Latest news with #Fallingwater
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Bedrock in the bedroom and an indoor stream: is this Arizona's strangest home?
Want to commune with nature? Bring the outside in? Ditch your white-noise machine for a babbling brook going through your living room? A home that went on the market last month in Arizona offers all this and more. Sidewinder Ranch is a 40-acre hillside property built over natural rock formations. Every room is of geological interest, with a TV shelf perched on rock and boulders creeping to the foot of the bed. A fountain built inside has the feel of a mountain stream, and the property has stunning desert views. 'Buy 40 acres but it might as well be 400,' read the listing. It amounts to a rugged, no-frills version of Frank Lloyd Wright's celebrated Fallingwater. And the three-bedroom house is incredibly secluded, about a half-hour from the town of Willcox, population 3,200. For $225,000, you get the house, the property and a free bulldozer. It does have some downsides, however: the current owner 'regularly pulls rattlesnakes out' of the bathroom, according to the realtor, Clay Greathouse of Arizona Desert Rat Realty. A prospective new owner also got attacked by bees from a hive in the wall, Greathouse says. Apparently, that only added to its charms; Greathouse accepted an offer from the bee-stung buyer on Monday night. The origins of Sidewinder Ranch are a mystery. 'It looks like a mining shack or something, but there's no traces of any mining that I see around there. So it just has me puzzled,' Greathouse says. The person who built it, he told the local NBC affiliate 12News, 'had to have been some, I want to say, a hippie-dippie guy, got a lot of time on his hands'. Greathouse estimates the house was built in the 80s or 90s, though an abandoned nearby structure dates to the 1920s. The original owner stopped paying taxes for unclear reasons – perhaps death – and the house has exchanged hands a few times since. The current owner doesn't live there full time; instead, he treats it as a sort of 'cabin' for getaways, says Greathouse. 'It does take a certain adventurous spirit just to get up [the hill] to this place.' The treacherous ascent requires four-wheel drive. The owner bonded with the new buyer over a shared love for motorcycles and, presumably, isolation. A creased book the realtor found in the building fell open to a 'pretty appropriate' section on living in solitude. Despite the rustic nature of the place, it is connected to the power grid. Its kitchen is 'better than you'd expect', according to the property blog Zillow Gone Wild. It boasts a septic system, a well and a bathroom with a shower and spa. Greathouse believes it has its own aquifer, making it immune to big agriculture's water wars. Add a few solar panels and 'it could definitely be a prepper place,' Greathouse says. Still, the new owner has some work ahead of him to 'make it livable', he adds. 'When the present owner bought it, one of the biggest tasks he had was chasing the pack rats out.' Many other homes in Cochise county, Arizona, are unusual, and that's no coincidence. A legal provision in the county eases the permitting process, aiming to 'encourage the use of ingenuity' and facilitate 'the use of alternative building materials and methods'. Homes in the county are made using geodesic domes, rammed earth and straw bales. 'It's kind of a freedom-loving, do-as-you-want sort of place,' Greathouse says. Further afield, the American west hosts plenty of other architectural oddities. Three years ago, a house fit for the Jetsons – essentially a giant disc on a pole – hit the market in Tulsa, Oklahoma. California's Bay Area is home to what's known as the Flintstones house, a cartoonish, dinosaur-filled property that has long delighted onlookers (the occasional legal complaint notwithstanding). Sidewinder Ranch, on the other hand, is for those chasing the real Flintstonian dream of living directly on bedrock.
Euronews
23-04-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Multi-million Frank Lloyd Wright lamp to be auctioned
ADVERTISEMENT Fancy lighting up your living room with the ambient glow of a historically-important piece of design? It might set you back up to $5 million (€4.35 million). A rare lamp from legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is about to go up for auction. He designed the Double-Pedestal lamp for the Dana–Thomas House, which he built for the philanthropist Susan Lawrence Dana in 1902. Completed in 1904, the Springfield, Illinois house is a classic of Wright's decadent design style through its sense of flow and resplendent selection of leaded glass windows, bringing light into every crevice. Alongside the windows and skylights, the Dana–Thomas House was lit by the largest collection of Wright's glass-built furniture, including Double-Pedestal lamps. Only two of the unique lamps remain. One is owned by the house's collection, with the second now going up for sale. The Double-Pedestal lamp will go to auction as part of Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on 13 May. It is estimated to sell for between $3 million (€2.61 million) and $5 million (€4.35 million). Frank Lloyd Wright, Double-Pedestal Lamp Sotheby's 'The lamp distils the essence of Wright's design principles into a single object - like a miniature house crafted by the architect himself,' said Jodi Pollack, Sotheby's chairman. Wright, who died in 1959, was one of the key figures of 20th century design . He designed over 1,000 items, including more than 400 buildings. Around 300 of these buildings still survive including many of his most famous such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fallingwater, and his own family home. Dana was one of the first women who employed Wright to design a house. The result was the boldest design of Wright's career up to that point, featuring the philanthropist's love of Japanese art, and commitment to social justice as a throughline theme of the building. Carrying on the design ethos of the house into its objects, the lamp's bronze structure and kaleidoscopic glass create the image of a traditional Japanese temple with the 'sumac pattern' from the house's interior design replicated on the lamp's top. Frank Lloyd Wright, Double-Pedestal Lamp Sotheby's Designed when electric lamps were still a relative novelty, Pollack describes the lamp as a 'beacon of innovation, progress, and modernity.' The lamp was last sold at auction for $2 million (€3.09 million adjusted for inflation) in 2002. Technically, the most a lamp from the architect has gone for is $2.9 million (€2.64 million adjusted) for a 1902 ceiling light from the Francis W. Little House in 2023. 'As the last remaining example of this treasured icon to remain in private hands, this offering presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors and institutions to acquire one of the great masterpieces of our generation,' Pollack said.
CNN
07-04-2025
- Business
- CNN
This famous architect's iconic furniture line is getting its first update in decades
There are only a handful of architects in contemporary history whose names are widely recognized. Think Zaha Hadid, known for her futuristic, sinewy forms that seem to defy structural logic (see, for example, the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan). Or Frank Lloyd Wright, with his long, often low-slung homes of concrete and red tidewater cypress, designed to harmonize with their surroundings (Fallingwater, one of his most famous works, is perched over a creek in a quiet glade outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Among this cohort is also Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose vision of industrial modernism helped define the look of postwar urban America. His signature materials — high-tensile steel, black graphite paint, broad panes of glass — and his minimalist ethos of 'less is more' set him apart from the more decorative, hand-hewn buildings of earlier generations. Often referred to simply as 'Mies,' the architect and furniture designer was born in Germany in 1886 and relocated to Chicago, Illinois in 1937, where he lived and worked (in part as the head of architecture at what is now the Illinois Institute of Technology) until his death in 1969. So notable was Mies's fastidious approach and masterful oeuvre throughout the 20th century that, upon his passing, The New York Times described him as a singular 'leader of modern architecture' in his obituary. And now, his legacy is expanding. At the 2025 edition of the world's most prestigious design fair, Salone del Mobile, in Milan, Italy, his iconic 'Barcelona' furniture line — a sleek, blocky trio of a chair, daybed and footstool — is receiving its first major update in decades. Added options in the range feature new upholstery choices in twill, velvet and linen, and an ultra-matte black frame (perhaps a subtle nod to the architect's hallmark painted steel). Previously, Barcelona items have only been available in various leathers, with polished chrome frames. First shown at the German Pavilion at the 1929 International Exposition, the Barcelona chair — the most well known item from the trifecta — wasn't exactly as it is today: the piece featured only white pigskin and a chrome plated frame that had to be bolted together. Conceived in collaboration with the architect and designer Lilly Reich, it was to function as a ceremonial seat for King Alfonso XIII of Spain at the opening of the expo; its shape reportedly molded after an ancient Roman folding stool. The furniture company Knoll, which later acquired the rights to produce the Barcelona designs in 1948, helped to reengineer the apparatus, forming the swooping 'X' shape chassis upon which the squared-off cushions sit. The same cantilevered structure is seen on the footstool, while the daybed, which Knoll calls a 'couch,' follows a more traditional four-legged blueprint. The Barcelona range, which has since been in production for nearly eighty years, is made and sold by MillerKnoll (the company was formed following Herman Miller's 2021 acquisition of Knoll) — and it's not cheap: base models for the chair start at nearly $8,000. Regardless, it's a bestseller. On its significance, Amy Auscherman, MillerKnoll's head of archives and brand heritage, told CNN: 'Because the chair in particular has become such a part of visual culture, people are surprised to learn that its original form was developed almost 100 years ago. The line has become emblematic of modernism.' The reluctance to introduce new variations, until recently, stemmed from a desire to stay true to Mies's tastes and in keeping with the chair's original hide-based upholstery. But, after recent consultations with professors and authors, the team at Knoll learned that Mies did not oppose the use of other textiles in the collection. If anything, the architect was deterred by the process itself: 'The chair is a very difficult object,' he told Time magazine in 1957. 'A skyscraper is almost easier.' Auscherman described the Barcelona chair especially as 'an almost anonymous design,' given how established the piece has become in contemporary design vernacular. A prized object within homes, but also office and corporate spaces, the chair retains a universality that's unusual in the often dissimilar worlds of residential and commercial decor. Yet, the architect's work is anything but incognito. There is a clear aesthetic signature to his work, which is informed by a broad swath of 20th century influences — Germany's progressive Bauhaus school specializing in modernist art, design and architecture, of which he was the third and final director before its dissolution in 1933, and Western Europe's International Style movement being among them. It's clean, it's linear, but there's a human throughline — flourishes of imagination, where permitted, and always with restraint. Mies is perhaps most remembered for iconic structures such as New York City's Seagram Building, a midtown skyscraper completed in 1958 that is still heralded as a beacon of corporate modernism; the Edith Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, an ethereal, minimalist residential design made from industrial materials; and the Lafayette Park residential district in Detroit, Michigan, which is considered to be among the United States' most successful post-World War II urban redevelopment projects, with its multiple-unit townhomes and high-rise buildings erected alongside acres of greenery, recreation facilities and schools. Much like his furniture, there's modernity and usefulness in his projects, each formed with a finite attention (Mies was known to say: 'God is in the details'). In his legacy, artistry and utility co-exist — it's effectively why his footprint remains so pervasive today, said Jonathan Olivares, senior vice president of design at Knoll. 'The Barcelona collection offers conceptual, formal and functional clarity,' said Olivares. 'These are enduring qualities that transcend trends.' 'Mies left us with his most famous maxim 'less is more,'' added Auscherman. 'It's a philosophy that continues to shape the way people understand modern design.'
South China Morning Post
15-03-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Frank Lloyd Wright's last house, just built from 1959 plans, is open for overnight stays
The construction of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's last project, 'RiverRock', in the US state of Ohio has reached completion and the property is now open for overnight rentals. Advertisement While internationally renowned for his flagship projects including Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, the Johnson Wax Company headquarters in Wisconsin, the Ennis House in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Wright also created a design for smaller, more affordable residences called Usonian homes. RiverRock was Wright's final Usonian home blueprint, delivered in 1959. More than 60 years later, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home was built on the homesite as originally intended, following Wright's original plans while also meeting modern building code regulations. The property in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, was bought by Sarah Dykstra in 2018. The purchase included an existing 1955 Wright home called The Louis Penfield House, as well as the unbuilt Wright plan known as Project #5909 in the Taliesin Archives, Wright's office.
