The Usonian House was one of the greatest accomplishments in architectural history. These houses achieved their mission admirably. They inspired a loyalty unprecedented, and never repeated, in American housing.
The Usonian fit its time and place. It will not do to copy it. Circumstances have changed too much for that. Each era has to find its own expression. The Usonian ideal, however, is as valid today as ever. We have to find the way to realize it in a new, recreated, work of art.
This is the task ahead.
The purpose of this blog is to build a ValueWeb® that will do this. And so, the journey begins.
Matt Taylor
The purpose of this BLOG is to get a dialog going among those who have an interest in the postUsonion project. Of the several hundred who visit my postings on this topic I'm sure some of you have something to say; Please add you thoughts here. No matter your perspective, that of a client/customer/user, from the perspective of a developer, designer, builder, or as an investor - your feedback and ideas are critical if we are to accomplish our mission of building a 21st Century version of this architectural idea.
Just click on "post a comment" above and have at it.
Matt Taylor
I find both Cameron and Kevin’s remarks [Please see the comments section to the above post. -Ed.] to be highly encouraging and salient. I perceive real intent sustained over a long period of time which is exactly what it will take to accomplish a house with Usonian character. I recently visited the restored Rosenbaum House in Florence, Alabama. I encourage anyone who can get there to see it. It is a classic early Usonian that has been very carefully redone.
This stimulated me to start two pieces "What Makes an Usonian an Usonian?" and "The Natural Workplace." It will take me another 30 days or so to find the time to explore these subjects fully. A number of the comments made by both Cameron and Kevin are highly relevant to where I am going with these. The issues here are cultural not technical. And, they are economic in the sense that our economy, while productive in many ways, is configured in ways that makes a one off, small, affordable work of art extremely difficult. This is why I “left” the practice of domestic architecture 30 years ago to concentrate on the transformation of the workplace.
It will take a ValueWeb® architecture to build the postUsonian at any scale. A careful look at how Mr. Wright actually produced these works is revealing in this regard. It was, in today’s language, an integrated systems approach. He “projected” an economical design/build capacity all over the United States. This would not have been possible without Taliesin and all that went with it. The conditions that gave rise to this do not exist today. We have to build a new support system that is requisite with the world we live in now.
Today is my 67th birthday and last June my 49th year in architecture. There are a number of us gathered in our Nashville office finishing up work on a collaborative client session for the SDC Campus project. So at noon, having finished this work, we are going to celebrate my birthday with a four hour working session on the postUsonian Project. This is the first time we have ever done this. It is a small step towards moving the project from the realms of idea and intent to the center of MG Taylor’s focus. At the moment, our resources are stretched as MG Taylor’s business is going global. But then, this is the armature that will give us the reach necessary to do this kind of architecture at scale - anywhere, anytime.
We will not accomplish the postUsonian on our own as a typical “product” of a typical corporate architecture. This is why the Cathedral Builders concept and the ValueWeb organization is so important. It is critical that many scattered efforts - all vulnerable - be concentrated so a critical mass is achieved. Not in a centrally organized command and control organization but united by an effective, adaptable, collaborative network architecture.
You may find the following links interesting:
http://www.matttaylor.com/public/papers/rosenbaum_usonian.htm
http://www.matttaylor.com/public/papers/usonian_workplace.htm
http://www.matttaylor.com/public/valueweb_mechanics.htm
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