NY | bikewright 2.0

One of a dozen or so different leaded glass designs Wright used. Actually this window is a “place keeper” of thin, clear plastic while the new leaded glass window is being made.

I crashed last night before I could do this magnificent house justice so I’ll try to do better today before I write our blog. The scale of the details that Wright specified in the Martin House is overwhelming and for me that makes this house his boldest Prairie house statement. I know from my own experience that one does not often pair with a client who has the temperament and means to give the architect free rein but Darwin Martin seemed to approach that ideal. To have been witness to the meetings between Martin and Wright would have been to watch Wright in full and glorious flight as he described his ideas from all altitudes, from the 30,000 foot view of the entire project down to the 1 foot or lower details. Martin allowed Wright to bring his full genius to bear and introduced him to other Buffalo clients like the Larkin Company where he was able to express his ideas of how a business should be organized and streamlined hierarchically. Sadly the Larkin Building does not exist now except in photos.

One of the concepts that Wright innovated at the Martin house that had no equivalent at the time was exploding the box of the house freeing up an interior space with few walls or divisions between living areas and bringing the supporting structure into the interior allowing the exterior walls to be fenestrated to a degree never seen before. Using leaded glass designs he created rows of multi-colored windows that brought light and color inside this new “exploded box” bringing exterior and interior areas together.

I could go on with my admiration of the Martin House and the level of quality of its restoration but others have studied the house and written more eloquently about it so I encourage you to start with a Google search and include as many images as you can pull up. Here are a few more of ours from yesterday.

The view from the main house down the pergolas to the conservatory. The glass in the floor allows light from the lower level to softly light the path at night.

This light is a manifestation of Wright’s desire to design the entire house environment

Exterior space outside the living room that becomes one with the interior space

Looking back to the pergola from the conservatory

48 miles. Many on the Friendship Trail Bike Path

We slept in a bit and managed to get away from Dunnville around 8. We got “temporarily confused” again since there are two different highways there both numbered “3” – one is a county road and the other a provincial highway. We managed to get it figured out and rode along the coast on relatively quiet roads.

After 24 miles we got to Port Colborne and hooked up with the Friendship Trail, paved all the way to the Peace Bridge back to the good old USA. Among the way we passed the former site of the Erie Beach Hotel. W.E.B DuBois organized the founding meeting of the Niagara Movement there as a counter to what he considered Booker T. Washington‘s more moderate approach to the fight for black civil rights.

We had to bike across the bridge that was totally jammed up with traffic in both directions! We passed a whole line of cars and trucks but then had to wait for the immigration agent to let us in for the interview. Eventually we made it through and were back on the streets of the Buffalo waterfront.

We spent the night with a former Dartmouth classmate of Maja’s who had reached out to us when she heard about our ride through the alumni magazine’s class notes. We had a wonderful time catching up with her and meeting two of her four kids.

Buffalo at one point (around the end of the 19th century) was a very prosperous shipping and manufacturing center but like most rust belt cities has fallen on harder times. It boasts a neighborhood and park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and buildings by Wright, Sullivan, Richardson and Saarinen. And the target of our visit today was the Darwin Martin complex.

We met Mary Roberts, the Executive Director of the Martin House Restoration Corporation, who gave us an in depth look at the massive effort involved with the organization and carrying out of the beautiful renovations. The house is Wright’s largest and most complex Prairie Style design from the early 1900s and was conceived as a family compound. He utilized many innovative concepts in both its design and construction.

I’ll include a few of our photos here and will post more tomorrow but for a better understanding of the house’s history and more pics you should start at these entries and go in deeper from there:

Wright’s leaded glass panels bring a kaleidoscope of color in the house from the outside as well as from electric lighting

The view down the long pergola completely and absolutely faithfully rebuilt

This beautiful built-in has two doors that open to reveal bookshelves and then the bookshelves open to more shelves behind them. Buffalo, NY, 2016

This beautiful built-in has two doors that open to reveal bookshelves and then the bookshelves open to more shelves behind them.

bikewright 2.0

Biking tour across America to benefit Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

NY

Darwin Martin House Part 2

Day 63 – Dunnville to Buffalo