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Re: [OM] [OT] now architecture, was -> Guess the auction

Subject: Re: [OM] [OT] now architecture, was -> Guess the auction
From: Dirk Wright <wright@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 09:06:01 -0400
>Hey Stevo - wanna tell him what Canberra is really like?!
>AndrewF
>
>

Canberra was designed by one of my favorite US Prairie School architects, 
Walter Burley Griffin and his architect wife, Marion Mahony Griffin. Some of 
the work they did here in the US is just stunning. I love it. 

At the time that Griffin won the competition for the capital of Australia, 
due in large part to the outstanding renderings by his wife, the Prairie 
School was in decline here in the US. Chicago, the birthplace of the Prairie 
School, in the year 1900 was still considered "the west" and a certain level 
of innovation was allowed and accepted by the public. The School was radical 
for its day, and derided by the east coast traditionalists. The School was 
the first to use the open floorplan, where the foyer, living room, dinning 
room, and sometimes the kitchen were joined, and divided only by short half 
walls or just builtin furniture. This concept is used to this day in all new 
houses here in the US. Previously, all rooms were divided by walls and doors. 
The School destroyed the boxes and opened the interior space. 

The rise of women's influence in home design decisions, due to the women's 
suffrage movement, was mostly responsible for killing off the school. By 
around 1915, the vast majority of wives in the midwest were under the 
influence of the style magazines from the east coast, which promoted the 
Colonial style as being the most respectable and accepted. FL Wright used to 
say that when a couple came in to his office, if the man was in charge, he 
was certain to get the job, if the woman was in charge, then he knew he 
wouldn't get it. There were some homes built that were Prairie School on the 
outside but Colonial on the inside to satisfy both parties.

The Prairie School was the first indigenous architectural style in the US and 
was the forerunner of the Modernist movement. The Colonial style was adapted 
from Classical Greek and Roman architecture, and was introduced by Thomas 
Jefferson. It was entirely appropriate that the first Democracy in almost 
2,000 years would adopt architecture from the previous Democracy, the ancient 
Greeks, and that was the basis for Jefferson using it. But, by now the basis 
for the Classical style is completely lost and just rote immitation is what 
is produced now. For example, the columns common to this style were 
originally supposed to be stylized tree trunks, with a root flare at the 
bottom and branches at the top. 

Anyway, I hope I have not taken up too much bandwidth here.....
-- 
Be Seeing You.
Dirk Wright


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