One day in 1950, John Christian, a professor at Purdue University, and his wife were thinking about building a house. John decided to call Frank Lloyd Wright's office, just to see what would happen. Wright himself - not a secretary or apprentice or anyone else who would certainly brush this off - answered, and he and Christian started a conversation that ended 5 years later with a house, titled Samara, in West Lafayette, IN.

It's like a seven minute walk from me, and I had never heard about it until today. Though he has retired from teaching, John Christian is still alive, still lives there, and is very accommodating about taking visitors.

One of my teachers mentioned it today in class, said he was going at 7:00, and asked if anyone wanted to meet him there. I have no great interest in architecture, but I'd heard the mystique of Frank Lloyd Wright and wanted to see what was up. Plus, extra credit, LDO.

So I stepped out at 6:41, put the address into my trusty handheld Garmin GPS thingy, and set off. It's no wonder people don't know about this house, because, while it's right there next to Ross-Ade Stadium in absolute terms, it's built in/on/around a hill surrounded by trees at the dead end of a nondescript road that turns out to be maddeningly spirally. In the darkness, walking by bad cars and beat-up mailboxes, I began to wonder if I was on the right track, or if this place even existed at all.

Finally I got to the end, couldn't see much but knew this must be it, and started walking up the curvy brick path. There were vaguely Asian-looking lights, a smiling Buddha that in this particular light looked like someone telling a scary campfire story while holding a flashlight to his face, and some mysterious twisted pieces of metal that ran from each corner of the building to the ground. It certainly didn't look like a house. Too low, too flat, too everywhere. Soon I was surrounded by it, but where was the front door? and where were my classmates?

I kept going around - the path was never straight - and came to a window. There was an old woman sitting there, inside, who saw me. I thought I must have the wrong place, wtf is wrong with you James why didn't you go with somebody or check it out in daylight first or learn some real directions instead of trusting this newfangled GPS doohickey? But she reacted to me like I was expected, and she pointed just a little farther down the path. I walked, and hey, a door. She opened it, beckoned me in to the small, rather cramped entryway, and pointed to the right. I turned and started walking.

The ceiling went up. The floor went down. The walls became glass. I was in the living room of John Christian's house. It was something. I saw two chairs, each occupied by an old man, on the far end, and closer to me, a couch with my classmates. I was still a bit stunned, but I sat down and signed the guest book I was handed.

It's hard to describe what I was experiencing then. This room was a work of art, overwhelmingly so. It was open to other rooms, as well, and anywhere I looked I could see more; I didn't see flat walls or doors or televisions. I felt as though I should be watching this through a camera, where only one thing would be in focus and the rest wouldn't be so heavy on my mind all at once. Not only that, but I was sitting on the couch. It was like being a museum and getting to not only touch the painting, but to walk inside it, say hi to Mona Lisa and ask what she was smiling about.

One of the men in the chairs was Mr. Christian, and the other was a docent who, along with his wife - the woman at the entrance - proceeded to give us a tour of the house. They were knowledgeable and funny and did a great job explaining Wright, and how he went about building this particular house.

They described the house as a symbiotic melding of Wright's general principles with the Christians' personalities. "If you like this house, you like John," said one of the docents. Well, I guess I like John, and now I really want to see other buildings, especially houses, by Wright, to try and figure out what came from whom. I also really want to come back to this house in daytime, to see the way the light comes in and moves through the place.

I could keep going, but let's just stop here and say
-any of you guys know about FLW? I'm very interested but know nothing, any books I should read, buildings I should see?
-ask me specific questions about the house; I want to describe it, if only to get it straight in my head, but I don't know where to start.

cliff notes: I got Stendhal syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_%28house%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

Nicely written, but it's hard to appreciate it w/o pics.

Never been to one of his houses, but I have a couple of books on him. My ex-gf had a pop up book of some of his architecture, which was awesome.

Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song about him.

That's the limit of my FLW info. I am pretty jealous that you have been to one of the houses designed.

I've been to every single FLW house in the Los Angeles area. Here's a web site with photos of them.

I love the Ennis-Brown/house the most....pretty spectacular and made mostly from concrete!

I'm reminded of that Vincent Price movie, The House on the Hill, I think it was. Also of old Indian ruins. Interesting looking, somewhat tomb-like and castle-like.

PBS did a great documentary about him a few years back. It's probably on Netflix by now.

This is the only good pic I could find of the house, but obv the inside is the good stuff. I will have to bring a camera next time and bump this thread.

Really interesting roof.

Wright is one of my personal heroes. If you want to learn more about his life and work, Ken Burn's documentary is excellent. http://www.pbs.org/flw/ (In particular, I liked the scenes involving Falling Water and the Johnson Wax Factory.)

Wright's life was really interesting. I love how he said F the establishment and did his own thing. And, in almost Joseph Campbell mythical fashion, after his greatest test, he acheved his greatest success.

From a personal standpoint, I first heard of Wright when I moved to MI in the 90's. Right near where I lived, there were many Wright inspired homes and buildings in the area and also orginal works; including an old gas station with a "Jetson's like" motif.

As a poorly educated, twenty-something construction worker, my first time in a Wright house resulted in an intellectual epiphany. Ever since, I have been a devoted and grateful admirer of his work.

IMO, to truly appreciate Wright, I think you have to look at his work in the context of the time and place that he produced his designs and then compare that to today. Even today, his work is still way ahead of its time.

From an artistic and creative stand point, go into the Guggenheim and, without looking up or around, take the elevator to the top and walk down the spiraling ramp. Spend time looking at the art on display.

When you get to the bottom, go to the center of the room and look up. I think you will find the building as inspiring as any of the art on display.

For me, Wright's work is a physical manifstation of that extremely pure brilliance/genius/intelligence/God...whatever you want to call it, that runs like a current through our exstence. In relative terms, despite its strength, that current has few conduits.

Whether I look at a Van Gogh or a Pollock, listen to Beethoven's 5th or Miles Davis' A kind of Blue or walk through a Frank Lloyd Wright design it is all one and the same.

Awesome trip report Kimbell. I just now took the time to read it. Pretty cool! So how much of the house did you end up seeing anyway? Did you get the whole tour like bedrooms and everything? Is there a basement level? You mentioned that you didn't see "flat" walls or doors, but how is that possible? Also, you mentioned that they explained to you guys how Wright went about building this particular house. Please share! What did you learn about his building method? (I know nothing about him other than that I think his homes look amazing.) I read the wiki article you linked and it said that this house has more color than a typical FLW home.

I would so love to see it. I wonder how difficult it is to schedule a tour.

-We went through everything but the master bedroom and bathroom, which was standard for the tours (they happen all the time, we weren't even the only one that day.)

-No basement. I'm under the impression that Wright didn't like them.

-Basically the house is based around a strong center with every room sorta just hanging off of it. Obv there is steel keeping this all together behind the scenes, and this allows a lot of openness: no columns or posts, few load-bearing walls, etc. Randomly turn and look in any direction from any spot and you'll see other rooms, maybe even outside. Imagine a line going straight out from your eyes: it'll be a long while before it hits a wall and stops.

-Wright apparently just invented stuff on the spot, always with an eye for the future. He foresaw that the owners would have multiple TVs, and left places for them. (One is a super badass remote-controlled mechanical trapdoor piece of brilliance that rises out of what looks like a little wooden cabinet.) There's heating in the form of water flowing through pipes under the floor: this takes less space, doesn't [censored] up the air, and is more efficient. The house was built to work well both with and without air conditioning. The list goes on. I don't know about the particular methods of carpentry or whatever, if that's what you were asking: the docent was more of an artsy guy as opposed to a technical buff.

Wonderful post. I saw the Burns documentary too and also loved the Johnson Wax factory part too. I felt such a burning desire to see the place after that! Even though there were aspects of it that didn't sit quite right with me at first.

i think truly appreciating this at the level you do will be forever beyond me, and I'm sad and frightened and a little humiliated by it. Honestly I think so much of architecture is bullsh*t, but sometimes you get gripped by a genius and intuit the best of what he could be all about, and it humbles you. There are not a lot of architects, rightly or wrongly, that I feel humbled by. But I cannot deny Wright's power and ability to make me look more carefully and appreciate possibilities. That Wright's work can demand my humility and make my conceits impossible makes me feel as happy and excited as a child. It's probably far too optimistic and egotistic a dream, but I would be delighted to feel I fully understood his genius one day.

Re: architecture

I couldn't agree more. 99% of it is crap. Rand, in The Fountainhead, her politics and seeming obsession with being tied up and sexually dominated by the Chrysler building aside, really nailed the problem; homogeneity, fueled by mediocrity, with the sole goal and consequence an indistinguishable landscape populated with a solid blockade of uninspired, unimpressive and unforgiving banality fruitlessly hiding behind addresses.