One of Wright’s masterpieces that I have always wanted to visit is The Darwin D. Martin House on 125 Jewett Parkway in the Parkside neighborhood of Buffalo, NY. Recently my wish was fulfilled when I got a chance to stop by for a short yet enthralling visit.
Started in 1903, the Darwin D.Martin House was actually a complex of buildings, including a conservatory, carriage house-stable, gardener’s cottage, and two family homes. Most architectural critics and historians rank the Darwin House as one of Wright’s most impressive achievements, and certainly the pinnacle of his Prairie-style. And for good reason, every inch is designed to enhance the feeling that you are not just inside a place of residence but fully immersed in a spiritual setting like a Shinto temple or Japanese Zen monastery. From the art glass windows to the pergola, the house is a perfect example of what can happen when the elegant and organic elements of the East meet the ambition and technical vitality of the West.
The Darwin D. Martin House. Frank Lloyd Wright said it was “a well nigh perfect composition.”
Unlike many of his earlier buildings, Wright had an almost limitless budget for the Martin House Complex. Darwin D. Martin, a millionaire co-owner of the E-Z Stove Polish Company based in Chicago, spent close to $300,000 on this project. By comparison, the house Wright designed for his brother in Chicago, cost $5,000. With the resources and size needed to experiment with his vision, Wright was able to develop what he believed was the first true American architecture.
Many architectural historians contend that the Martin House is the single most important house design of the first half of Wright’s career. In this structure, Wright said, “elements of light, air, and vista permeate the whole with a sense of unity,”
Perhaps only his Fallingwater (designed 30 years later) matches the “domestic symphony” of the Martin House pergola, which was meticulously restored in 2007.
Crafted by the Linden Glass Company of Chicago, the 394 art glass windows in the Martin House are made up of 750 pieces of jewel like iridescent glass. The windows in the building give the heavier components a sense of translucent visibility. The barriers between inside and outside are merged into a singular aesthetic experience.
Frank Lloyd Wright is unquestionably the greatest American architect. He designed over 1,000 buildings, completed 500 of them, and fundamentally changed the art form. Wright called the Martin House his “opus.”
I look forward to someday giving my son a copy of The Fountainhead and hopefully sparking a lifelong love affair with the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College.
I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism.
Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join.
I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.”
Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.
