martinhouseclr

172 DARWIN D. MARTIN HOUSE // CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT Supporting Landscape Background and Context Background: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Integration of Landscape Considerable material has previously been researched and written about Frank Lloyd Wright as an architect and the significance of his ‘Prairie Style’ work in particular. Because of his stature in the architectural world, the National Park Service has previously conducted a special review of Wright-associated properties in order to allow National Historic Landmarks program staff to make sound decisions about nomination guidance. As a previously designated NHL property, as well as the subject of much scholarship on its architecture, the Darwin Martin House has been closely documented with regard to Wright’s significance. Thus, it is not the intent of this CLR section to establish the importance of his work and summarize his life, but rather, to provide context and support the framework of Wright’s integration of house and landscape. The period between 1900 and 1912 is considered Wright’s ‘First Mature Period’ and is the time at which he conceived and published his design philosophy of harmony with humanity and its environment - what he called ‘organic architecture.’ 21 Wright’s early design thinking was interpreted as a series of important tenets, all of which are present within the Martin House and communicate his idealistic unification of architecture, interior design and landscape. These tenents included his inspiration and symbolic cues form nature, a consistency of materials, spatial relationships between interior and exterior, open floor plans, spacious roofed porches, a compatibility of the structure with its surroundings, and long horizontal forms celebrating the interaction between earth and sky – the union of which was considered radical at the time. As early as 1900, under the title “Concerning Landscape Architecture,” Wright is documented to have lectured on the attention he was giving to the still nascent profession of Landscape Architecture, discussing topics ranging from the recent publication of Gertrude Jekyll’s Home and Garden, to his inspiration from nature and the integration of the designed landscape into his architectural compositions. Many of his design concepts were presented to allow a unification with nature – direct views and tangible experience of the surrounding landscape and garden from interior living spaces. The features that he incorporated into the 21 National Historic Landmarks Program, Frank Lloyd Wright Context Study, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, updated June 2014. landscape were also revolutionary at the time – a mingling of his architecture into the site – and were often in direct contrast to the formal styles of the day. These included cascading and interconnected walls and terraces (physically linking house to site), circuitous entry approaches featuring turns, walls and steps (a complete divergence from the direct entry approach of the Victorian era), careful management of topography and ground plane, and cascading varieties of plants in architectonic urns and planter boxes. Wright summarized some of these ideas for the first time in his ‘A Home in a Prairie Town,’ published in Ladies Home Journal, February 1901. [Fig. 170] The article included seven small drawings, the most site-significant of which is perhaps the ‘ground floor plan’ which shows “interconnecting terraces that originate at the porte-cochere and, together with the spacious roofed porch off the living room, surround approximately three-fourths of the house as integral elements.” 22 The result is a weaving of the structure into the site – something innovative and now considered one of Wright’s signature contributions within the ‘prairie style’. Another drawing, a perspective of the house from the street, is notable in terms of its complete lack of any popular Victorian garden themes, including 22 Charles E. Aguar and Berneda Aguar, Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2002, 50.