martinhouseclr

39 2 // SITE HISTORY & EVOLUTION differences designed between the sidewalk, front lawn, Summit lawn and the verandah, essentially the full length of Summit Avenue frontage. These grade differences are compressed and reconciled – and made most visual – in the interior of the hemi-cycle. There are no plants on the site yet, but Darwin or Isabelle is clearly concerned with the grade change, which essentially creates a small depression or pit around the verandah. [Fig. 23] Wright arrives in Buffalo less than a week later, and, given the retention of the grade change and the forthcoming development of the hemi-cycle planting design, he must have convinced the Martins of its necessity in person. 80 Regarding the hemi-cycle, a drawing completed by Wright in early August of 1904 seems to indicate a very early conception of what that feature, and more likely, the later installed Floricycle, was to include. 81 The plan drawing, described as the “Second revised preliminary first floor plan,” [Fig. 24] included a revised courtyard 80 WGB-DDM, 17 September 1904, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP-UB. No additional discussion of the depth or “horrible”- ness of the hemi-cycle design appears in correspondence after this date. Martin did request that O.S. Lang add six inches to the interior grade of the hemi-cycle on June 6, 1905, after a particularly severe flood event that flooded the still-unfinished premises. Notably, this was after the hemi-cycle was planted in May of 1905 and seemed to be the beginning of Martin’s desire to replace the hemi-cycle planting with a new design. 81 Jack Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture, 94. Quinan puts the date of the Second revised preliminary first floor plan (FLWF Archives #0405.24) as early August 1904. There is no date noted on the drawing but Quinan’s rigorous analysis of the architectural design changes place it at this date. garden layout and a semi-circular feature surrounding the Martin verandah, representing the hemi-cycle. Curiously, the architecturally- precise, but rather ambiguous hemi-cycle linework shown on the drawing includes a distinct partition into twenty-four separate but identical units. 82 This repeating unit pattern must have been shelved at this time, as it does not make an appearance until nearly a year after the hemi- cycle has been installed. 83 One other possibility is that the repeating unit pattern shown at the hemi- cycle location in the Second revised preliminary floor plan was an early sketch related to Wright’s summer 1905 reworking of the hemi-cycle. The repeating unit pattern also appears on a Wright’s drawing titled Water Basin, an undated drawing believed to be developed during that time. 84 The First Planting 82 The eventual Floricycle design drawing as provided by Wright in February 1906 features 11 full units and 2 half units in either end, for a total of 12 units, exactly half the quantity shown in August 1904. 83 There may be other explanations for the seeming appearance of the repeating-unit pattern so early: For one, the hemi-cycle shape and units could have been drawn on well after the plan originally produced. Or, it was a budding idea shelved in 1904 and brought back in late 1905 as both Martin and Wright struggle with the hemi-cycle as installed. 84 This drawing (283-001023) is held by the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, and is further described in the narrative (see July 1905) as potentially Wright’s design solution for the “circular hollow.” Fig. 24, bottom Second revised preliminary first floor plan, detail, Frank Lloyd Wright, c. Aug 1904. Fig. 23, top Grading visible around hemi- cycle, photo 27 Nov 1904.