Hasta La Ideas

Photos via Save the Wright House unless otherwise noted.

The architecture and design community exhaled a collective sigh of relief earlier this week as an exceptional private residence narrowly escaped oblivion at the hands of a ruthless real estate developer—for the time being. The demolition of the house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his son David, was pushed back a month at the eleventh hour by the City of Phoenix, which hopes to rectify a complex legal situation in a state known for its aggressive real estate development policies. This much is clear from critic Michael Kimmelman’s clarion call to save the house in the Paper of Record.

So too is Kimmelman’s description of the house—which is distinguished by its spiral shape, like a certain concurrently-designed landmark on Manhattan’s Museum Mile—rather more vivid than the video tour (after the jump). Indeed, the home has never been open to the public despite its proximity to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, headquartered about a dozen miles away at Taliesin West.

I’ll defer to architectural historian and Harvard professor Neil Levine for a summary of the significance of the David Wright House:

One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative, unusual and personal works of architecture. Built in 1950–52, it is the only residence by the world-famous architect that is based on the circular spiral plan of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, whose construction followed it by six years. When the house was first published in 1953, it was stated that no other Wright house since Fallingwater was as praiseworthy and remarkable. Since then its reputation has only increased and several architectural historians and architecture critics consider it to be among the 20 most significant Wright buildings. The spatial design, the processional movement through the patio and along the spiral ramp, the custom-designed concrete-block detailing, and the total interior design all give this house a spectacular expression especially appropriate to the desert environment.

Credit: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York); via NYTimes.com

(more…)