martinhouseclr

175 4 // ANALYSIS & EVALUATION smaller than the Martin House, and it has been documented to have never gone past the project stage, but is described as being in the “singular genera of the Darwin D. Martin House.” 27 The outside spaces of the Ullman garden layout drawing shows a “series of roofless rooms with low walls that would not restrict the range of peripheral vision, and open to the sky to heighten an illusion of space without measure.” As most tremendously seen in the Martin House design, these associations between Wright’s architecture and landscape of this period are even more remarkable in that “detailed designs for landscape and plantings were an exception among the plans that issued from The Studio.” 28 It has been said that the Martin House design “hung above Wright’s workplace for the balance of his long career as testimony to how all elements of a design are properly integrated.” 29 Background: Darwin D. Martin in Buffalo In many ways, Darwin D. Martin’s notable contributions – his immense business success, bringing Wright to Buffalo, supporting Wright when no one else would – were seeded by the 27 Ibid., 96. 28 Ibid., 46. 29 Jerome Klinkowitz, Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2014, 33. work ethic and sentimentality he developed as a child in upstate New York. It has been reasoned that Martin’s “tireless and ceaseless curiosity concerning everything” was, in part, a result of a “childhood of loss and deprivation.” 30 31 Martin was born in Bouckville, New York, shortly afterwards moving to a farm in the nearby town of Clayville –which, as author Jack Quinan notes, was described by Martin as idyllic until his mother’s unexpected death just prior to his sixth birthday. Under stress in attempting to provide for his family, Martin’s father took his two youngest – Martin included, at age eight – to Nebraska where the now divided family was engaged in grueling farm labor. It was only after his older brother Frank, then a salesman for the Larkin Soap Company, financed his departure from Nebraska at age twelve that Darwin was able to seek out new prospects – saving every penny selling soap from a wagon and engrossing himself in the offerings of public libraries. Larkin Company President John D. Larkin took on Darwin as a young bookkeeper in the Buffalo headquarters, eventually becoming head of the department in no small part due to his worth ethic and his appetite for recognition, acceptance and 30 Jack Quinan, “Darwin D. Martin, Autodidact,” The Weekly Wright-Up, accessed June 15, 2014, http://wright-up.blogspot. com/2013/01/darwin-d-martin-autodidact.html. Quinan attributes this remark regarding Martin’s curiosity to a typescript of someone who worked for Martin in some construction capacity, though as unknown authorship. 31 Jack Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2004, 199. Fig. 173, bottom Ullman House site plan, Wright/Griffin, 1904, unbuilt. Fig. 172, top Susan Lawrence Dana House, 1902-04, Frank Lloyd Wright, digital HABS plan.