Thursday, March 05, 2009

West of Eden

It's not really Wright's fault he's become the architect of doom. It's probably down to the fact that most of these buildings are publicly accessible and conveniently close to Hollywood – unlike some of Wright's finer houses in the midwest, say, most of which are still in private hands. Wright's own involvement with the movies was limited (although his granddaughter was Anne Baxter and he once made a bizarre TV appearance on What's My Line). Warner Brothers once asked him to design sets for the 1949 movie of Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead, in which Gary Cooper plays an uncompromising modern architect not dissimilar to Wright himself. Wright charged an architect's fee, the story goes: 10% of the entire budget. Warners hired someone cheaper.
Frank Lloyd Wright in Hollywood, from the Guardian.

3 comments:

Jake said...

I live 50 minutes drive from Falling Water, and have never been.

Paul said...

You should go. I hear it's nice.

Peter Cresswell said...

"Warners hired someone cheaper."

The bastards.

"I hear it's nice."

I hear that too. :-)