Frank Loyd Wright in a Crosley

[jsneddon]

I was thumbing through a copy of Interview Magazine last night and came across this.

 

[tony barnhill]

Advertisement?

 

[jsneddon]

I don't think so - my 4 year old started banging on the "office" door before I got a chance to finish the article but I get the impression that these were owned by him and used on his compound in the midwest before he moved out to AZ.

 

[tony barnhill]

Well, neither are moving & its posed sorta like an ad.

 

[aeronca65t]

Yeah, we passed a Crosley while we were towing the Spridget on the way to the Pittsburgh Vintage a while back. I spent the next while telling Linda about this business of Frank Lloyd Wright and these cars (*anything* to pass the time on a long tow!).

Wright wanted folks to live in a commune-type area and the Crosleys would be "everyone's".....no ownership.

Kind of an idealistic idea but neat in it's own way. I think the commune fell apart after a while. As I recall they had at least a dozen communal Crosleys at this place (wonder if any of them still exist?).

Wright was an interesting character, but I dislike his architecture.

 

[jsneddon]

They were doing something a little like that in Portland, OR for a while. Some group would pick up thrift-store bikes, painted them pink and fixed them up and then left them around the downtown area. You could take it and ride it to your destination and then leave it for the next guy. Unfortunately even though they were worthless bikes and an ungodly color they kept disappearing.

Go figure.

People suck.

 

[53caddy]

Intresting. I like Frank loyd wrights archt. it is so intresting and wow didnt know about the stuff that yall were talking about

 

[coldplugs]

[ QUOTE ]
...You could take it and ride it to your destination and then leave it for the next guy...

[/ QUOTE ]

I've worked with several large manufacturers who supplied bikes like this. It could take a half hour or more to walk from one end of a building to another, and longer to walk between buildings. These were usually aerospace or shipyards.

I think the most I ever saw was at Newport News Naval Shipyard, where they had hundreds of bikes (thousands maybe?) spread all over for whoever needed them.

I guess the message is that the communal bike idea can work but it takes a chain link fence and security guards to help it along.

[ I found that F L Wright photo via a Google search - that's his wife (#3) riding with him. ]

 

[jsneddon]

[ QUOTE ]
Intresting. I like Frank loyd wrights archt. it is so intresting and wow didnt know about the stuff that yall were talking about

[/ QUOTE ]

So I finally read the article.

Apparently there was a lot we didn't know about FLW....

Let's just say that he and the wife in the photo had some rather strange ideas of what to do about having a bunch of men in a commune without many women around.... Lotsa rules about leaving the compound etc etc etc.

Anyway....

Interesting about the Crosley angle. Since they didn't leave camp very much I guess they were really fancy golf-carts. I'd take one.

Everyone knows about the Falling Waters and the Gugenheim but he also made a bunch of post/late victorian "Prairie Style" mansions in Oak Park and Springfield, IL early in his career that have some amazing details in them. Lots of hints of what was to come and simple but elegant stained-glass works.

There's also a Phillips 66 station in Minnesota that I stopped by one time. Pretty incredible for a gas station. It was the only thing built in his "Broadacre City" plan which was part of his utopian nuttiness that the Crosley picture came from.

 

[swift6]

[ QUOTE ]
Everyone knows about the Falling Waters and the Gugenheim but he also made a bunch of post/late victorian "Prairie Style" mansions in Oak Park and Springfield, IL early in his career that have some amazing details in them. Lots of hints of what was to come and simple but elegant stained-glass works.

[/ QUOTE ]

Peoria Illinois has at least one as well. BTDT.