THE GEIGER DATABASE

SEARCH OPTIONS
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

Gatehouse, Stable, and Retreat for Mrs. Arch Oboler ("Eleanor''s Retreat") [Malibu, California] (1941)

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: Oboler, Arch.

Sobriquet or alternative place name: Eleanor''s Retreat.

Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.

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

Principal building materials: CONCRETE/Desert and lapped boards.

Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 6.

Drawing Number and Description

4112.??1     Perspective from below left
4112.008     Floor plan
4112.012     Site and floor plan of gate house
4112.019     Floor and site plan
4112.020     Eleanor''s Retreat
4112.023     Floor plan and elevation

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:
Howe, John

Construction supervision: Lautner, John

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.

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: (a) McCarter, FDLLW, p. 352 (b) Lautner supervised construction; John Lautner, Architect, Frank Escher, p. 24. Geiger 03/22/06.

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:

Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1936-1941 (Volume 6). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-517-6].
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].