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Mountain Men & the Fur Trade,
1800-1850. Interesting website maintained by a member of The American Mountain Men. Has ship supply records, mountain men photos, etc. Internet sources and links.
Phonograph, Electric Railroad & Light Bulb - inventions of Edison. Website has archeological survey as well. Presented by Menlo Park, NJ.
Association for Preservation of Virginia's Antiquities, Jamestown's website with the latest findings on America's earliest settlement.
Cuneiform Translator...One of our customers told us about an interesting link at the University of Pennsylvania's website. Visitors can read about the history of cuneiform translate their own name online. Very fun!
For more fun, look into doodles and works in progress at Potatoland (requires Shockwave plugin).
For innovative animated arts made with Macromedia Shockwave...visit Noodlebox.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 30+ pages of excellent coverage on Jackson Pollock, including biographical material and images of him at work on his drip-paintings.
Researching the arts...For teachers that may need your assistance in researching topics in the arts, an excellent list of Arts Education Links exists on the server of Library Science Program at James Madison University
American Art..."Calendar of Exhibitions" is the internet's most comprehensive listing of current, upcoming and past exhibitions of American representational art at non-profit institutions.
Wondering about ongoing archeological digs in the Mediterranean... visit the Classics and Mediterranean Archaeology Home Page
For information on Dutch and Flemish museum collections...visit http://www.codart.nl. This site has more than 400 links to museum sites. You will also find an international exhibition calendar for Dutch and Flemish art.
Looking for an Art Grant...Visit ArtDeadline.Com searchable database that lists local and national juried artist competitions, grants, call for entries, writing contests, residencies, casting calls, ' more.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) brings recognition to the achievements of women artists of all periods and nationalities by exhibiting, preserving, acquiring, and researching art by women and by educating the public concerning their accomplishments.
Need some new resources? You will find definitions of more than 3,300 terms here, along with thousands of images, pronunciation notes, great quotations, and links. For a very comprehensive resource of art terminology visit ArtLex.
View our Complete Collection
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Recommended Sites related to Frank Lloyd Wright
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Mr. Greyson includes nine ‘Sprite’ images with his short discussion about ‘Midway Gardens.’
Very well organized photo examples from each decade of Wright work. Has some biographical information and a fun walking tour as well.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is the official website and has extensive information, including links.
The All-Wright Site has very diverse areas that relate to Wright. Good for the flw enthusiast but some links are outdated.
For more Chicago information, including an interesting Al Capone biography, go to The Chicago Historical Society’s website.
Midway Gardens
Photos courtesy of Paul Kruty from his excellent book, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Midway Gardens
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s long life began June 8, 1867 shortly after the end of the American Civil War, and ended 90+ years later on April 9, 1959, during the construction of his Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. He designed architecture for over seventy years and is known for ‘Prairie Style’ architecture with its long, horizontal lines suggestive of the Midwestern landscape. He created innovative uses for building materials which contributed to a building’s unique purpose and location. His interiors had a centrally located interior fireplace and rooms were open and spacious, flowing from room to room and from interior to exterior spaces. He was a pioneer in Modern Architecture and possibly the greatest American architect.
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HILLSIDE CURTAIN II, ca. 1952
(Wright’s Wisconsin landscape abstraction)
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Born Frank Lincoln Wright, in Richland Center, Wisconsin to Anna Lloyd Jones Wright and William Carey Wright. Frank’s middle name was a tribute to the then recently deceased American President, Abraham Lincoln. After his parents’ divorce in 1885, Frank changed Lincoln to Lloyd in order to reflect his mother’s family heritage.
Frank’s educated parents introduced him early to Literature and The Arts, including drawing and music. His father, William, was a lawyer, minister and musician and taught Frank how to play the viola. Frank’s deep appreciation for music lasted throughout his lifetime. There were concerts held in his homes and murals painted with music as themes. He believed there was a correlation between music and geometry.
Anna, his mother, was a teacher and home-schooled Frank until age ten. From his birth she wanted him to be an architect, and in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition purchased for him the Froebel Kindergarten Method of Twenty Lessons with its building blocks, colored folded papers, string, beads and beeswax. The ‘Lessons’ helped Frank learn basic mathematical ideas and established the principle of abstraction, both of which Frank would develop later in his architecture. His mother also, placed on his bedroom walls international architectural posters of cathedrals and a Japanese Pavilion image, all of which Frank loved. (In later years, his office buildings were referred to as cathedrals and he collected Japanese prints). The poster images and blocks greatly influenced the very young Wright and helped to develop his interests in architecture.
| Summertimes were spent with his extended family on his uncle’s Wisconsin farm. But basically, Frank’s number of friends was limited and he was quiet, lonely and shy, even during his college years.
ARCHITECTURAL BOOKENDS, ca. 1913
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His personal flair and domineering presence developed later in Chicago as he gained confidence while talking with respected architects and clients and while socializing with international individuals such as Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Carl Sandburg and social worker Jane Addams. In June 1889, he married his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and began establishing a large family.
At the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1885, Wright studied civil engineering, geometry and drawing and by chance witnessed the collapse of the state capitol’s new north wing. The disaster, caused by poor basement supports, left a major and lasting impression on Wright. Solving engineering problems were prime considerations whenever he created unique, innovative designs, such as the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo in 1922 with its cantilevered construction and its floating flat foundation. Its sophisticated engineering helped it to withstand Japan’s major earthquake in 1923 unlike most others.
In 1887, Frank designed the interior of his Uncle Jenkin Lloyd Jones’ family chapel and his Aunt's boarding school. From the drawings of these projects, he was hired by head draftsman Cecil Corwin and company owner/architect James Lyman Silsbee in Chicago.
Silsbee was a ‘Shingles Style’ architect which was the prevalent style at the time - wood or stone buildings that combined separate shapes including horizontal bands, triangular gables, and cylindrical towers. Wright’s personal house in Oak Park, IL, 1889 was a Shingles Style building and was based on published articles of the Bruce Price Kent House, Tuxedo Park, NY, 1885-86. This stained glass at right is reproduction after a skylight at Oak Park.
OAK PARK SKYLIGHT, ca. 1899(From the Frank Lloyd Oak Park Home & Studio)
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Soon, Wright was working for Dankmar Adler (engineer) and Louis Sullivan (designer). In their highly recognized American firm which handled large projects--commercial, business, and commissions--Wright became head draftsman for all of their residential projects. Sullivan is known for his creed, "Form Follows Function." He recognized Wright’s talent but fired him in 1894 after Wright designed outside projects (after office hours). Wright called Sullivan Lieber Meister (‘dear master’) and always credited him for being a true inspiration and supporter of his still developing ideas about abstraction and architecture that was reflective of its environment. Adler & Sullivan’s company quickly declined without Wright; Sullivan died destitute in 1924. Wright’s friends, Cecil Corwin and Paul Mueller (Adler & Sullivan’s construction superintendents), supported Wright and were important contributors to many of his later projects.
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He was on his own after 1894 but still under the influence of Sullivan. Wright was part of a group of young architects known as ‘The Eighteen,’ who met regularly and discussed new ideas and issues such as the British Arts & Crafts Movement. The ‘Eighteen’ became known as the ‘Prairie School.’ This sculpture at right of "The Boulder" is a metaphor for this period in Wright's life--as someone struggling to find self-expression |
THE BOULDER, 1898,
Original sculpture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and executed by Richard Bock from his Oak Park Studio
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During 1888-1910, Wright designed mostly houses, including his own and others, primarily in and around Oak Park, IL, the first Chicago suburb. Between completing his first solo house in 1893 and 1901, forty-nine of his designs were built . By 1905-07, his production had increased to thirty-six houses. Today, some of these houses are still in existence and can be viewed.
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Wright’s Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, IL, 1900 is an example of his ‘Unifying Design Theme’--to design everything including the house, furnishings, and lighting.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT DANA HOUSE LAMP ca. 1900
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The years 1909 –10 were a turning point in his career and life. He left his first wife and six children and traveled in Europe for a year. He put together a complete portfolio of his architectural renderings, designs, and floor plans for Wasmuth, a Berlin publisher. The portfolio was well received in Europe and the States and influenced young International architects. He was impressed with the German Bauhaus artists and Austrian Secessionists artists and architects during that year of travel. Also, in Europe he established a permanent relationship with Manah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of a former client. This relationship caused a scandal that kept clients away. So, without work when he returned to the States, Wright retreated to Spring Green, Wisconsin and on the lands settled by his grandfather built Taliesin East in 1911. Manah moved into the residence in 1913.
Wright always did a great deal of experimentation with design and engineering in his personal homes. At Taliesin East, he moved away from his earlier Prairie Style towards abstraction which incorporated cantilevered units, a large domineering fireplace, and open, flowing units of interior space. The houses--Taliesin East, Robie House, 1909 and much later the Kaufmann House, Falling Water, PA, 1936--are prime examples of Wright’s cantilevered units and roofs. At Taliesin East, when he removed the attics to increase interior space, the lack of insulation made the Wisconsin house cold and drafty. This was a prime factor for building his third home, Taliesin West, in Arizona’s warm climate, in 1938.
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The 1914 Chicago Midway Gardens was the last of Wright’s Prairie Style buildings and the beginning of his next five-year phase of daring architectural experimentation and expressiveness through ornamentation. Besides the cantilevered principles, he used reinforced cement and decorated cement blocks with relief designs reminiscent of Pre-Columbian Central American Mayan frieze decorations in the Midway Gardens, the A. D. German Warehouse, Richland Center, Wisconsin, 1915, the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, 1916-22 and the Barnsdall House, Hollywood, CA, 1920.
‘WINGED’ SPRITE from the Midway Gardens, 1914
Wright in collaboration with Alfonzo Iannelli
(Referred to as "The Queen of the Gardens")
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DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIDWAY GARDENS:
His friend, Edward C. Waller, Jr. and two business partners, leased and developed the Sans Souci Amusement Park property, (skating rink, theatre, casino, saloon & dance hall). Waller commissioned Wright in late 1913 to expand the building and create a small-scale but strictly high class palatial beer-garden. The property was centrally located, close to Lake Michigan on Chicago’s South Side, and in a very well established German entertainment area. The property was near Washington Park, the University of Chicago and Midway Plaisance, where the amusement section for the Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s 1893 World Fair had been some twenty years earlier.
In the Early 1900’s, close to 500,000 German immigrants lived in Chicago. Most were well educated and skilled but had left their homeland because of economic or political unrest. As struggling immigrants, they lived in cramped quarters and on warm evenings went out often for family entertainment – dining, attending cultural affairs and amusement parks. They were comfortable with their friends and relatives at the outdoor entertainment beer-gardens and restaurants which were reminiscent of their native homeland. With the area’s established clientele, Wright’s intentions were to bring culture to Chicago and to elevate the Sans Souci beer-garden establishment into a significant ‘concert-garden’ which would combine the best of all the Arts including concerts (classical music) and gardens (leisure and gourmet dining). In order to accomplish his goals and to build an expanded vision for this establishment, Wright convinced Waller to provide more building funds. Backers were found by selling stock which supported building the project and running the establishment.
Midway Gardens was 600 feet long on each of its four sides. It was primarily an outdoor, entertainment facility with a tiered, large central open-air gourmet eating area facing a stage and an orchestra music pavilion, where patrons watched performances. Two storied, walled and roofed arcades were on two sides of the open central summer area. Winter and summer activities occurred in the interior sections of the towers and connecting five-tiered sections. There was a lobby, casino, and tavern as well as two belvederes that had commanding views, promenades, private banquet rooms, concert halls, cigar and newspaper concession stands, two pools, dance floors, cantilevered balconies, dressing rooms and indoor-outdoor walking areas with terraces, gardens and courtyards. The variety of areas in the complex contributed to the Gardens’ ambiance.
| Wright designed the building and everything associated with it, including tables, dishes, etc. He used yellow brick and reinforced gray concrete blocks with relief designs imprinted while the cement was wet. He designed the huge geometric interior wall mural and two of the 100+ sculptures called ‘Sprites’ that were placed throughout the complex. Most of the ‘Sprites’ looked down on the patrons. The male and female sprites were made from reinforced gray concrete as well.
The Sprites were traditional German adornments. To their traditional design, Wright contributed the idea to "abstract" them into more geometric forms. Under Wright’s supervision, Alfonso Iannelli and Richard Bock designed all but two of them and craftsman / cement expert, Ezio Orlandi, cast them. All are given credit for the ‘Sprites.’
‘MAID IN THE MUD’ SPRITE, 1913
Wright in collaboration with Alfonzo Iannelli
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The interior winter-garden male and female figures were the ‘Original Sprites’. Their design is based on different geometric shapes - Triangle, Sphere, Cube and Hexagon - and is credited primarily to Iannelli. There was an entrance/promenade fountain model – ‘Maid in the Mud’ and credit for her design is unclear. The ‘Spindles’ were exterior pillar-female forms with either smiling or pensive expressions (primarily credited to Iannelli). Wright designed the completely abstract exterior ‘Totem Pole’ which was the light-tree and he designed all but the face of the ‘Cornice Figures’ which was the winged figure, ‘Queen of the Garden.’
Ten days after WWI began, on August 14, 1914, Wright was sitting in the summer-garden section of Midway Gardens when word came about the disaster in Wisconsin. A cook had set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered Manah, her two children and four members of Wright’s architectural staff. Immediately Wright left for Wisconsin. His personal tragedy and rebuilding the living quarters of Taliesin became his priorities. He left Midway Gardens to be finished by trusted craftsmen who completed the project in 1914.
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On June 27th, 1914, the Midway Gardens officially opened (at left, view a portion of the original newspaper advertisement). It had two excellent years with gourmet dining, orchestra music, opera and for one month in 1915 presented Anna Pavlova, the famous Russian Dancer (she made her only movie, La Muette de Portici, 1915 on the back section of the Gardens’ lot). |
Although a public success, Midway Gardens struggled from the very beginning due to the financing provided by Waller and his associates. When the company could not meet the financial notes on its loans, especially after most of the craftsmen (who had worked on the project and had not been paid) placed liens against the property, the stockholders lost their money. Even Wright only made several thousand dollars from the project because his stock became worthless once the project defaulted.
Midway Gardens was sold to the Edelweiss Brewery on May 31, 1916 and renamed "Edelweiss Gardens." It still had ambiance and attracted patrons. Two large dance areas were added and architectural and entertainment changes were made. The concrete and sprites were painted and plain surfaces were stenciled. The building became more of a beer-garden than an entertainment complex. During this period, the Gardens continued to struggle because of the social context of the era--anti-liquor sentiments as part of Prohibition and anti-German feelings because of WWI.
On August 31, 1921 the property was sold to owners of the E. C. Dietrich Midway Automobile Tire and Supply Company and became the "Midway Dancing Gardens." With extensive remodeling they converted the building into a ballroom. Dancing was the fashionable thing at the end of the 20’s and jazz and swing-dance-music filled the air. Benny Goodman played there in 1924.
| Unfortunately, by 1929, both the building and area had deteriorated badly. The once fashionable and innovative building had become a challenge for its successive owners who had difficulty maintaining such a large complex. In the spring of 1929, the building was leased to its final owner, Sinclair Filling Station & Car Wash. By October 10, 1929, the once historic site was demolished and the rubble bulldozed into Lake Michigan to be used as a breakwall. |
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Several of the Sprites and cement blocks survived the demolition because the original sculptor, Iannelli, managed to retrieve a few segments. Also, demolition contractor, William J. Newman, took several sculptures and cement blocks to his farm in Wisconsin. Many years later when Wright heard of their survival, he purchased them and they remained with his estate. As recently as 1999, a block was found buried near the Wisconsin Dells. It was donated to the Chicago Historical Society.
For the next 45 years after the Midway Gardens, Wright’s architecture was in a continual state of evolution. He continued to push forward traditional ideas about the potential of space, flow, and shape inspired by an early influence, those geometric blocks his mother gave him. He often commented about their significance, especially the circle which was his favorite. Interestingly, one typically thinks of a circle as representing a wholeness, a form without a beginning or an end--the kind of completeness and 'unifying theme' so apparent at the Midway Gardens. These Gardens were more than a building, more than restaurant, and more than a entertainment center. It was a vision--a complete vision--about an "ambiance" for a building. This "completeness" of an architectural vision is Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural legacy.
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MARCH BALLOONS & DECEMBER ORNAMENTS, ca. 1926-27
(Details from Liberty Cover Design)
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REFERENCES:
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Midway Gardens, Kruty, Paul Samuel, 1998. (Excellent, Extensively Researched Midway Gardens Resource)
Ken Burns: Frank Lloyd Wright: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick (video)
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