have understood [Hegel’s philosophy] only imperfectly” because of his lack of philosophical “technical sense” (Sixbey, “‘Chanting the Square Deific’—A Study in Whitman’s Religion,” American Literature 9 (1938): 177-78). Yet, in the forty-first stanza of “Song of Myself” from the 1855 version of Leaves of Grass and in an untitled poem, Whitman had already formulated his concept of the universe and God, who is continuously moving to “the ideal,” and exploring himself. In the untitled poem, Whitman sets “the Greek sage” as thesis, “the Jew, the Christ, and the Consolator” as antithesis, and “I” as unifying them and creating “a third religion.”

Wright and Whitman: Taliesin West, Arizona

Fig. 5.5 Fellowship Logo, Taliesin West

Fig. 5.6 Architectural Forum (1938)

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The description about a spiral in the journal, it is clear that he was attracted to Whitman’s concept of the spiral-shaped time and space. As Wright’s notes in his Leaves of Grass (1860) indicate, Wright only marked words he thought were interesting, and interpreted them as he wished. From Wright’s viewpoint, the words “out of the one advancing out of the sides” imagine a square expanding from the inside toward the outside and making a larger square universe. Thus, the continuous progress from the inside toward the outside was important for Wright as a visual figure to express his conception of the ongoing evolution of democracy. In the final stage of the development of Taliesin West, Wright designed what he called a triangular “prow” with a terrace and exemplified “time and space” in the design of Taliesin West.47 According to Puttnam, “Wright used the term ‘prow’ to describe the area of the terrace” and “the term prow brings to mind the simile of a ship on the desert.”48 Puttman suggests that the “prow,” which symbolizes “a ship,” recalls the second stanza of “Song of the Universal,” in which Whitman compares time to the sea: “In spiral routes by long detours,/ (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea).”49 Echoing the sea in Whitman’s words, Wright embodied images of the sea in several places in the garden by installing artificial small pools.50 As can be seen, the building process of Taliesin West was for Wright an on-going voyage by “long detours” and the pursuit of democracy until his death. 51 Admitting Wright’s ideas of ideal democracy, Anne Whiston Spirn claims that Wright attempted to demonstrate that architecture could be changed with the landscape surrounding it.52 While most architects do not repeatedly rebuild and expand their works, Wright did every couple of years, because he believed that architecture should be part of nature and could be changed like trees, flowers, and stones as years and seasons passed. Thus Wright showed that architecture is not simply a fixed construction of buildings, but rather can change just as nature does.

47

Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 18. Ibid., 23. 49 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 223. Quoted in Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 23. 50 Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 266. Wright did not mark the “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” section of Leaves of Grass (1860). The words “prow” and “ship” recall Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” which specifically expresses Whitman’s concept of time and space and of eternal life. 51 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 227. 52 Anne Whiston Spirn, “Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect of Landscape,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 11, no. 4 (2000): 23-24. 48

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Taliesin West: Organic Architecture in the Arizona Desert Wright demonstrated Whitmanian democracy in the designing of the scattered buildings in the Arizona Desert (Figures 5.7 and 5.8). Unlike the typical headquarters of important architectural firms, Taliesin West was not a simple building but a group of independent small buildings or cavelike “camping houses,” each of which had a different function and shape.53 Wright’s 1954 Los Angeles speech suggests that the construction of Taliesin West expressed the relationship between individuals and America: Organic Architecture is American Architecture. It is America’s contribution to the architecture of the world. Not in the International style, not any style at all, but an enlightenment of the mind [...] fundamental to a culture of our own.54

In Wright’s organic architecture theory, architecture expresses a nation’s distinct culture and identity—which, for Wright, was ideal architectural democracy. Following his organic architecture theory, Taliesin West was designed as a group of small buildings, which together comprised a community and expressed Arizona’s unique landscape.

53

Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 257. Taliesin West was the architectural firm and residence for Wright and his apprentices during the winter, which was too harsh for the over 60-year-old Wright to stay in Wisconsin (Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 255-56). Like Whitman’s “Birds of Passage,” or migrating birds, humans in Wright’s view were part of the ecological system, adapted to nature’s cycles, and he arranged his own existence in time and space by migrating between Arizona and Wisconsin. Every year around the winter solstice, Wright and his students came to Taliesin West, and stayed there only during the winter; then, around the vernal equinox they moved to Taliesin North, Wisconsin, where they resided for the rest of the year (Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 256-57; Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 19-21). 54 Wright, “What’s the Matter with America?” 9.

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Fig. 5.7 Architectural Drawing of Taliesin West

Fig. 5.8 Arial View of Taliesin West

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In fact, Taliesin West was designed as a collection of “temporary wood-and-canvas shelters for drafting, cooking, and eating;” other rooms were gradually added, changing the shape of the original structure.55 Like Taliesin in Wisconsin, Taliesin West included an architectural school for apprentices as well as a home in which they could eat, drink, and play together. Sharing their lives with other apprentices, they learned to esteem both individuality and equality. However, Taliesin and Taliesin West have differences in their architectural designs, and the construction in Taliesin West stresses Whitmanian democracy in the relationship between individuals and the whole, by using the metaphor of the individual cavelike building as part of the whole community. While Taliesin includes many rooms in each building, Taliesin West contains only a single small space in each cave-like building. While Taliesin emphasizes the picturesque green landscape in the Midwest, Taliesin West emphasizes the natural desert landscape in the Southwest. These differences between Taliesin and Taliesin West demonstrate regional individuality in landscape architecture, and also help clarify the relationship Wright envisioned between regional architecture and American architecture. In the Midwest, mainly Northern European and Anglo-Saxon white people immigrated and built houses, which were fit for the climate of the Midwest, incorporating their ancestors’ architectural styles. On the other hand, in Arizona, Native Americans, including Pueblo Indians, originally built houses that were fit for the Arizona deserts. Later, Arizona architecture was also influenced by Spanish and South American architectural styles. This fact echoes Whitman’s ideas of democracy; that is to say, each region has its own architectural identity, but also that, taken together, regional architectures express the United States of America.

The Exterior of Taliesin West In the exterior of Taliesin West, Wright also attempted to express the relationship between individuals and the whole in democracy, or in Whitman’s words, the Absolute Self and individual self. Specifically, Wright designed Taliesin West so that it seems to be part of the nature surrounding it, in the process incorporating regional landscapes into the design. 56 In Taliesin West, the desert landscape can be regarded as the whole architecture and the details of the exterior in each building as individuals, as with the relationship between Whitman’s Absolute Self and 55 56

Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 263-69. Spirn, “Architect of Landscape,” 23-24.

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the individual self. The beauty of the Arizona desert differs from any part of America as well as any other desert in Europe, Africa, or Asia. In a 1943 essay on the Arizona desert, Wright writes about its unique attractiveness: Magnificent—beyond words to describe! Splendid mystic desert vegetation. An aesthetic, even ascetic, idealization of space, of breadth and height and of strange firm forms, a sweep that was a spiritual cathartic for Time if indeed Time continued to exist.57

Here, again, Wright uses the terms “time and space” to express the Arizona desert, and mentions that the Arizona desert’s ineffable landscape is an American original, like America’s “time and space” as Whitman expressed them in “Song of the Universal.” According to Levine, in order to integrate the environment surrounding Taliesin West into his designs, Wright abstracted the structure of the desert’s landscape, the angles of mountain peaks and their triangular geometry, and employed them in the whole exterior structure of Taliesin West.58 As Figures 5.7 and 5.8 suggest, the design of the whole of Taliesin West echoes the geography surrounding it; for instance, the roofline of the buildings parallel the mountains.59 Puttnam also claims, “the forms of the buildings at Taliesin West are derived from the forms of the land.”60 The integration of the physical landscape with the perspectives from each building emphasizes how huge and unique the Arizona desert is, and highlights its continuity from prehistoric time to the present. 61 In other words, in order to show the ineffability and vastness of the Arizona desert, Wright attempted to reconcile nature and architecture in the structure of Taliesin West. The design offered an ideally democratic and organic architecture, echoing the nature surrounding the buildings and effectively incorporating regional particularities. Not only in the outlines but also in the exterior decoration did Wright weave together the buildings and nature surrounding Taliesin West, showing the Arizona desert’s beauty and vastness. For example, the spikes of the complex imitate the geometric patterns of the spikes of the desert cactus (Figure 5.9).62 The brown platforms of the buildings and sloping

57

Frank Lloyd Wright, Collected Writings 4 (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 168. Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 283. 59 Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 15. 60 Ibid., 14. 61 Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 290-97. 62 Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 16. 58

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walls also reflect the mountains surrounding Taliesin West. 63 These devices relate to the fact that Wright esteemed such geometric designs in nature because he thought that learning geometric designs from trees, plants, and flowers, and gaining a deep understanding of nature were prerequisites to being an architect. Since the lines on the deserts were dotted with bushes or cacti, Wright also designed dotted patterns on the roof edges (Figure 5.10).64 In a 1935 essay, Wright states that “the desert with its rim of arid mountains spotted like the leopard’s skin or tattooed with amazing pattern of creation, is a grand garden the like of which in sheer beauty of space and pattern does not exist, I think, in the world.”65 Wright emphasizes the beauty and uniqueness of the Arizona desert, comparing it to the leopard’s skin or a tattoo. As Wright mentioned in his 1954 speech about the inscription of Taliesin West, the principle of regional architecture was one of the basic ideas of organic architecture.

The Interior of Taliesin West Like the exterior, the interior of Taliesin West embodied Wright’s idea of architectural democracy by using organic architectural theory. Wright used regional materials and regional architectural devices to demonstrate organic architecture in democracy, which he mentioned in his talk, “What is the Matter with America?” For example, in the living room, which Wright called “the nomad’s light inhabitation,” he connected the space between “the earth and the sky” by using a floor made of regional stone, and “the white fabric roofs” that diffuse the sunlight and the starlight (Figure 5.11). 66 Consequently, Wright created a more comfortable and light-filled space, while still retaining a flavor of prehistoric caves. Like the living room, the guest room and the dining room were made of similar materials. The living room also offers a good example of the continuity of time and the concept of going back to nature. For example, in a 1948 issue of his journal, Wright pointed out how he had devised walls by using local materials, in his words, “desert rubble stone.” 67 Using many small boulders and chipped rocks in wood forms, Wright put smaller stones between them to fill the spans and poured thin mixed concrete in order to

63

Ibid., 16. Ibid., 17. 65 Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 196-97. 66 Puttnam, “A New Architecture,” 18, 22, 17. 67 Wright, Architecture Forum, 88. 64

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cement the mass together.68 Levine points out that everything in Taliesin West suggests that Wright intended to design it as “primitivizing.”69 In doing so, Wright attempted to demonstrate the beginning of America and the continuity of time from the ancient to the present. In fact, Wright wrote a letter to Fowler McCormick in 1949: “You are perfectly right in feeling the primitive in Taliesin West. In the ancient days of the race men were close to nature as a child to its mother.” 70 This quotation demonstrates Wright’s intention that Taliesin West was designed as an image of ancient days when Wright presumed humans coexisted in harmony with nature. Specifically, in the living room, as in the visiting room and the music room, Wright adapted the idea of a ruin in order to show the continuity of time from prehistoric epochs to the present. Whereas after World War II many architects, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, shut out natural light and covered floors with modern materials in order to design new style houses, Wright, in his architecture, attempted to emphasize the continuity of time and incorporate nature’s materials from the desert, and to adapt the traditions of the Southwest Native Americans.71 As a Transcendentalist, Wright’s core ideas were based on the continuity of the progress of the soul and society. In a 1943 essay, Wright was proud that the buildings, including the living room, seemed to be an ancient ruin, quoting his wife’s words: “Olgivanna said the whole opus looked like something we had been excavating, not building. That desert camp belonged to the desert as though it had stood there for centuries.” 72 In the interior of Taliesin West, Wright demonstrated an example of organic architecture, which perfectly resonated with the atmosphere and materials of the Southwestern desert surrounding the buildings.

68

Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 269. Ibid., 295. 70 Frank Lloyd Wright, Letters to Apprentices (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1982), 31. 71 Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 294-97. 72 Wright, Collected Writings 4, 170. 69

Wright and Whitman: Taliesin West, Arizona

Fig. 5.9 Geometric Design of the Drafting Room of Taliesin West

Fig. 5.10 Roof Edge and the Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Taliesin West

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Fig. 5.11 Living Room of Taliesin West

Fig. 5.12 Theater Room of Taliesin West

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Fig. 5.13 Wright’s Inscription of Laotsu’s Words in Theater Room of Taliesin

Another example of Wright’s expression of organic architecture in the interior is the theater (Figure 5.12). Lucas observes that like the outside of the buildings, the inside of the theater echoes the landscape of the Arizona desert, including its mountain peaks, slopes, desert colors, and cacti. 73 Most impressively, by designing flexible space in the stage, Wright also depicted, in Whitman’s words, “New World democracy in the creative realms of time and space.”74 According to Suzette Lucas, Wright made a 73

Suzette Lucas, “Eye Music,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1998). Wright, Collected Writings 4, 322. Emphasizing the importance of space in architecture, on the wall of the theater Wright inscribed the words of an ancient Chinese philosopher Laotsu, demonstrating his idea that organic architecture is universal (Figure 13): THE REALITY OF THE BUILDING DOES NOT CONSIST IN ROOF AND WALLS BUT IN THE SPACE WITHIN TO BE LIVED IN LAOTSU In a 1954 essay, Wright mentions that he came across Laotsu’s words in The Book of Tea written by a Japanese writer, Okakura Kakuzo, which had been sent to Wright by the Japanese ambassador. According to Wright, until he saw Laotsu’s words he had been convinced that this idea was original to him; then, he realized 74

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series of curtains, spaced at equal intervals, on cactus-like pivoting rods.75 The curtains can be opened completely, providing a full view of the stage, or can be closed partially, creating a smaller stage.76 Lucas also notes that every week apprentices played music and performed plays in the theater, and shared a pleasant time with other apprentices, because Wright believed that architects should be artists as well; that is to say, in Wright’s view, organic architecture should also be part of the organic arts.77 In this sense, Wright’s free space in the theater echoes Whitman’s concept of “democratic space,” because it is flexible, open, and accessible to all. These ideas of freedom parallel the democratic principles that Whitman advocated. In Wright’s words, the “democratic space” was essential for his organic architecture. By borrowing Southwestern America’s indigenous materials and free space, Wright emphasized the continuity of time and democratic space as Whitman expressed in his “Song of the Universal.” Wright strove for an ideal organic architecture for democracy and created a small vision of this ideal democratic universe in Taliesin West.

that the idea was common to both the East and the West, and more than five hundred years old (Flank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, New York: Meridian, 1960), 300. 75 Suzette Lucas, “Music and Dance Pavilion,” Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1998): 23. 76 Ibid., 23. 77 Lucas, “Eye Music,” 4-9.

CHAPTER SIX WRIGHT AND TRANSCENDENTALIST SUCCESSORS: TOWARD CONTEMPORARY ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

I. Environmental Architecture During the last few decades of the twentieth century and into the first years of the twenty-first century, Wright’s architecture has been continuously re-evaluated from an environmentalist perspective. In fact, in September 2008, a conference titled “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Roots of Sustainability” was held in Pennsylvania, and architectural scholars discussed Wright’s relationship to sustainability in nature. This fact shows that Wright’s organic architectural theories share some aspects with contemporary environmental architecture. In this chapter, I examine why Wright’s works and Transcendentalist ideas have come to be seen as a formative part of the environmental architecture movement. I begin by clarifying the specific terms of environmental architecture, such as “ecological architecture,” “green architecture,” and “sustainable architecture.” I then examine Wright’s consideration of environmental factors in his works such as Taliesin West (1937), Jacobs House II (1944), and Price Tower (1952). Finally, I examine the ethos of works designed by Paolo Soleri (1919- ) and Glenn Murcutt (1936- ), both of whom have developed Wright’s Transcendentalist ideas within the contemporary ecological architecture movement. “Ecological architecture” means to respond to declining energy resources; e.g. using energy conservation, efficient insulation, rainwater, solar radiation, and wind-power, and recycling as much as possible”; 1 “green architecture” means “buildings designed according to energy 1

James Stevens Curl, ed., A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (London: Oxford University Press, 2006), 254.

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saving criteria and the reduction of pollution;2 and “sustainable architecture” means “architecture that does not guzzle energy, (but) requires expensive maintenance, or is subject to massive heat-loss or -gain through poor insulation or too much glazing.” 3 Ken Yeang asserts that “‘green’ or ‘ecological’ design means building with minimal environmental impact” but providing maximum benefit or effect.4 The origin of the word “sustainability” stems from policies for managing forests in 18th Century Germany. In the U.S., the term was used in the 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s advocacy of resource conservation in 1910, 5 and Ashok Raiji further notes that “in 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development defined ‘sustainability’ as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”6 The most important common point of these three terms is, as Yeang suggests, that environmental architecture or design “requires the architect to regard and to understand the environment as a functioning natural system and to recognize the dependence of the built environment on it.”7 Yeang’s words summarize the premise of these three terms; that is to say, architects should design their works so that they damage nature as little as possible and conserve as much energy as possible. Specifically, “ecological,” “green,” and “sustainable” architecture are concerned with effectively using a limited amount of space, natural materials, and natural energy such as light, air, and water. 8 Although scholarly and reference works define “ecological architecture,” “green architecture,” and “sustainable architecture” differently, these terms are often used interchangeably. The remarkable environmental architecture movement in the U.S. grew originally out of reactions to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962.9 Silent Spring made people aware of environmental problems and 2

Ibid., 331. Ibid., 757. 4 Ken Yeang, The Green Skyscraper (New York: Prestel, 1999), 8. 5 According to Ashok Raiji, President Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1910, “I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us” (“Glossary of Terms Used in Sustainable Design” 185). 6 Ashok Raiji, “Glossary of Terms Used in Sustainable Design,” Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the Twenty-First Century, ed. David Gissen (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 185. 7 Yeang, The Green Skyscraper, 31. 8 Ibid., 31-57; Gissen, ed., Big & Green, 18-125. 9 Gissen, ed., Big & Green, 12. 3

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warned about the risk of overusing insecticides. The book warned that such overuse may be dangerously damaging wildlife and creating a risk for humans.10 The book also awakened Americans to the importance of environment. Some architects became concerned about the overuse of modern technology and awakened to the importance of using natural resources such as light, wind, water, and plants in their architecture. 11 Since the oil crises of 1973, environmental architects have desired and developed “energy-efficient buildings,” and these environmental issues have become a priority worldwide.12

II. Wright’s Taliesin West, Jacobs House II, and Price Tower Although Wright identified himself as neither an ecologist 13 nor an environmentalist, 14 he designed nature-focused architectural structures based on his organic architecture theories. For example, Taliesin West in Arizona (1937), which I discussed in Chapter Five, demonstrates Wright’s consideration of environmental factors. In fact, Wright articulately expresses his environmental sense in Taliesin West: “The human threat to the beauty of the desert garden might be avoided if the builder as architect would only go to school to the desert in this sense and learn the harmonious contrasts or sympathetic treatments for his walls that would, thus, ‘belong.’”15 These words prefigure the values of the environmental architecture movement, which maintain that architecture should damage scenery as little as possible and be part of nature. Emphasizing regionalism, Wright devised walls of each building in Taliesin West by 10

Carson documented these assumptions, citing many examples in the Midwest and California where DDT, the cheap insecticide, was sprayed for the Japanese beetle but annihilated robins, meadowlarks, and brown thrashers as well. Carson also warned that contaminated grains, fishes, cow’s flesh and milk were affecting humans and causing cancer. Carson suggested a natural solution to these problems: insects, pests, and undesirable growths may be controlled by encouraging their natural enemies. 11 Ibid., 12. 12 Ibid., 12-13. 13 According to the OED, an ecologist is a person “concerned with the relations of organisms to one another and to their surrounds” (259). 14 The OED defines an environmentalist as one who is “concerned with the protection of the environment (the natural world)” (274). 15 Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, ed. Frederick Gutheim (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 199.

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using local materials in Arizona—in his words, “desert rubble stone.”16 As a result, the rooms in Taliesin West seemed to be the cave dwellings of Arizona’s Native Americans. 17 In order to emphasize sustainability in nature in his landscape architecture, Wright adapted Japanese environmental architectural devices in Taliesin West by developing a relationship with the Arizona desert. Specifically, Wright employed the concept of “shakkei,” or borrowed scenery, which incorporated outside landscape and space into a man-made garden. In fact, Wright himself mentions that he was fascinated with Japanese gardens: “For pleasure in all this human affair you couldn’t tell where the garden leaves off and the garden begins. I soon ceased to try, too delighted with the problem to attempt to solve it.”18 These Japanese aesthetics toward nature to which Wright refers here relate to Japan’s geography. According to Anne Whiston Spirn, “eighty percent of Japanese land is covered with steep mountains,” which meet ponds, rivers, and seas; therefore most Japanese people live in small plains located between mountains and sea.19 Unable to alter geography itself, the Japanese have not destroyed nature but have been forced to reconcile themselves with it. This environmental fact attracted Wright and compelled him to design a borderless garden in the Arizona desert. The Seigandoji Temple of Mie Prefecture and Ritsurin Park of Kagawa Prefecture in Japan exemplify traditional Japanese borderless gardens through their employment of “shakkei” or “borrowed scenery,” which Wright admired. According to Makoto Motonaka, “borrowed scenery” has also been adapted from antiquity in European countries. However, while the Japanese version of “borrowed scenery” implies a more environmental mindset, the European version is more anthropocentric.20 Many Western gardens—Versailles is one famous example—dominate nature, cutting down trees and making an anthropocentric, artificial garden. In contrast, Ritsurin Park does not make strict borders between its property and the 16

Frank Lloyd Wright ed., Architectural Forum (January 1938), 88. Wright’s regionalism shares the notion of “a sense of place” with current environmentalism. According to Richard Schneider, Thoreau’s “sense of place” means “particular places and interacting with particular objects” (2). This notion develops toward eco-centric ideas; that is to say, living beings do something following necessities by nature rather than by human’s convenience. 18 Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1943), 197. 19 Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 134. 20 Makoto Motonaka, Japanese Art: Shakkei (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1997), 85-97. 17

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outside landscape (Figure 6.1). There are clear parallels between these Japanese gardens and Taliesin West (Figure 6.2). As Figure 6.2 shows, Taliesin West exemplifies how an authentic American landscape architecture could be created out of a blending of the Arizona desert and global design concepts such as “shakkei.” The second example of Wright’s consideration of environmental factors is Jacobs House II (1944; Figures 6.3 and 6.4). In Jacobs House II, Wright effectively adapted the passive solar system in designing the first “Solar Hemicycle” Usonian dwelling.21 The passive solar system employs “natural heat transfer processes to collect, distribute, and store usable heat without the help of mechanical devices such as pups or fans.”22 Wright designed the solar hemicycle house considering “the elliptical solar path.”23 As Figures 6.4 and 6.5 suggest, the whole house of Jacobs House II is one room, and all the living spaces are made of limestone, and designed to face the south in order to protect the house from the strong, cold northwest wind. 24 The south side is entirely open to the sun, with large windows and glass doors. In a 1992 interview by Berdeana Aguar, the owners of Jacobs House II, Herbert and Katherine Jacobs, mention that Wright called the house his “first solar hemicycle” because he fully considered the most effective use of solar energy.25 As with other Usonian houses, Wright first brought costs into consideration. At the same time, he considered the climate of the Midwest, designing the house so that in the summer it stayed naturally cool and in the winter it kept heat.26 As in a typical passive solar house, eaves were designed as overhangings so that during the winter a great deal of light penetrated in the house and during the summer light was blocked by the eaves. Furthermore, Wright designed the building as one large space to maximize the cooling potential of the natural airflow, given Wisconsin’s strong winds.27

21

Charles E. Aguar and Berdeana Aguar, Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 290. 22 Gissen, ed., Big & Green, 185. 23 Wright, ed., Architectural Forum, 91. 24 Ibid., 91. 25 Aguar and Aguar, Wrightscapes, 291. 26 Ibid., 291. 27 Ibid., 291.

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Fig. 6.1 Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Ritsurin Park in Kagawa, Japan

Fig. 6.2 Borrowing Scenery (Shakkei), Taliesin West

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Fig. 6.3 Jacobson House II

Fig. 6.4 Architectural Drawing of Jacobs House II

The final example of Wright’s consideration of environmental factors is Price Tower (1952). It is visually and practically similar to contemporary environmental architecture. Wright subtitled his 1956 book, The Story of the Tower, about his Price Tower in Oklahoma, The Tree that Escaped the Crowded Forest. James Wines mentions that Price Tower “suggests that the relationship between nature and architecture can reflect a combination of geomorphic [territorial] and biomorphic [organic] sources.”28 Although Wright had attempted to design unique skyscrapers such as the St. Marks’s Tower or New York (1929) and Crystal Heights 28

James Wines, “Vertiscapes,” Big & Green, ed. David Gissen (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 82.

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for Washington, D.C. (1938), these structures were never built. Still, in a 1938 essay, Wright writes about his skyscraper plan: “Each floor proceeds outward from the shaft as a cantilever slab extended from the shaft, similar to the branch of a tree from its trunk.”29 In 1952, Wright adapted these ideas in Price Tower to be a three-story structure with a parking lot.30 The building is now called Price Tower Arts Center and is used as a museum, office complex, and hotel. The building is a green, nineteen-story skyscraper, and appears to be a massive tree in the city, as Wright imagined (Figures 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7). In a 1953-55 essay, Wright writes about Price Tower and clarifies how he designed the green tree, considering the human health in a busy city and the integrity of nature and humans. Wright claims his tower “serves the democratic principle well—the individual’s healthy aspiration.” This is because the tower provides “freedom of use” and “protection from excess light and air,” but also because the “copper blades” and “mellow tinted glass” help reduce the need for air conditioning and protect occupants from “rash extremes of warm and cool” which “now too frequently alternate to tear his human structure down.” 31 Like current environmental architects, Wright considers costs and effective use of natural light and wind as well as human health. Wright’s essays about skyscrapers indicate the importance of extending his consideration of environmental factors beyond simple visual metaphors. Wright regularly employs language commonly used by contemporary environmental architects because his organic architecture and contemporary environmental architecture share an understanding of the central place of nature in architecture.

29 Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1992), 5:153. 30 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Story of the Tower: the Tree that Escaped the Crowded Forest (New York: Horizon Press, 1956), 14. 31 Wright, Collected Writings, 5:154.

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Fig. 6.6 Price Tower

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Fig. 6.7 Price Tower

Many prominent examples of Wright’s architecture were designed based on his organic architecture theories or Transcendentalist ideas of respecting nature. Wright’s development of these nineteenth-century Transcendentalist ideas foreshadows twentieth-century architectural trends, preserving the essence of traditional Transcendentalism. In

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particular, in Usonian houses and skyscrapers, Wright was concerned about the effective use of a limited space, natural or regional materials, and natural energy—these are also key aspects of contemporary environmental architecture. The contemporary environmental architecture movement recognizes the importance of natural resources and urges humans to stop overusing materials and damaging nature. This humane attitude toward nature establishes patterns of sustainable living, in which the cycle or circulation of the natural world can be maintained. In this sense, Wright can be considered a forerunner of current environmental architecture.

III. Toward Ecological Architecture: Paolo Soleri and Glenn Murcutt “Environmental architecture” or “ecological architecture” gained popularity at the end of the twentieth century, and Transcendentalist ideas in architecture have further developed in the twenty-first century on a global scale. Through Wright’s architectural school, Taliesin Fellowship, his direct disciples—including Antonin Raymond (Czechoslovakia), Rudolf Michael Schindler (German), Arata Endoh (Japan), and Taro Amano (Japan)—have developed Wright’s ideas in multiple directions. Among Wright’s disciples, Italian-American Paolo Soleri’s contributions to ecological architecture are unique. Soleri, however, has “glossed over negative feelings” about his parting with Wright in conversations with Antonietta Iolanda Lima.32 Lima nevertheless maintains that “it would be irresponsible to disregard entirely the influence of Soleri’s initial exposure to Wright. In fact—along with the concepts of the synergistic cohesion of art, science, and religion, and man’s creative responsibility in the evolution of the world—the convergence of these two strong personalities” shows Wright’s influence on Soleri. 33 In addition, Lima claims that Soleri’s “rejection of mythologizing can also be seen as something Soleri shares with Wright.”34 As Lima suggests, even Soleri’s denial of influence from anyone resembles Wright’s own attitude. 35 However, it is certain that

32

Antonietta Iolanda Lima, Soleri: Architecture As Human Ecology (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2003), 82. 33 Ibid., 82. 34 Ibid., 82. 35 Wright discusses the influence in a 1953 essay entitled “Influence or Resemblance” (Collected Works 5:72-73).

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Soleri was not simply influenced by Wright but indeed developed and converted Wright’s ideas into twenty-first century ecological architecture. Soleri received a Ph.D. in Italy and came to Taliesin West after receiving a fellowship from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in 1947.36 After working at the Foundation for eighteen months, Soleri left Wright, partly because “in his work he harked back to the basics of functionalism more than to the work of Wright” and partly because he disliked Wright’s “contradictory personality.”37 However, when Soleri left Taliesin in 1948, he told Wright that he “wanted to create a small Taliesin in Italy.”38 In fact, Soleri tried to do so, but he failed and came back to the U.S. in 1955. 39 Still, Soleri has incorporated not only Transcendentalism but also other various kinds of philosophies in his architecture, and expressed his own architectural philosophy of “arcology” (architecture + ecology). 40 The aims of Soleri’s arcology are “material recycling,” “waste reduction,” “energy conservation,” and “the use of renewable energy sources.”41 With the concept of arcology, Soleri uniquely developed Wright’s ideas about architecture and community. In the 1930s, Wright proposed his plan for an idealistic Broadacre City, which Wright’s son, John Lloyd Wright, surmises was inspired by Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Broad Axe” in Leaves of Grass.42 The plan was not carried out due to financial constraints, and the plan also did not consider rapid population growth. Wright ignored the fact that available space has shrunk because of population growth, and expecting the current global population, he designed a community of Usonian houses for middle-income families, and included areas for agriculture and commerce as well as transportation systems. Like Wright, Soleri also planned an ideal city and communities. However, in contrast to Wright, Soleri’s ideas keep in mind three basic

36

Ibid., 80. Ibid., 82. 38 Ibid., 378. 39 In the interview with Lima, Soleri mentions a possible reason why his relationship with Wright became worse: “The change in Wright’s attitude toward me might have been caused partly by that fact that a bridge design by one of his pupils [Soleri] was published alongside his own in the same book. That might have irritated him” (Lima 379). 40 See details in Soleri’s Arcology: City in the Image of Man and The Omega Seed: An Eschatological Hypothesis. 41 David Grierson, “Arcology and Arcosanti: Towards a Sustainable Built Environment,” Electronic Green Journal 1, no.18 (April 2003), 7. 42 Ibid., 33. 37

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key points: “complexity, miniaturization, and duration.”43 Put differently, considering the rapid growth of population, Soleri seeks to use small spaces, to decrease the consumption of resources and energy, and to recycle whenever possible. Complexity helps people to consider different events that can happen within small spaces; in order to achieve complexity, miniaturization and duration of resources, energy, space and time are indispensable. In short, the process of designing sustainable architecture urges architects to think about how humans actually live in a limited space. 44 In fact, Soleri mentions: “In every dynamic even of physical nature the elements of time and space, and thus acceleration, speed, and deliration, are crucial. The speed of light, a space and time shrink[er], well serve the communication of information of the packaged kind—television, radio, telephone.”45 Just as Wright adapted in Taliesin West Whitman’s ideas of “time and space” from “Song of Universal” in Leaves of Grass, Soleri also includes the concept of “time and space” in his architecture. In order to uniquely develop Wright’s ideas of architecture and communities, Soleri formed the Cosanti Foundation (Cosanti: “against thing” or “anti-materialism”), located in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1955. Soleri acquired 630 acres there in 1970 and named this place Arcosanti. Arcosanti is still being built by volunteers.46 There, just as Soleri did in the Taliesin Fellowship, people from the various countries come and are “learning by doing” (see Chapter Four). They are building the ideal ecological city and houses, cultivating land, and producing vegetables and food. Soleri writes about the principle of arcology: “The concept is that of a structure called an archeology, or ecological architecture. Such a structure would l take the place of the natural landscape in as much as it would constitute the new topography to be dealt with.”47 That is to say, by designing the tall building and minimizing space, Soleri attempts to condense the human population and sustain natural land as much as possible. Grierson asserts that unlike Thoreau’s ideas, arcology values selfreliance rather than self-sufficiency, because self-sufficient communities are, in Soleri’s words, “extravagant and devoid of sense” and they forget

43

Ibid., 5. Ibid., 6. 45 Paolo Soleri, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), 12. 46 Grierson, “Arcology and Arcosanti,” 7. 47 Soleri, Arcology, 12. 44

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how they ultimately belong to a large community.48 As these examples suggest, for Soleri, the individual’s self-reliance is important because it urges people to voluntarily consider and develop relationships between food and community. This relationship between individuals and community resembles the Whitmanian democracy that Wright adapted in Taliesin West, and also reminds one of Wright’s Broadacre City plan, which might have drawn inspiration from Whitman’s city plan idea from “Broad Axe.” As Soleri told Wright he would, upon his leaving Taliesin in 1948, Soleri has created another Taliesin, not in Italy, but in Scottsdale, Arizona. Arcosanti is a “three-dimensional, highly concentrated urban structure, and a permanent experiment in urban intensity.”49 Soleri intended Arcosanti to be populated by “five to six thousand people on only 15 acres of land— equating to a population density of around 350 people per acre, 10 times the population density of New York City.”50 In Arcosanti, in the small space and tall buildings, residents and visitors live together, recycle, and save materials and energy. Grierson observes that Arcosanti will never be completed even in five hundred years because sustainability implies a process of evolution.51 This endless building process is similar to that of Wright’s at Taliesin and Taliesin West, which Wright continued to develop until he died. In this sense, Soleri’s architecture is influenced by Transcendentalist ideas of the progress of architecture, spirit, and society. Glenn Murcutt, who was indirectly influenced by Wright’s Transcendentalist theory of “organic architecture,” is an Australian architect and calls himself a “Thoreauvian and Wrightian architect.” 52 Murcutt, born in England but residing in Australia, received the 2002 Pritzker prize and the 2009 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. His architecture recycles natural energy and emphasizes Australian regional materials and architectural style, as demonstrated in the Local History Museum, Tourist Information Centre, South Kempsey, and New South Wales.53

48

Grierson, “Arcology and Arcosanti,” 8. Ibid., 7. 50 Ibid., 7. 51 Ibid., 7. 52 E.M. Furrelly, Three Houses: Glenn Murcutt (New York: Phaidon, 1993), 5; Herbert Muschamp, “Australian Architect Receives Pritzker Prize,” New York Times 15 April 2002, C6. 53 James Stevens Curl, A Dictionary of Architecture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 441. 49

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Interviewed by the Japanese publishing staff of GA Houses, Murcutt emphasizes the importance of cultural differences in architecture; in fact, he has never designed works outside Australia although clients in several countries have asked him. Murcutt explains the reason: “I think it takes a long time to understand one’s own country and one’s own place. I could go to another country and design a box that performs quite well thermally, but since I don’t really know other cultures intimately, I couldn’t anticipate all the cultural influences necessary to design a work appropriate to the culture.” 54 His words suggest that architects must be well versed in geography and culture when they design buildings. In the interview, Murcutt clarifies the reason why he has only concentrated on designing his works in Australia. He says he “love[s] indigenous and vernacular architecture,” and wants his architecture to be connected with “the people, the environment, and the materials” that come from within a culture. Though he does not view these things as “directives or examples that might hold back new things for today,” Murcutt values them “as lessons in principles.”55 Murcutt’s words recall Transcendentalists’ essential ideas of cultural independence, specifically Emerson’s lecture “American Scholar,” which urged scholars to establish American culture. In particular, Murcutt’s words emphasize that architects should deeply consider cultural differences in geographies, dwellers, and environments, as Wright advocated. Consequently, Murcutt’s words suggest that Emerson’s ideas of cultural independence were significant not only philosophically but also practically in designing architecture because architecture requires architects to be well versed in natural elements such as the history of disasters and nature of the land. In an interview with E. M. Farrelly, Murcutt explains his architectural belief in the “three most important things; first, simplicity; second, simplicity; third simplicity.” 56 Murcutt admired Thoreau’s practice of simplicity as well as Wright’s simple architecture, adding that “simplicity” is “almost [a] moral duty.”57 In order to exemplify Murcutt’s architectural philosophy, Farrelly examines three houses designed by Murcutt: the Marie Short House, the Ball-Eastaway House, and the Magney House. According to Farrelly’s “Introduction,” all three houses show Thoreau’s philosophical influence on Murcutt, as they emphasize a primitive hut, which recalls Thoreau’s house near Walden Pond. They also use regional 54

Yukio Futagawa, “A Dialogue with Editor: Glenn Murcutt,” GA Houses 75 (2003), 11. 55 Ibid., 11-12. 56 Farrelly, Three Houses, 3. 57 Glenn Murcutt quoted in Farrelly, Three Houses, 4.

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materials: Australian soil, stones, and trees. Although they fall into the broad category of hut-style houses, each is slightly different. The Marie Short House seems to have a “tough exterior,” but “the timber-lined interior of the building is a masterpiece of delicacy and warmth.” The Ball-Eastaway House “is constructed entirely from corrugated iron,” but the interior space stresses openness, like Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion; that is to say, its inside is a modern, thin, and natural house filled with light. The Magney House emphasizes a “wave-shaped metal roof,” but displays Thoreau’s ideas of “the honest house,” which stresses simple openness.58 All three houses commonly emphasize metallic strength on the outside but stress bright open space and natural warmth inside. Murcutt’s houses incorporate the recycling of natural forms of energy such as solar, wind, and ambient heat; that is to say, Murcutt’s houses are concerned with the use of limited space, natural materials, and natural energy, all of which are indispensable elements for sustainable architecture. Murcutt, however, does not always welcome general ecological architecture, and he has criticized what he sees as simple ecological architects, who “are only designing boxes that perform well.” Murcutt, by contrast, claims he is “interested in structure, space, light, and an architecture that also respects the landscape.” He says he wants his buildings to give “prospect and refuge” as well as to respond to a “series of ecotones and ecozones.”59 Here, again, as Wright encourages, Murcutt also stresses the importance of natural geography and its culture in architecture. Unlike Soleri, who emphasizes the minimization of time and space in architecture more than any other thing, Murcutt considers beautiful harmony of nature and architecture both visually and practically, as Wright advocated. In the nineteenth century, Transcendentalist architects like Frank Furness and Louis Sullivan developed the first stage of Transcendentalist architectural ideas. In the twentieth century, Wright developed them into the second stage and embodied these ideas in his own Transcendentalist architecture, incorporating natural materials and energy. At the turn of the twenty-first century, on a global scale, ecological architects like Soleri and Murcutt have continued developing Thoreau’s and Wright’s ideas into the third stage: innovative environmental architecture, which saves space and effectively recycles materials and energy. Emerson believed in the progress of the spirit, and Thoreau, in Walden, expressed his belief in the

58 59

Farrelly, Three Houses, n.p. Futagawa, “Dialogue with Editor,” 12.

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evolution of a leaf to a tree and a forest. Although individual architects die, another generation arises to contribute to the progress of Transcendentalist architecture. In this sense, meeting with each new age, Transcendentalist architects have always seen their architecture as a process of spiritual and social development, an architectural process that continues to evolve Transcendentalist ideas.

APPENDIX

Chapter 1 Horace Furness, Rev. Furness’s second son, collected the letters that circulated between his father, Emerson and other Transcendentalists, and published them in 1910 as a book entitled Records of a Lifelong Friendship 1807—1882: Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Henry Furness. The book shows the intimate relationship between the Furnesses and Emerson. Emerson’s 1843 letter about Rev. Furness to transcendentalist Margaret Fuller in Records: In Philadelphia I had great pleasure in chatting with Furness, for we had ten or a dozen years to go over and compare notes upon. [...] And he is the happiest companion. Those are good companions to whom we have the keys. [...] Furness is my dear gossip, almost a gossip for the gods, there is such a repose and honor in the man. He is a hero-worshipper. [...] I meant to add, a few lines above, that the tie of school-fellow and playmate from the nursery onward is the true clanship and key that cannot be given to another. (vi) “Rev. Furness’s copy of Mr. Cabot’s Memoir” about Emerson in Records: We [Rev. Furness and Emerson] went to the Public Latin School together. The morning session of the school closed at XI. O’clock. He & I went together for an hour to a private school kept from XI. To XII. By Master Webb in one of the other schools. We went solely to learn to write and to cypher—The schoolhouse was large the private pupils few. We two boys were allowed to sit apart from the other boys, where we pleased; we always sat together, Ralph and I—he was between 9 and 10 years of age— I was eleven. He used to write verses about our naval battles, such as the fight between “The Constitution” and “The Guerriere”—to my great admiration, which he repaid by admiring my drawings—I was somewhat famous as an artist in those days. [...] I remember [. . .], how he

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[Emerson] sneered at me, because I gave one of my drawings to another boy in exchange for one by him, which represented merely a building; he was given to architectural art, and depicted edifices with most imposing colonnades. Ralph had genius in abundance, but no talent. I never knew him attempt to draw anything, not even the conventional cat with the triangular face, which almost any boy or girl could do and does do. (xivxv) Rev. Furness’s letter about Thoreau to Emerson in Records: Phila. Nov. 26, 54. My dear friend, We depend upon hearing the N.Y. Lecture here. I was glad to see Mr. Thoreau. He was full of interesting talk for the little while that we saw him, & it was amusing to hear your intonations. And then he looked so differently from my idea of him. [...] He had a glimpse of the Academy [of Natural Sciences] as he will tell you—I could not hear him lecture for which I was sorry. Miss Caroline Haven heard him, & from her report I judge the audience was stupid & did not appreciate him. (103)

Chapter 2 Sullivan’s fan letter to Whitman is quoted in Louis Sullivan: An Architect in American Thought (1-3). The following is the whole copy of Sullivan’s fan letter: Chicago, Feb. 3rd, 1887 My dear and honored Walt Whitman: It is less than a year ago that I made your acquaintance so to speak, quite by accident, searching among the shelves of a book store. I was attracted by the curious title: Leaves of Grass, opened the book at random, and my eyes met the lines of Elemental Drifts. You then and there entered my soul, have not departed, and never will depart. Be assured that there is at least one (and I hope there are many others) who understand you as you wish to be understood; one, moreover, who has

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weighed you in the balance of his intuition and finds you the greatest of poets. To a man who can resolve himself into subtle unison with Nature and Humanity as you have done, who can blend the soul harmoniously with materials, who sees good in all and overflows in sympathy toward all things, enfolding them with his spirit: to such a man I joyfully give the name of Poet—the most precious of all names. At the time I first met your work, I was engaged upon the essay which I herewith send you. [“Inspiration,” a prose poem read before the third annual convention of the Western Association of Architects, Chicago, November 17, 1886.] I had just finished Decadence. In the Spring Song and the Song of the Depths my orbit responded to the new attracting sun. I send you this essay because it is your opinion above all other opinions that I should most highly value. What you may say in praise or encouragement will please me, but sympathetic surgery will better please. I know that I am not presuming, for have you not said: “I concentrate toward them that are nigh”—“will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?” After all, words fail me in writing to you. Imagine that I have expressed to you my sincere conviction of what I owe you. The essay is my first effort, at the age of thirty. I, too, “have sweated through fog with linguists and contenders.” I, too, “have pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair,” reaching for the basis of a virile and indigenous art. Holding on in silence to this day, for fear of foolish utterances, I hope at least that my words may carry the weight of conviction. Trusting that it may not be in vain that I hope to hear from you, believe me, noble man, affectionately your distant friend, Louis H. Sullivan

Chapter 3 On Sunday evening, September 2, 1951, after supper in Taliesin, Wisconsin, Wright talked about Emerson’s “American Scholar” to the Taliesin Fellowship. I think Emerson, when he wrote the “American Scholar” described pretty much the thesis we ourselves have concerning architecture. He spoke of learning in general, and the scholar in particular, but it applies peculiarly to us. This morning I was going to force you into a taste of Emerson, knowing that while we talk of Emerson, nobody is going to read

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Emerson. Isn’t that strange? A lady came up to me in the store when I was buying something in Madison, and said, “Mr. Wright, I have read ‘The American Scholar’.” “Well, how did you like it?” I said. “I liked it,” she said, “Thank you very much.” I had referred to it in the talk at the Church, as being of that caliber. So I went through it this morning, scanning it a little, trying to find out how little of it I could read. And I found that I couldn’t omit anything, so I won’t read it all the way through—you can finish it. I’ll read the beginning of it to you, and you can follow it up. You must remember the time in which it was delivered at Harvard. And this and a subsequent one put him in a position where Harvard didn’t want to see him for 23 years afterward! He became the outspoken, outstanding radical of the east. So this was a remarkable break in its time, by probably one of the greatest minds, if not the greatest mind we have ever had as a people. Emerson was not a philosopher. He was it: he was the thing that he said and did. A shining example of the fact that philosophers are relatively valueless. I myself am going off of philosophy for the rest of my life, because they are merely rationalizing about something; that a man like Emerson was living. He was it. And so he exuded at the pores in everything he said and everything he said was authentic, came from within. Just as we hope someday many of you will make designs that come from within. And we don’t pick them up around in different places and put them on—here. I have ordered a number of these books, and I am going to present one to every male member of the Fellowship. Just remember that this is Harvard, and he is there, and this is the recommencement of the literary year. (Wright reads “The American Scholar” from the beginning to “so is the fear worse” in the “In Self-Trust” section—about two-thirds of “The American Scholar.”) Pick it up and read it for yourselves—and that is only one little sample of the quality and perception of this man who lived what he wrote, and wrote what he lived. Don’t call him a philosopher. A Philosopher is none too valuable an asset of our modern life, and I don’t think we should turn back too much into philosophy, when we have a man like that for a guide. So read Emerson. I haven’t read this for many years; I went through most of these when I was 14 years old. Now I read them with understanding. I didn’t understand them then. But I got something. And I believe it is to these minds that really were at the gateway of our experiment in freedom, that we should now go back to more and more frequently, and associate with because what we have been reading about had virtually been lost.

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We are turned over now to the military, to the bureaucrat, to the very thing that all these men came here to get away from. We are in it again up to our necks. Now to get out of it, I think we can get great strength and inspiration from these original souls in their original state of rebellion. This is rebellion. And all of that early life, in the days when our Constitution was framed, was rebellion against—what? Against the very thing that is imposing upon us today, that makes conscripts of our boys, and does all the rest of it. In January 1952, four months after talking about and reading from “The American Scholar,” Wright asked his students whether they had read the essay, and delivered another talk about Emerson. […] And by the way, how many of you have read Emerson’s Essays since you got the book? If you don’t read it, it’s your own fault. Especially the one on “The American Scholar.” “The American Scholar” was our thesis in architecture in literature enunciated by Emerson at Harvard so many years ago—nearly 80. And he wasn’t welcomed back to Harvard for 23 years after he read that essay. He enunciated there the principles that we are enunciating; and there is a man who uses English precisely according to the best uses of the words he employs. If you read Emerson, you learn to speak and write good English. And George Barrow is another man. And another man to read, if you are a stylist, and you want an addition to your words—to know what good style and good form is—you should read Robert Louis Stevenson. Robert Louis Stevenson was probably the greatest stylist that ever lived. And I think that an architect has an exceedingly good use for good language to be able to express his thought and his feeling by writing or by words, because, at this stage of the game, you must be more or less a propagandist. He has a thought and an idea now that is not common. And would it be immediately misunderstood, as you see it is. They think that organic architecture is the promotion of a style of architecture. Whereas it is an endeavor to bring back to human life its basic significance, and to express it in terms that can be lived with and lived in. It is basics to a culture. Now, unless you are pretty well equipped in the proper use of the proper words, you are not going to be able to make that clear. Although your work might do it, it would help greatly if you yourself could say it. And you can’t say it until you have mastery of the words that portray or express a thought. So here it is now here this morning on the importance of conserving the language; of becoming proficient in the woe of the word which expresses the idea. I don’t believe anything better could happen to

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you than to pursue that thought—and it is interesting, fascinating, too. Semantics helps, a little, but what helps more than anything else is to read the men whose thought is characterized by such expression. Like Emerson, like Burrow, like any of the great authors; like Herman Melville, would be another one. Herman Melville had a marvelous diction, a marvelous mastery over thought by way of language. Of course, many others have, Wordsworth for instance. Whitman. Although Whitman got a little mixed at times, a little dazed. Whitman loved the sound of words too much. When he would hear a word in French or some other language that appealed to him, he would use it. Like “Ma femme” for instance. He didn’t like to say “my woman,” so he said “ma femme.” Seemed to him elegant, I guess. I don’t know. They all have these little crotchets and idiosyncrasies which you see after a while. Anyway, watch your language. Watch your step, and don’t let me hear you swear. Just because I swear. Because I am trying to get over it. I recognize it for what it is— so it is more shameful for me to swear than it would be for some of you. What do you want to do today? Want to go tramping? You can walk up this and go along the ridge up there and push that rock for that has been lying up there for so long. We’ll put it in the fireplace—looks as though it would be just big enough, doesn’t it? Have you ever seen it up there, lying flat?

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INDEX abolitionism, 14, 17 Adler, Dankmar, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 67, 72, 102, 179 Alcott, Bronson, 15 Burke, Edmund, 32, 87, 88 Burnham, Daniel H., 66 democracy, 7, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 64, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 110, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 149, 150, 158, 165 ecological architecture, 1, 7, 87, 98, 151, 152, 153, 157, 158, 162, 164, 167 ecology, 1, 7, 98, 117, 141, 151, 152, 162, 163, 164, 167 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 30, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99, 103, 115, 117, 124, 125, 126, 134, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179 "Each and All", 86, 94, 176 "Self-Reliance", 14, 15, 176 "The American Scholar", 2, 3, 15, 77, 78, 79, 87, 134, 166, 171, 172, 173, 176 "The Fugitive Slave Law", 17, 176 "The Problem", 12, 92, 176 concept of self-reliance, 2, 12, 14, 16, 17, 79, 164, 165 concept of the Over-Soul, 77, 79, 90, 91, 96, 176 Nature, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 22, 54, 55, 61, 63, 68, 76, 81, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 125, 171, 176

Fraser, John, 16, 21 Furness, Frank, 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35, 39, 43, 77, 88, 167, 169, 170, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180 "Hints to Designers", 10, 14, 16, 20, 27, 177 anti-institutionalism of, 14, 15, 16 influence of the Civil War on, 17, 30 involvement in the Civil War, 17, 18, 27, 28 Gothic, 22 Greenough, Horatio, 5, 177 Hunt, Richard Morris, 16, 18, 19 Japanese architecture, 83, 85, 149, 153, 154, 155, 166, 178, 179 shakkei, 154, 155 language, 54, 80, 104, 158, 173 multiculturalism, 22, 31, 35 Murcutt, Glenn, 1, 7, 151, 162, 165, 166, 167, 177 museums, 21, 22, 32, 35, 39, 158 nature, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 27, 35, 43, 44, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 79, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 107, 110, 111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 121, 127, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158, 161, 164, 166, 167 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 66 organic architecture, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 44, 66, 81, 83, 85, 86, 87, 102, 106, 132, 137, 141, 144, 145,

184 146, 149, 153, 158, 161, 165, 173 ornamentation, 14, 16, 32, 33, 44, 103, 104, 115 Peck, Ferdinand W., 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 6, 9, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 88, 175, 178 poetry, 12, 43, 45, 51, 63, 64, 107, 124, 125, 128 Quaker architecture, 28 regionalism, 9, 17, 20, 21, 31, 43, 56, 87, 132, 143, 144, 145, 162, 165, 166 religious architecture, 7, 11, 12, 17, 22, 32, 33, 35, 75, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 96 Root, John Welborn, 66 Ruskin, John, 15, 18, 19, 30, 43, 179 self-reliance, 14 simplicity, 7, 27, 45, 83, 85, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 114, 115, 121, 166, 175, 180 Soleri, Paolo, 1, 7, 151, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 178, 179 Sullivan, Louis, 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 16, 19, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 102, 103, 124, 125, 127, 167, 170, 171, 176, 178, 179, 180 "Essay on Inspiration", 51, 52, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63 Chicago Transportation Building, 7, 43, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 The Autobiography of an Idea, 16, 44, 49, 51, 52, 54, 57, 66, 71, 72, 180

Index Taliesin West, 123, 131, 132, 134, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150 The Chicago Auditorium Theater, 6, 7, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 127, 179, 181 The Great Depression, 7, 97, 100, 110 the poet, 4, 11, 45, 46, 56, 62, 63, 86, 107 Thoreau, Henry David, 1, 2, 3, 7, 13, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 121, 125, 154, 164, 166, 167, 170, 175, 178, 179, 180 Walden, 7, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 166, 167, 178, 180 Transcendentalism, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 30, 35, 39, 43, 44, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 57, 62, 67, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 81, 91, 96, 98, 100, 115, 146, 151, 161, 162, 163, 165, 167, 168, 176 Unitarianism, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 21, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 91, 106, 107, 108, 115, 124, 179 Whitman, Walt, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 51, 52, 55, 56, 63, 97, 98, 102, 103, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144, 149, 150, 163, 164, 165, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181 "Chanting the Square Deific, 138 "Chants Democratic", 123, 128 "Democratic Vistas", 123, 181 "Song of the Universal", 131, 134, 137, 140, 144, 150 Elemental Drifts, 45, 46, 52, 170

Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture Leaves of Grass, 6, 13, 45, 46, 47, 51, 63, 98, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 163, 164, 170, 175, 181 World Columbian Exposition, 7, 23, 43, 47, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 175 Wright, Frank Lloyd Architectural Forum, 51, 79, 98, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 114, 115, 116, 139, 154, 155, 177, 180, 181 geometric designs, 75, 83, 85, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 144, 145 Jacobs House II, 7, 151, 153, 155 Larkin Building, 80, 81, 90, 179 prairie style, 67, 83, 87

185

Price Tower, 7, 151, 153, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161 Sunday morning talks, 3, 4, 13, 15, 77, 78, 79, 80, 102, 124, 125, 127, 132, 137, 145, 170, 171, 172, 173 Taliesin, 3, 7, 97, 98, 100, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 119, 120, 123, 128, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 155, 156, 162, 163, 164, 165, 171, 175, 179 Unity Temple, 7, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 179, 180 Usonian homes, 97, 155, 162, 163