150 - Celebrating Milestones with Frank Lloyd Wright

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Jamie. Welcome to

Jamie: 0:34

the show. Hi, Kurt. Is it time to pop bottles yet?

Kurt Neiswender: 0:40

Upspeak. Up, up you know, you gotta put the, make it sound like a, a question, I don't know. I heard NPR, right? Anyway, anyway, we're not, I'm, I'm trying to be an influencer.

Jamie: 0:53

No, you see, we're of a generation. Yeah, we're, we're of a generation where our speech patterns are not. Of the influencer generation, so yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:04

it's just not gonna happen. I don't even know if I could do it. I don't think I did it just then.

Jamie: 1:09

I don't think you did now and you miss and you missed my reference to like, where's the champagne buddy? This is episode 150.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:17

Well, no, I heard you say popping bottles. I know what that means.

Jamie: 1:23

Kurt's like, I'm in the club.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:27

Up into the club. It's a subtle reminder of when we were at the AI conference in Las Vegas, where we were in the club. Yes. The Rockwell design, which was still, still a fun, fun time. Anyway. Yeah. Congrats, Jamie. 150. Congrats,

Jamie: 1:50

Kurt. We did this. Yeah, we did it. And, and, and hopefully too many more.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:56

150 more. Times more. I don't know. Infinite. Infinity does infinity. Oh, yeah. Well, so we were having a little casual chat about school teaching in the green room, talking about our students creativity, making little entourage elements. But the, the real reason we're here. Is the podcast talk about some sketches, talk about a little coffee, you know, the same old things we've done for 149 previous episodes.

Jamie: 2:35

Yeah, well, and, and you mentioned entourage and like it, you know, every time I hear that word, I just, I. Hi it's there certain vocab words that just there there in that hundred hundred hundred and one things that you had to learn in architecture school entourage being one of them and so for the folks who don't know that jargon speak that we do entourage not the HBO tv show. Which was actually really pretty good but entourage, you know, not you and your, your friends but the actual things that populate our renderings. And so on a show about sketches certainly something that we have an affinity for and, and we'll probably, we should talk about and explore in a, in more depth in another episode. So for now, but yeah, I like it. We

Kurt Neiswender: 3:28

haven't really talked a lot about. Entourage elements.

Jamie: 3:33

Well, and, you know, the formally, formally, no. And, There is a good story in there where even the concept of entourage became a jumping off point for one of my projects. So and there are sketches, so we can bring those from the way back. It's not that far back. And use those as part of a foil for that episode. So maybe, maybe. Maybe when you get back from your trip.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:00

You know, even, even podcast hosts get to go on vacation every now and then. I won't tell anybody where, but you might find me in a photo or two. I guess I'm pretty Googleable as my students. Oh,

Jamie: 4:19

okay. Well, Mr. Googleable what's your, what's the coffee of the day today? Well,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:26

I. I've boxed up and gotten ready to ship all the coffee that is meant to go to you. So therefore I had to go to Starbucks and buy some more beans that I kept for myself. So I, I grabbed the Yukon blend. Have you ever had the Yukon blend? Yes. The medium dark. Pretty good. I was in the vicinity of Starbucks. So I grabbed. Those beans normally, I get myself some rootless, but you know, switch it up and it's okay

Jamie: 5:01

to switch it up. It's okay. This is a judgment free zone

Kurt Neiswender: 5:05

on the car. Yeah. Thanks. That's what I've got going on I probably will still have some after my vacation, but I don't know Maybe I'll come down come back with some something new

Jamie: 5:17

and maybe I need to send you a care package

Kurt Neiswender: 5:20

So that's the call, that's the the quiet, the silent scream, please. Was that the silent

Jamie: 5:25

scream? Okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:28

So what about you? Send me some g Crackle. Yes,

Jamie: 5:32

grackle. Which actually, that is what I, you know, not to segue, but to segue, that's is exactly what's in my cup, is the grackle, so. Oh, I see. You know, cheers to you buddy. Thanks. Maybe, maybe

Kurt Neiswender: 5:44

soon. Thanks. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, I, I like that one. Or maybe, you know, something you haven't hit. I have

Jamie: 5:52

the they they've been doing some, they've been doing some small batch stuff too. And I haven't, haven't ordered any of that of late. But maybe this is a good excuse. So you know, that, that they, they work with. They have a variety of different growers and it's all you know, the sourcing of their, their coffee is, is really, really important to them as a company, even though they're based here in Austin. And so that's I think important. It's something we've talked about a little bit on the show that we're interested in. Certainly don't know as much as we probably should podcast about coffee and sketches. But we also have been reached out to. Bye. My how you land coffee purveyors. And so that is in a, you know, future episode, you know, I think having a proper discussion, you know, with a research lab focused on coffee at Texas University. That just sounds. Like a win win. Win win. Win win.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:56

Before I show everyone the sketch, I, I agree. Yes. Coffee makes architecture better. I was talking to a contractor and, and he was like, how many cups of coffee have you had today? And I said, does it matter? And he, and he said that he has to taper down now at, at, at his age. He's not much older than I am, but you know, so he doesn't drink as much caffeine and, and, and as much as I do, I suppose it was a fun little. Back and forth. It was, it was all good. He would not be the first person who had commented on my coffee intake. Coffee's good for you. Antioxidants and all those good things. I mean, I don't know. Do you have any opinions on that one on that health?

Jamie: 7:49

You're asking the person who drinks probably as much, if not more cup coffee, coffee. In a day as you, so, yes. I have to believe that it's, it's sustaining this

Kurt Neiswender: 8:05

I mean, look at, look at us, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, live, living our best lives over here. Yeah, totally. As they

Jamie: 8:11

say. All

Kurt Neiswender: 8:14

right, I gotta, I gotta remember to not, not bang my fist on the desk as I set the sketch up. So yes, apologies, Jamie. So Jamie made a couple of sketches and we have a photo. Architects doing what they do, which is point, point at things. Do you want to see them all, all this, all this together?

Jamie: 8:36

Oh, well, I mean, I think it'd be great to see them all together to start. I mean, I think you've also got a, you got a sneak you snuck something

Kurt Neiswender: 8:43

You're right. We should, we'll cover this part first, right? So there is a new teacher t shirt available. You know, we, we aren't the only people with merch American Institute of architects also has. Their own merch and they have this real fun t shirt and I'm sure you'll, I'll let you fill, fill in, fill in with more detail, but it, when did they, well, you might know when they started this, but basically this t shirt that they have in the store now has added our good friend, Evelyn Lee. And it's the list of all the women AIA national presidents. Across time. And so now we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's 8. Evelyn is the 8th. Kurt is

Jamie: 9:34

doing the math, folks.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:36

I needed 2 hands for that.

Jamie: 9:38

Yeah, goodness.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:40

So, so anyway, I don't know. When did they, they, I think this started I don't remember.

Jamie: 9:45

Do you remember? I'm, I'm not sure if it was Like maybe right after Jane, maybe Emily did it first.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:54

But

Jamie: 9:55

yeah. So I think, you know, it's it's, and it's not just, you know, you know, women. National presidents, but it's also to, to some degree also, it's, it's a, it's a generational shift to and, but, but I think what I loved about seeing this sort of highlighted was it wasn't anyone of the last three who was highlighting it it was Helene. Who kind of brought this, this one out and sort of, you know, brought it to everyone's attention here, you know, very, very recently. And you know, as somebody that you and I both know well and admire for a lot of reasons Helene is certainly somebody that. You know, when she speaks to something like this and highlights it for folks, I think not just those who know her, but I think she carries a presence about her that is, is one where people listen, you know, even if, even if they aren't, even if those who follow her or are friends with her or colleagues of hers, maybe don't even know the importance of this. You know, and both and not just the importance of it, but also that it's, there's only been eight question mark.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:16

Evelyn is the 101st president of all, of all time. So, yeah, so that's eight ish percent, seven point something percent. A very small percentage.

Jamie: 11:28

Very small.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:32

So, so I saw that this was in the, the AI store. I said, well, I saw it. We both saw Helene's post on LinkedIn.

Jamie: 11:41

And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that there's a Texan on there too. So just

Kurt Neiswender: 11:45

saying, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth. Yep. So I, I wanted, I just threw that in there on our whiteboard. It's nice. You know, we use this whiteboard for the year. That's kind of nice to have, like, these little bits of information as a retrospective. You know, kind of like we did at the end of last year. You kind of look at the whole board. Anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll revisit that by the end of the year. So we have Frank Lloyd Wright, 150. And Jamie got to go visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house. In what

Jamie: 12:30

city? Yeah. So I was in Amarillo, Texas. So Texas, big state folks for those who aren't here. And even those who are here we don't, we don't use our hand as a map. Though, though I, I do appreciate the Michiganders who do it's something that I initially thought I was being punked when they, when they started to do that, but sure enough, it, and it does seem to work, but but I will say that Texas is probably the only state that is so proud of the shape of its state that it appears on everything. And so there's some clever branding in that. So the pan handle is that literally the handle, up in the Northwest, Northwest portion of the state, I'd be remiss. And if I didn't say that the, the wildfires that are out there are as bad as, and if maybe even worse than than what's being reported. So if, if folks aren't aware of the, the terrible wildflowers, wild fires, excuse me that have. Blanket of that region. It is the largest wildfire ever recorded in the state of Texas.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:45

So we know it's

Jamie: 13:47

a big state, right? And so it's kind of north and northeast of Amarillo multiple counties Lots of fairly, well, reasonably large cities that are up there Canadian being one border as well that have all been affected lots of damaged structures, you know, structures just lost. So just, it's just acres and acres of land and but we were up there. Recently for some work, and we're also fortunate enough through some friends to be able to tour one of four Frank Lloyd Wright designs in the state of Texas. Yeah, so there's two in Dallas, and then there's one in Houston. In Dallas, so of the four, three, three of the four, our residences, our houses private residences, and then one in Dallas is also a theater that he did at the tail end of his life and career,

Kurt Neiswender: 14:51

but not the theater

Jamie: 14:54

in Dallas. Well, there's a bunch of theaters in Dallas. You know which one I'm talking about. I know, I know which one. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Not, not, you know, not the Texas Theater.

Kurt Neiswender: 15:07

We're not going to bring up any conspiracy theories right now. We have, Jamie's got to get to he's got to get to watching his soccer. Yeah,

Jamie: 15:14

I mean, I mean, you know, we got to, let's keep this episode moving

Kurt Neiswender: 15:18

along. I mean. Well, so this is Amarillo. And so that means that this is one of the houses. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. I, it's just being a little funny and but yeah, so it's, it's, that's actually, it's makes it even more rare, you know, few and far between to, to be able to access you know, Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, he has a sort of an interesting past now that, you know, we've learned more about it, but as an architect, you know, he's super talented. And had a really interesting approach and, and, I don't want to use the word style because I, I have a friend who reminds me, you know, that it can be a, a loaded term, but, you know, Frank Lloyd Wright had a lot of creativity and ability to invent spatial experiences and characteristics in his homes were, were definitely each, each one, you know, unique and, and full of Very, very custom sort of unique details. So, I, I, I literally know nothing about this particular house given the access, so I'll, I'll pitch it to you. You have an outside image, exterior shot, and an interior

Jamie: 16:33

sketch. Yeah, and I'd say that, you know, just as much as this wasn't on your radar you know, this wasn't on mine as well. I only learned of this particular house in the last year, year and a half or so having done some work in Amarillo and talking to folks out there kind of learned of its existence. And so this is the Sterling Kinney House. And, you know, for the Frank Lloyd Wright aficionados out there there is another Kinney house, so sometimes there people will get the two kind of conflated but no, this is in fact in Amarillo, Texas and the, we were fortunate to, to tour it. With the house's second owner. So, yeah, and, and they've, they've had it for about 20 years. It's still kind of a primary residence. Not they're necessarily primary residents. They do live in it from time to time, but then guests stay there. They use it also for, you know, kind of vacationing and you know, events and friends and things like that. So, but it's as. Many other Frank Lloyd Wright residences that one, you know, would be more aware of they're basically museums to a, to a large extent. So the fact that this one is a residence really, really wasn't altered and has a lot of the original furnishings in it. And a lot of the original built ins in it. The owner also had the original plans and specifications. So the, you know, because they bought it from, you know, the first owner and the estate of the first owner we were, we were, they were more than pleased and more than generous in sharing what they had in terms of the drawings and I mean, just to totally, you know, Architecture junkie geeky about this they literally had the tube. That the drawings were mailed to the first owner. So yeah, it was, you know, it was pretty great. It's super rare to have

Kurt Neiswender: 18:42

drawings in, in any, well, for any building, but especially, you know, historic ones and, and well, well known architects. So yeah, now that's why I flipped over to the image of you, you. Architects pointing at drawings because I was joking about that earlier, but it makes for a good, uh, pose for, for any, any kind of website work. But the, yeah, that's really cool to see the drawing, you know, that's, that's very rare and, and for us, I guess it's more interesting maybe because we can read the drawings specifically.

Jamie: 19:20

Well, and it was fun to, to, to kind of talk about it with the owner a little bit about what we were, what we were excited to see in those images. You know, I, I shared my sketchbook and kind of, you know, my penchant for drawing, you know, with them and but you can see where the walls have a really distinctive battering to them. A lot of Frank Lloyd Wright's residences have that battered wall effect. In the first sketch, you can see from the exterior, kind of that battered wall as well as some curvilinear. Walls, some radiused brick walls right, did come out to the site and help site the site, the building and he was commissioned to do the project in 1957 right, passed away in 59 the house was completed in 61. So he didn't necessarily see it finished. But his firm, and which eventually became a school Taliesin Taliesin West, which we've talked about in a previous episode here recently you know, that's, that's where all the labels and things on the, on those drafting tubes are. You know, we're in the specifications, but yeah, so the walls have a basically a five degree batter to them, which seems very small. But when you think about what that does, spatially, it does become something of a unique feature. There are also some really, really hearth. So if you go to that second sketch, and that's what we were actually looking at here in section was, so the hearth has a custom metal grate and it's set within a series of rings that are, are sunken right there at the hearth area. And that metal grate is set. With both within the hearth and it was designed by right. It's actually in the construction documents. So all the drawings for it are there, but but the 2 walls that you're seeing here and what I tried to capture in the sketch, which really is really almost too hard to do from this angle. Either side of the hearth itself. Those 2 brick planes that are vertical. And plum. They're actually shifted by one brick. So there's some and then you can see sort of that extra plane of brick above the hearth. And what that does is it mediates the two wall planes. So there's this subtle shifting of the vertical planes, and then what's interesting, kind of, you kind of carry it all the way through, the metal grade at the bottom actually almost interlocks between those two walls. And kind of serves as the way to kind of interlock between those two things. So really, really clever detail. And you can kind of almost imagine what that process is of somebody who's, you know, sketching and doodling it out and iterating to get to that moment where they're like, oh, yeah, we're, we're shifting these walls. The great in plan is going to be the way to kind of. Lock them effectively together. And that was, you know, those kinds of moments were things that were really special to see both in being in the house, but then also seeing the plans themselves.,

Kurt Neiswender: 22:43

Focusing on the idea of the hearth is a good example that you could actually, if you don't know anything about Frank Lloyd Wright. You can use that to sort of key in on images or photographs or drawings of his other buildings, especially houses, because he does put a lot of emphasis on the hearth. As this focal point and everything kind of radiates or, or as sort of held in gravity or orbit around the center point of the heart. And actually I did see your photographs in addition to the sketches, which I did, I don't have here for, for today, but you can see the, the sort of sunken, the stepping down. At the hearth, which is groovy. That's pretty cool. And then you have the hearth, which I'm going to have to go back now and look a little more detail at the actual hearth grill itself. But yeah, you know, the idea of the, the internal, as you put it, like, locking. The two wall planes and creating this, this sort of Keystone in a way, I mean, it's not really a Keystone, but it's like this, the anchor to

Jamie: 24:01

everything. I think that's a great way to describe it. I mean, you know, Keystone is the right, you know, is the right concept here. I mean, it doesn't literally do it. But I think from a design point of view, it figuratively does it. The other thing I sort of say, as we're sort of, you know, looking at this interior and you mentioned the orbits that are kind of created kind of radiating forms writes work always is about, you know, Dematerializing that boundary of interior to exterior and really allowing the occupants in the house to have really controlled views. The owner of, of this property said, you know, it really, and they had studied, right, and they were, they are going to be, they are a fantastic steward and they will continue to be a fantastic steward of, you know, it's right to be in their hands. And that was very, very evident. You know, as they were talking about living in the house and experiencing it through the seasons and, you know, and throughout the day where light is coming in and what those views of the horizon are from inside where the sun sets is, you know, is. Obviously very, very important, but here, because the walls are effectively in all the main living areas, a lot of glass you, you don't want to have that glare. And if you're kind of sitting in these rooms and, you know, experiencing other people and you don't, you don't want to have that glare kind of coming in, you don't want to close the blinds, you know, so it's, it's very, very deliberate that positioning of, of citing the house and then also where these, these views are. But in the same sketch, you sort of see this orbiting around the hearth, and then the furniture off to the left of the sketch is original to the house as well. It's a, kind of a banquette style couch curved. That Matt, you know, mirrors all of the other orbits in plan. It has a built in shelf behind it. And so that welcomes you into that, into the house. It's, and then beyond, you can actually see kind of in the, in the far corner there that battering that I'm talking about with, with the, the, the Britain was kind of at an angle, but there's this other idea of creating pass through spaces. And not necessarily pinch points in a plan, but where you're compressing the space to make people kind of move through it.

Kurt Neiswender: 26:38

We try and teach our students that the last, the last one, you know, that idea of compression and expansion and tension about. Making creating movement through those efforts. So it's a good example. I'm going to go now. You have to go watch a soccer game. I'm going to go. Well, I got some homework from Jamie to do, but I also going to go look at what I can find out about this building because I'm interested to see a little bit more, see if I could dig up a little more on the Internet.

Jamie: 27:10

Well, thank you for letting me share that one. I mean, it was a, it was very special. Opportunity, you know, for, you know, someone who loves history and architecture, I mean, you would, you would been, you know, probably feeling very similarly, you know, about that opportunity and yeah, to be able to do some sketches as well associated with it to try and capture it from my own memories and then share with, share with all, all of y'all listening it was pretty neat.