Larkin and Guggenheim
This short article was originally written for Kathryn Smith's FL Wright seminar at SCI-arc in 1995
By Thomas Leerberg
Intro.In the 40 years that lies between the Larkin building, in Buffalo and the Guggenheim Museum, in New York City, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright transformed from being inspired by the neoclassicism of the beginning of the 20th century to a unique personal expression of the modern. And even though the two buildings are very different by measure of time and style, they do have some very central issues in common. This text will in that context describe the two buildings individually and further compare some of the issues that are central across time and style.
Analysis of form and construction.The Larkin Company Administration Building, was designed in 1903, and served as main administration in a national mail order firm. It was located in Buffalo, NY., as a part of the Larkin Companies production complex, but was unfortunately torn down in the late 50's. The building can be described as a bi-nuclear public building having a central atrium with office floor on the balconies surrounding the atrium. Frank Lloyd Wright later described it as a ""commercial engine" or as "an ocean liner, a locomotive or a battleship".
The building does not use a strong unit system, but is planed outward from the columns of the atrium, forming a center grid of 16' x 25',3''. This center grid is further used for the office spaces on the balconies, making them 16' x 16' x 34',5'' h-w-d.
Symmetrically the building is designed using a major and a minor axes, so highly valued by Wright. The major axes runs longitudinal of the atrium and forms a symmetry in the main body, but forms at the same time an asymmetry in the larger scale building. The foyer building was first placed off-center relative to both axes, but maintaining the entrance to the atrium on the minor axes. This was altered, properly because the foyer building would have been completely separated from the main building, symmetrically and as a shear building volume. The minor axes forms a clear symmetry across the atrium, and connects the foyer building closely to the rhythm of the atrium columns. Both symmetrical axes are the basis for the system designing the interior spaces, the facade and the site.
As the building is seen as a brick ‘cliff’, it is definitely closed of to the surroundings, the polluted and noisy factory lot of industrial Buffalo. This is further shown in the window size and the access that sets of the building from the street level as the windows are placed almost 8' above the floor and thereby only serves as a source of light. It is only possible to view (command) the threatening city from the rooftop terrace.
The structural system of the building is based on a frame construction of double steel I-beams, in cast concrete. These columns are placed in pairs in the central atrium columns, which also contains the ventilation. The slaps are also concrete on steel beams, and the facade is a traditional brick-construction. The methods used in the Larkin Building are very innovative as they use new combinations of old known techniques.
Bricks, concrete, steel and glass are the main materials used in the Larkin building. A main part of the interior was designed by Wright using steel and glass. Through all its technological objects, the building represents the innovative atmosphere of the beginning the 20th century; the first steel office furniture's, the first intensive use of ventilation, the first glass doors and the first wall hung toilets.
Frank Lloyd Wright started designing the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, in 1943, but kept on refining it until it was opened in 1959. It was commissioned by Solomon R. Guggenheim, who wanted to exhibit his collection of modern non-objective art. This building can just as the Larkin building be characterized as a bi-nuclear public building, having a central atrium surrounded by balconies forming a continuing spiral shaped ramp containing the exhibited art pieces.
The building is laid-out on a 8' x 8' grid, with datum in the center of the spiral. The grid is mainly used for designing the office building, surrounding the museum volume, and further as reference to the complex composition of shapes that makes up the general design. But the museum’s main body, the spiral, does not use this grid, besides serving as center for the two circles defining the spirals top and bottom. This makes the spiral a contrast to the other volumes as a genuine expressive shape.
Despite its apparent "arbitrary" shape the museum is based on a complex system of symmetry and asymmetry. The center of the spiral serves as a starting point for a 128' x 128' square, surrounding the entire museum. From this center 30° angles directs centerlines for the triangular staircase and the vestibule. Further an axes attaches the "monitor" to the main building. This entire system uses to a large extend asymmetry, as relations are emphasized by the absence of volumes; the triangular staircase is symmetric with the absence of matter in the vestibule, the service building is symmetric with the absence of matter in front of the spiral and the entire main body emphasizes the absence of matter on the other half of the site. This shows that in spite of the expressive shape of the museum, the system of reference is a very rigid composition of Euclidean shapes, which are mirrored, rotated and removed. This is a surprising conclusion as Frank Lloyd Wright's own comment, describes a completely different view on the building: "For the first time a building has been designed which destroys everything square, rectilinear. It destroys the rectilinear frame of reference". The shape of the spiral may be everything but rectilinear, but the entire museum, including the spiral, does have a rectilinear system of reference.
As in the Larkin building the museum closes of to the surrounding city, to its noise and pollution. The concentration is directed toward the atriums atmosphere of light and art, as a refuge in a noising city, that certainly wasn't looked upon with friendly eyes by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The structural principal of the Guggenheim Museum is based on the used of advanced reinforced concrete that was developed through projects as Johnson Wax. The museum is build as a stiff concrete spiral supported by concrete columns. Throughout the building process the concrete was caste on the site.
Materials in the building are kept as clean and simple as possible; concrete, stone, glass, steel and brass. As the only material altered, the concrete was painted both on the interior and exterior, to reduce the ‘weight’ of the rustic surface, "to take weight off the solids and let the "space", not the "matter", become the whole "reality"."
Focus and light.Two issues seem to be essential for a further description of these buildings; focus and light. Comparable means are used to direct the visitor’s focus, in both the Larkin building and the Guggenheim Museum. This is done by the movement through the building, and is further enforced in the changing levels and heights, and direction of the light to emphasize the spatial volumes. The precise use of focus and light are important issues in achieving the atmosphere of inwardness and concentration, that defines both the Larkin building and the Guggenheim museum.
But Frank Lloyd Wright's use of focus and light can not be separated from the spatial composition in general. In most cases these means enforce each other, to lead the visitor through a change of atmosphere and emotion, as he moves through the buildings.
Light.Light in the Guggenheim museum is to a large extend concentrated around the central atrium. Very little light is directed to the exhibited objects, that are illuminated by artificial light sources. The central atrium is clearly the most important public space in the building, while the balconies and the niches are spaces for contemplation and viewing of art pieces. In the Larkin building the light is used in a similar way to emphasize the familiar feeling that is the core of the commercial machine. On the walls surrounding the atrium are inscriptions, that serve as moral support for the employees. So as the clerk is places on the balcony at his desk, he looks out from the dark to the light, to the space around which all employees and the entire building is formed.
An important issue in this use of light, is the connection between light and prospect and between darkness and refuge, as argued by Grant Hildebrand . Even though Hildebrand does use these issues on Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie houses, it can also be used on Wrights other buildings, including the large public buildings. Hildebrand notes that the movement from darkness/refuge to light/prospect is a enforcement of the space and the focus, that together form the experience of the building. The connection can be found in both buildings, but is most visible in the Guggenheim Museum. The transformation from darkness to light is here very precise; the niches are dark and has artificial light, while the atrium is flooded by diffuse natural light from above. And exactly this division of the public space, serves to separate the functions and emotions; the dark niches renders a place for viewing art, liberated from the view of others, while the light atrium renders overview and outlook, on the niches that will be visited as one moves down the ramp and on to the people with whom the visitor share this experience. The Larkin Building is divided into similar emotions and functions, emphasized by the use of light. In this case the darkness serves to concentrate on the work, while the light in the atrium enforced the feeling of familiarity and "team spirit".
The access to both buildings can be described as a remarkable movement from darkness to light. After having left the street and moved in to the shadow of the brick ‘cliff’ or under the concrete slab, into the darkness, a light space opens in front of the visitor, a space surrounded by darkness leads you in to a atmosphere of collective concentration. So the leading use of light in both buildings, is often aimed to change the individual emotions and thoughts, as one moves through these spaces. Vincent Scully describes this emotional change:
"The sequence was an emotional one and a progress: challenge, bafflement, compression, search, and finally, surprise, release, transformation, and recall. It was almost a Baroque progression, but its methods were stiffer and harder, befitting the industrial program which they praised."
An emotional change that seems to have been conscious to Frank Lloyd Wright as he describes the Larkin building:
"The top-lighted interior created the effect of a great official family at work in day-lit, clean airy quarters, officered from the central court. The top-story was a restaurant and conservatory, the ferns and flowers seen from below. The roof was a recreation ground paved with brick." (Frank Lloyd Wright's own description)
But as the light can not be separated from the space, levels, functions and hierarchies, Frank Lloyd Wright's use of light can not be separated from his use of focus. I most cases light and focus exist side by side and often they enriches each other.
Focus.When the issue of focus is considered in the Larkin building and the Guggenheim Museum, the focus is limited by the general spatial conditions of the building. Both buildings are concentrated around a central atrium, that in both cases enables a dramatic vertical gaze. With these, the building frames horizontal gazes from the single balconies across the atrium, and along the extended office spaces on to the balconies.
The access to each building precisely describes a movement involving changing heights, angles and focal points. After having left the street, one moves up to the Larkin building through the gates and focuses on the staircase right ahead. This leads to the foyer focusing on the glass doors at the end of the space and the further on the city now elevated above. After this a sudden 90° turn follows, allowing the gaze to ‘enter’ the atrium and wander up towards the top-light. The access to the Guggenheim museum is of a similar type; again there is a turn relative to the street, before the gaze is directed towards the surprising top-light in the atrium.
But the issue of focus can be further described as a vertical and a horizontal gaze. Having arrived at the central space in the Guggenheim museum, the gaze is directed towards the top-light. As an effect the balconies cover the view of people located in the niches, whereby the spatial shape becomes even stronger and cleaner. But the scale of the space is also changed. As people disappears from the view, the scale becomes smaller and light is brought closer to the viewer. When the gaze on the other hand is directed towards the main floor at the bottom, after having moved to the top ramp by the elevators, the people on the balconies returns in the view. The scale is now enlarged and one has big expectations toward the route down the ramp lying ahead of you. This experience is described by Vincent Scully: "Upon entrance, under the skeletally obtrusive and therefore volume-negating dome, the building seems small. It does not exalt man standing fixed and upright within it. The meaning is in the journey, since from above, upon leaving the elevator, the visitor finds the space dizzying and vast, while the great downward coil of the ramp insistently invites him to movement. Upon arriving at the ground floor once more, he will find that the building seems much larger than before because the long journey through it is remembered."
Even though Scully states the shape and height of the building as a reason for this experience, it also seems to be closely related to the change in focus as the vertical movement proceeds.
Besides this vertical gaze there is a horizontal gaze, that frames and controls the gaze towards the exhibited objects in the niches, on the other side of the atrium.
The emotion that has been described for the Guggenheim museum is also to be found in the Larkin building, of course concentrated around the daily shipping and handling, combined with the feeling of being part of the firms spirit. But an important difference between the two buildings is the interior movement, that in the Larkin building is step by step, floor by floor, while the Guggenheim forms one continuous movement. But common to both buildings is that the very precise handling of light and focus, directs the movement through the buildings at a never ending transformation of scale, gaze and atmosphere.
© Thomas Leerberg, 1995
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