The “Problematic” Frank Lloyd Wright Monument | Demolishing America’s First Modern Office Building

Comments · 837

• SA

  @samhain3530 · 3 years ago

  My maternal great grandfather died December 6, 1904 from a fall off the Larkin warehouse roof. He was a night engineer for the company.and was checking on a defective sign.  The news stated the fall was an accident and he was unmarried. However, he was married with 3 young children.  The Larkin company helped great grandmother with a mortgage to buy a boarding house that supported the family during those times.

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• FR

  @frankendragon5442 · 3 years ago

  I have heard that Wright was secretly pleased that it took twice as long to tear down the Larkin Building as it had taken him to build it.

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• TO

  @ToughAncientSpark · 3 years ago

  You gotta love when a building is considered unsafe, slated to be demolished and then it fights back during demolition proving it was better built than touted.

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• TO

  @ToughAncientSpark · 3 years ago

  @<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehf5PKnGFPE&amp;t=1039">17:19</a> There was a similar occurrence near Albany, NY. A church long unused was neglected and bought by the local supermarket chain Price Chopper. The church was touted as not worth saving and &quot;ready to fall down at any moment&quot;.<br>However, during the demolition they found the church was better built.<br>Not only did two separate cranes break during demolition but it took way longer and cost much more for the project.<br>Locals that had been trying to save the building called it God&apos;s revenge.

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• DA

  @davidt8438 · 2 years ago

  Years ago I worked for an alarm company and we were sent to Michigan to work on an alarm in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. WOW the interior was so relaxing and beautiful I just wanted to stay all day. I remember eating my lunch while sitting on a window bench and just admiring every little detail throughout that enormous room. I can’t get the image out of my head to this day, some 40 years later. He certainly had talent.

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• BR

  @brickman409 · 3 years ago

  It&apos;s kind of insane to think that a man who was so ahead of his time was born in 1867 and begun his architect career before the start of the 20th century. His creations, even today look like they could be from the future and yet he was born only two years after the end of the civil war and begun designing buildings years before the Model T or the first airplane.

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• UH

  @uhlijohn · 3 years ago

  You forgot to mention that Louis Sullivan was one of his early employers. Wright worked as a draftsman for Sullivan and moonlighted as an &quot;architect&quot;. I believe the Winslow House in River Forest, IL was his first commission undertaken while still working for Sullivan. When Sullivan discovered Wright was moonlighting he fired him. Wright later called Sullivan, &quot;My master&quot; and you can see why looking at their similar styles. Sullivan died penniless but friends and former associates, &nbsp;including Wright, funded his headstone placed on his grave at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

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• PA

  @Paul_Wetor · 3 years ago

  It was a time when buildings were built to last. Buildings are disposable these days. Here in Milwaukee, a late-1980s basketball arena was demolished for a newer one recently, yet the 1950s sports arena across the street still survives.

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• MA

  @marksherrill9337 · 3 years ago

  I always hate it when a beautiful building is torn down. &nbsp;They claim it’s too expensive to save and I’ll go with that. &nbsp;Still such a shame.

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• MO

  @morgandollar7146 · 3 years ago

  A Wright homeowner wrote Frank LLoyd Wright and complained that his dining room ceiling dripped on his head when it rained. &nbsp;Wright wrote back: &quot;Then move your chair.&quot;

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• GE

  @geofromnj7377 · 3 years ago

  In discussing Wright&apos;s tragic personal life, the narrator seemed to have omitted the 1914 murder by a deranged houseman of Wright&apos;s live-in female companion, Mamah Cheney, together with her children who were visiting their mother at Wright&apos;s home. As part of the mayhem that day, the living quarters was destroyed by fire.

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• SM

  @smm8470 · 3 years ago

  What a tragic loss of an architectural and engineering masterpiece to be replaced by: a parking lot? Thanks for remembering the once iconic structure so later generations can marvel.

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