| MILWAUKEE TOUR |
Celebrate the anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's birth (June 8) by participating in the fourth annual Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tour, WRIGHT AND LIKE: MILWAUKEE TOUR, on Friday, June 4 and Saturday, June 5, 1999.
On Friday, visit the Prairie Archives at the Milwaukee Art Museum, followed by a luncheon, lecture, and bus tour to Wright's Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. Friday evening, a limited number of guests may attend a private cocktail party at the Frederick C. Bogk residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
On Saturday, the self-drive tour includes nine residences, two designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, four by John Randal McDonald, two by Russell Barr Williamson, and one by A. A. Tannenbaum. These homes exemplify a broad cross-section of organic architecture in the greater Milwaukee area.
SUMMARY of Tours and Special Events
Prairie Archives, Lunch, Lecture & bus Tour $50
Friday, June 4 11am -4pm
View the Prairie Archives at the Milwaukee Art Museum, enjoy lunch, a lecture about Frank Lloyd Wright and Santiago Calatrava, plus a bus tour to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, with views of other significant architecture.
Special Event - Bogk House Reception $100
Friday, June 4 6pm - 8pm
A private cocktail reception for a limited number of advance tickets holders will be held at the Frederick C. Bogk residence.
9 Sites Open for Touring $55 non-members $50 for members
Saturday, June 5 10am -4pm
Visit nine residences designed by WRIGHT and LIKE architects. Cash or check only for tickets purchased The day of the tour. Transportation on your own. The sites include:
One American Systems Built Home, Frank Lloyd Wright
The Joseph Mollica House, Frank Lloyd Wright
T. Robinson Bours Home, Russell Barr Williamson
Russell Barr Williamson Home, Russell Barr Williamson
The Kalupy Home, John Randal McDonald
The Wegner Home, John Randal McDonald
The Wallace Home, John Randal McDonald
The Resnick Home, John Randal McDonald
Jack and Carol Collins Home, A.A.Tannenbaum
Note: Tour home sites are subject to change
TOUR HEADQUARTERS
Tickets & Wright Gifts
On Saturday, the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning, 2131 East Hartford Avenue (corner of Hartford and Maryland), Milwaukee, WI, will serve as the headquarters for the tour. At this location you will be able to purchase tickets for the self-drive tour, Wright-related specialty items.
Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 am
Wright Books
You will also find over 500 rare, used and new books, by and about Frank Lloyd Wright priced from $5 to $4,500 at the tour headquarters. The books are provided by Shining Brow Booksellers with the profits from the sale donated to the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program.
You can visit the Shining Brow Booksellers on the web at http://www.shiningbrow.com
ADVANCED REGISTRATION
Advanced registration is highly recommended to avoid sell-outs. For ticket information call the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program Office, (608) 221-4111. Tickets and maps will be sent after May 1st. Sorry no cancellations.
Mailing Address: FLLW WHTP P0 Box 6339 Madison, WI 53716-0339
PRAIRIE ARCHIVE LUNCH LECTURE AND BUS TOUR
Milwaukee Art Museum and Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church -- Friday, June 4 11am - 4pm
There will be a multifaceted program at the Milwaukee Art Museum featuring a presentation by Terry Marvel and display of materials from the Prairie Archives collection located in the Print Room, and an update on the construction of the new Milwaukee Art Museum addition, designed by Santiago Calatrava, with a study of the architect's models located in the Bradley Rooms. A catered lunch will be served in War Memorial Hall, highlighted by a speaker from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning, focusing on Frank Lloyd Wright and Santiago Calatrava,
After lunch, participants will be transported by coach to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, for guided tours.
Reservations are required - $50 per person
ANNUNCIATION GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH
Wright's design combines two key elements of Orthodox churches, the Greek cross and the dome. The church, made of poured concrete, is a shallow dome, resting on an equally shallow curving bowl, which in turn, rests on a cradle shaped like a Greek cross. The Greek cross within a circle which is used as a decorative motif, can be seen in the icon screen and other metal work. Among Wright's last commissions, the church was completed two years after his death.
The dome, a unique piece of engineering, was created by William Wesley Peters, Wright's chief assistant. It is separate from the building, and rides on hundreds of thousands of ball bearings set in a steel track. The stained-glass windows, which are not by Wright or Taliesin artists, were installed in 1978.
The church will be on the bus tour, Friday June 4.
Sunday services are at 9:30 am. The church is located at 9400 West Congress Avenue.
SPECIAL EVENT: THE FREDERICK C. BOGK RESIDENCE Frank Lloyd Wright 1916
Friday, June 4th 6pm - 8pm
This year's special event, a cocktail party, will provide visitors with a rare opportunity to experience a unique, early Wright home complete with furnishings in the setting for which they were designed.
This residence was designed in 1916 for Milwaukee businessman Frederick C. Bogk during the period of the Imperial Hotel in Japan. It has a strong Japanese influence, yet creates a unique statement of its own. Featuring an extensive use of decorative concrete in the interior and an important abstract frieze on the exterior, it is one of the few remaining examples of Wright's work from this period.
($100 per person, limited attendance)
AMERICAN SYSTEM BUILT HOMES Frank Lloyd Wright 1911-1916
Milwaukee developer Arthur L. Richards gave Wright an opportunity to put into practice his lifelong interest in low-cost housing, when he engaged him to design a series of moderately priced apartments and single-family homes. The System Built homes eliminated the need for skilled carpentry, a major expense in building a home, by providing a kit of pre-cut lumber. The System Built homes were to be of stucco, plaster and wood, and were modular designs based on a three-by-three-foot grid, Ideally, the modules could be positioned together to create a wide variety of floor plans, ranging in price from about $2,000 to more than $15,000 These homes are examples of Wright's ability to use space efficiently.
Russell Barr Williamson was Wright's supervising architect for the Burnham Street complex, which consists of the four Richards Duplex apartment units and two bungalows. Three of the duplexes are still apartments and are relatively unchanged. The fourth, which has been converted into a single- family home, is included in the Saturday tour.
THE JOSEPH MOLLICA HOME Frank Lloyd Wright 1956
The house that Joseph Mollica, a contractor built for himself, is Prefab #1, the first of three prefabricated designs that Frank Lloyd Wright produced for Madison builder Marshall Erdman. Mollica included an optional workshop between the kitchen and garage, and french doors from the kitchen to the back yard, the only Erdman Prefab #1 to incorporate this feature. Set on the edge of a ravine in Bayside, the Mollica house is designed to have a horizontal Usonian appearance, expressed by the placement of horizontal battens on 16-inch centers. Native Wisconsin limestone is used in the fireplace and in the masonry walls.
Wright's design for Erdman's prefab packages offered all the major structural components, interior and exterior walls, as well as cabinets and woodwork Standard Pella doors and standard Andersen awning windows are used as cost-saving features. The 1991 addition to the house was designed by John Eifler Associates of Chicago.
Williamson worked with Wright from 1914-1918 as a project supervisor, by the time he began to work independently, he had adopted Wright's modular system of design, with variations of a plan, particularly the compact square (Bogk-type) and the bungalow. The fewest number of rooms to satisfy a client's needs was a tenet well learned by Williamson. The flow of ideas and decorative motifs between Wright and Williamson is intertwined, as Williamson worked on both the Bogk House and the Imperial Hotel. He had a long and productive career in Milwaukee, producing many houses for the speculative market as well as public buildings.
Two at Williamson's designs are on the Saturday tour. In the T. ROBINSON BOURS HOME (1921-23), Williamson essentially elongated an open square plan, dividing it by floor level changes, planters and fireplace. Many consider this Williamson's finest work, rich with decorative elements and full of evidence of Williamson's collaborative years with Wright.
The RUSSELL BARR WILLIAMSON HOME (1922) is the home the architect designed for himself five years after leaving his employment with Frank Lloyd Wright, It is similar in many ways to the residence that Wright designed in 1915 for Henry Allen of Wichita, Kansas Although the extent of Williamson's involvement in the Allen project is not clear, it is likely that he did some of the design work and supervised the construction, since the Allen house was built while Wright was in Japan working on the Imperial Hotel.
With its low-pitched roof and wide eaves, and its emphasis on the horizontal in decorative trim and alignment of windows, the house is a fine example of Prairie architecture. Williamson furnished his home with the same decorative materials that he mass-produced for all his clients.
John Randal McDonald's distinguished career spans over five decades, with studios in Milwaukee and Boca Raton, Florida. Much of his early residential work is in the Midwest, where he began his career in Racine designing modest houses with a modern flair after the fashion of Frank Lloyd Wright. The small jewel-box homes on the tour exemplify his desire to build simply, with as few materials as possible, harmoniously arranging the order of scale, texture, and open space.
The following McDonald homes, built in the 1950's are on this year's tour:
THE KALUPY HOME
THE WEGNER HOME
THE WALLACE HOME
THE RESNICK HOME
Well-known contemporary Milwaukee architect Abe Tannenbaum designed about 30 omes in the North Sore area, as well as a number of commercial and industrial buildings.
Acknowledging the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright in designing the JACK AND CAROL COLLINS HOME (1957), Tannenbaum tried as much as possible to integrate the interior space with the natural beauty of the surroundings. The present owner has done extensive renovation of the interior and exterior, respecting and even enhancing the horizontal lines and geometric shapes of the original structure.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT WISCONSIN HERITAGE TOURISM PROGRAM
The Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program, is a nonprofit organization designed to promote, protect, and preserve the heritage of Frank Lloyd Wright, his genius and architecture, located in his native state of Wisconsin. Membership includes seasonal newsletters with information about Wright events in Wisconsin, including Wright and Like, the Heritage Lecture Series, volunteer opportunities, and a membership program providing pre-announcements and various discounts on programs.
Related Sites
While you are in the area, you may wish to visit some of these Wright sites, which are 1 - 2 hours drive from Milwaukee.
Seth Peterson Cottage (Lake Delton In Mirror Lake State Park)
Open house, Sunday, June 6, 1-4pm.
S C. Johnson Wax Administration Building (Racine)
Tours on Friday only. Call (414)260-2154 for reservations.
Unitarian Meeting Mouse (Madison)
Tours Mon. - Fri., 10am -4pm; Sat. 9am - noon; other times by appointment. Call (608) 255-9774. Sunday services are at 10am.
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center (Madison)
Open daily 9am. - 5pm., with tours at 11am. and 1pm. Call (608) 261-4000 for reservations. Gift shop Mon-Sat l0am - 3pm; Sun.11am -5pm.
Taliesin (Spring Green)
The Visitor Center is open daily, 8:50am - 5:50pm. A variety of tours are available. Call (608) 588-7900 for tour information and reservations.