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Frank Lloyd Wright commissions

Frank Lloyd Wright Commission Titles

The information presented here exhibits the extent to which John Geiger considered many points of reference related to a given Frank Lloyd Wright project. Aside from basic information such as title, location, and project date, Geiger extended his interests to types of floor and roof plans, types of construction and building purpose, and where possible the dates of the various stages of development in the design process and construction. Geiger often included citations for bibliographic references as sources for the recorded information in an elaborate but unevenly developed series of attributions.

Project Information

Desert Compound and Shrine for A. M. Johnson, project [Grapevine Canyon, California] (1923)

Note: The following information concerning this project represents original research and analysis by John Geiger, and is based in his long and detailed study of the Frank Lloyd Wright literature as well as personal contacts with members of the Taliesin Fellowship and architectural historians. In addition, he added his own categories of building type and compositional form, as well as other points of consideration that he deemed important to understanding of the design. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided. Sometimes there is an indication of attribution for which there is no matching footnote recorded. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field.

Name of client: Johnson, A. M..

Sobriquet or alternative place name: None.

Design Status (as of 2011): Unbuilt.

Occupancy form or use: HOUSING/Residential/Single Family.

Principal building materials: MASONRY/Concrete block, textile.

Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 18.

Drawing Number and Description

2306.??1     Elevation
2306.??2     Elevation with spire
2306.001     Aerial perspective
2306.002     Site plan
2306.004     Elevation
2306.005     Elevation detail study with figure. The scale is huge.
2306.006     Elevation and sketches
2306.007     Elevation showing bridge
2306.009     Two elevations, different treatment
2306.010     Elevation of shrine
2306.011     Floor plan
2306.012     Floor plan of an upper level
2306.013     Aerial perspective
2306.015     Floor plan
2306.017     Cross section
2306.021     Elevation
2306.022     Perspective sketch on photgraph
2306.033     Perspective sketch on photograph

Individuals recorded as contributing to project:

Note: Not everyone who contributed to a project may be named; only those whose participation has been confirmed from a source appear above. Occasionally names presented as contributors to a project may seem chronologically anomalous. This usually occurs when an individual prepared drawings for publicity, exhibition, or publication long after the original date of a commission.

Individuals recorded as producing drawings for this project:
Wright, Frank Lloyd


Roof type: Flat.

Note: Records a category devised by Geiger to classify the types of roof structure found in Frank Lloyd Wright projects. These terms were applied consistently through a choice list on Column [ROOFTYPE] in Table MMTFDRAWINGS FILE, and may be searched.

Project Drawing Date Range

Note: Dates for preliminary and working drawings, as well as the start and completion of construction, appear here only when present in the database. Through careful study of original, reproduced, or published Wright drawings, John Geiger developed an elaborate granulation for design process dates and their attributions. Such information is largely available only for Wright projects dating from the mid-1930s until 1959.

Date recorded by John Geiger for chronological sorting: 6/1/1923.

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: (1) Sweeney, Wright in Hollywood, p. 108.

Note: The information shown above is collected from a series of data table columns intended originally to record not only comments or notes, but also to cite sources of attribution for dates assigned to the various stages of drawing preparation in the design process. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution shown here should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided.

This commission is referenced and/or illustrated in the following publications:

Alofsin, Anthony. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years, 1910-1922 A Study of Influence. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago. [ISBN: 0-226-01366-0].
De Long, David G.. Auldbrass: Frank Lloyd Wright''s Southern Plantation. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-2536-1].
De Long, David G.. Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.. [ISBN: 0-8109-3981-9].
Drexler, Arthur. The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0-8180-0019-8].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1914-1923 (Volume 4). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-515-X].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph Preliminary Studies, 1889-1916 (Volume 9). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-520-6].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Heroic Years: 1920-1932. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 978-8478-3174-6].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete Works 1917-1942 (Volume 2). Cologne, Germany: Taschen. [ISBN: 978-3-8365-0926-8].
Riley, Terence and Reed, Peter (editors). Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. [ISBN: 0-87070-642-X].
Sloan, Julie L.. Light Screens: The Complete Leaded-Glass Windows of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-2306-7].
Sweeney, Robert L.. Wright in Hollywood: Visions of a New Architecture. Princeton, New Jersey: MIT Press. [ISBN: 0-262-19337-X].