Project Information
Suntop Homes for Otto Tod Mallery of Tod Company, "The Ardmore Experiment" [Ardmore, Pennsylvania] (1938)
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: Mallery, Otto Tod.
Sobriquet or alternative place name: The Ardmore Experiment.
Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.
Occupancy form or use: HOUSING/Residential/Fourplex.
Principal building materials: MASONRY/Brick, lapped boards.
Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 12.
Drawing Number and Description
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.
Howe, 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) The working drawing sheets are titled "Ardmore 'Sundecks' for the Todd Company". Geiger 05/09/96 (b) McCarter, Robert. Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Phaidon Press, 1997), p. 351.
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:
Aguar, Charles E. and Berdeanna. Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright''s Landscape Designs. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Drexler, Arthur. The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0-8180-0019-8].
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1887-1941. Boston, Mass.: Da Capo Press.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1887-1941. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
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 Monograph Preliminary Studies, 1933-1959 (Volume 11). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-522-2].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete Works 1917-1942 (Volume 2). Cologne, Germany: Taschen. [ISBN: 978-3-8365-0926-8].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings Volume 4, 1939-1349. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1803-9].