THE GEIGER DATABASE

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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

House for Mr. and Mrs. Sol Friedman, "Toy Hill", Usonia II [Pleasantville, New York] (1948)

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: Friedman, Sol.

Sobriquet or alternative place name: Toy Hill; Usonia II (Usonia Homes).

Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.

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

Principal building materials: MASONRY/Stone.

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

Drawing Number and Description

4906.001     Site and floor plan
4906.002     Perspective
4906.003     Ground floor plan
4906.004     Upper floor plan
4906.005     Cross section
4906.010     Elevations and roof framing plan

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

Preliminary working drawings coordinator: Howe, John
Working drawings coordinator: Bower, Ted
Construction supervision: Bower, Ted

Plan type: McCord.

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

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: (a) "(Working?) Drawings by Ted Bower (#0050) - Ted supervised construction" Curtis W. Besinger record. Geiger 11/21/95 (b) McCarter, Robert. Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon Press, 1997), p. 354; Besinger report.

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 1942-1950 (Volume 7). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-518-4].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete Works 1943-1959 (Volume 3). Cologne, Germany: Taschen. [ISBN: 978-8228-5770-0].