Inside Views of the Darwin Martin House.

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, Darwin Martin House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Martin House

Here we are at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Darwin Martin House in Buffal, N.Y..  There was no photographing inside, but I did take some photos of these classic photos in the Welcome Center. Originals belong to them and Frank Lloyd Wright. Here is the Martin family at the giant arched hearth in the main house.  The fireplace must be 10-12′ across at the outside of the arch.

Here is a photo of Frank Lloyd Wright early in his career in 1905 when this house was constructed:

Conservatory at the Darwin Martin House

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Conservatory, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, Martin House, photo, photography, Statue, Wings of Nike

At the end of the very long (189 foot) hallway at the Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY is a Conservatory.  This was a very fancy green house with a sophisticated heating system and venting windows at the top.  It had many Frank Lloyd Wright touches in it including a statue from a famous sculptor.  The now plaster cast of the sculpture is of “Winged Nike” or “The Winged Victory of Samothrace“.  The original disappeared or was destroyed when the Darwin Martin house was abandoned in the 1930’s. This copy was made from the same form the original was cast from.

For more on the statue origins see the link: Winged Nike

 

The original conservatory was demolished in 1967 to make some very poorly designed apartment complexes and at the same time the long hallway or Pergola was torn down. Both were reconstructed to original form in 2004 and 2007.

Long Breezeway to the Conservatory at the Darwin Martin House

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, Martin House, Museum, photo, photography

At the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY there was a very long breezeway or Pergola between the main house and the Conservatory and Carriage house.  This long horizontal roofed pathway was 189 feet long with open spaces on the sides that look like windows but let in the cold air and snow.  This was however protected by wide low eves.  Outside it was lined with the same yellow Roman bricks with narrow horizontal rows as the rest of the house and walls. Here is an outside view of the long walkway:

Inside this was a beautiful space with a long hallway that looked like a commercial building laid on its side and each pilon being a separate story. You may notice that there are very few inside photographs of the Darwin Martin House. They do NOT allow any photographs inside.  The breezeway is considered “outside” so here:

This view was about one half the way down the corridor as there were people crowed behind. Even the elements of the corridor looked like the rest of the Frank Lloyd Wright house.  How did the Martins get from the main house to the Conservatory in the depth of Winter? They walked this cold and snowy walkway? No, do you see the glass panels on the floor in a diamond pattern?  They are skylights to a below ground corridor that lies directly below allowing the Martins to walk from one side to the other without going out in the cold.  This entire end of the corridor and two other buildings were reconstructed as they had been torn down by a developer who had bought the land and put up three hideous apartment complexes.  These were eventually bought and torn down and replaced with the originally intended structures.

The Roman bricks were no longer made from way back in 1905 so they had new ones cast to the same color and size and then had to cut each one down lengthwise to make them narrow enough.

Storm Brewing over the Darwin Martin House by Frank Lloyd Wright

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Classic Home, Classic House, Darwin Martin, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, HDR, HDR Photography, High Dynamic Range, House, Martin House, photo, photography

We almost have the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Darwin Martin house surrounded. The horizontally structured house in Buffalo even looks good from the back side.  Here a huge thunderhead is forming over the house and you can see all three stories of the house from this side.  Please notice the vertical wooden poles placed in the rear of the house.  Any guesses as to what they are?  Answer is after the photo below:

These posts had horizontal ropes strung to them and laundry was hung there as the house was built in 1905.

Modern but Antique Lights at the Darwin Martin House

Tags

Architecture, Art, Artglass, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, Fixture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Light, Lighting, Martin House, photo, photography

At the Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY the lighting outside and within was amazing.  It was very hard to keep remembering the house was built around 1905, not 2005 or 2105.  There were so many modern and before their time features.  These exterior lighting fixtures were designed and made in 1905 but look like they would be at home on an ultramodern home or spaceship. Near the fixtures you can see some of the very rare and expensive Artglass designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  There was a theme of Circle in a Square throughout the house. Can you see it in the fixtures?

ISO 500, F/4.5, 1/60 sec, 47 mm Lens

 

Front of the Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin Martin House

Tags

Architecture, Art, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, HDR, HDR Photography, High Dynamic Range, House, Martin House, Martin House Complex, Museum, photo, photography

So we are continuing our tour of the outside of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built Darwin Martin house in downtown Buffalo, N.Y.. Here you can easily see the large Horizontal nature of this design. The original house in 1903-1905 was supposed to cost $175,000 but came in at closer to $300,000 on completion. The seven building complex had 29,000 square feet with a very expensive component being the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Artglass Windows.  These were about 400 of these and many individual windows are worth more than a modern entire house today with a lot being in Modern Art museums all over.  Each window had 750 individual pieces of hand cut glass.

Here you can see the wide horizontal elements with long cantilevered eves overhanging with their large copper gutters. The low walls interconnected the various buildings and courtyards and the narrow horizontal ribbed yellow roman brick further emphasized the horizontal forms.  You can see the massive heavy and wide chimneys and rows of windows letting in natural light.  All this was foreign in 1905 to architecture. The weight of the house was carried by large steel and concrete columns on each corner so that the walls were not load bearing or structural.  This allowed freedom of design to place in wide doorways and lots of windows.

The complex of buildings can be seen in this model from a broader view. This would be a perfect place to take a quadcopter drone photo if I had one.

Besides the main Martin House (1), there was the Gardener’s House, Conservatory (3), Carriage House (5), Pergola (2) and Barton House (4).

Need more? See the link: Frank Lloyd Wright

The Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, Darwin Martin House, EOS 24-105 L Lens, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, HDR, HDR Photography, High Dynamic Range, House, Martin House, photo, photography

In Buffalo, NY they have the very large and famous Darwin Martin House designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903-1905.  This house was groundbreaking as it was surrounded by tall upright Victorian houses on the block and all surrounding areas. This was the opposite in that it was on a large complex with 6 other buildings and all arranged in a pattern with extreme horizontal elements.  The house is one of the most important of his Prairie School era. There are many horizontal elements in this house to ground it.  The bricks are narrow and have horizontal grooves with the vertical grooves mortared flush.  There are huge, massive horizontal chimneys.  There is the shape of the house being very wide and low with supports being internal and columnar.  The outer walls do not hold up the house like a typical house.  This gives the design the ability of having wide and many windows in horizontal rows.  The very large copper gutters run horizontally with no apparent vertical gutters.  This view is the back side of the main house complex:

Horizontal Light Wall at the Welcome Center

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Canon, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright

At the Welcome Center building at the Frank Lloyd Wright‘s Darwin Martin House there was an amazing divider wall.  This metallic and clear panel plexiglass wall had varying colored lights behind it and it literally glowed. The metal horizontal lines mimics the entire theme of the Darwin Martin house which is Horizontal lines. You will see the many horizontal themes if we ever get to the actual house.

Welcome Center at the Darwin Martin House, Buffalo

Tags

Architecture, Buffalo, Building, Canon, DarwinMartinHouse, FLW, Frank Lloyd Wright, HDR, HDRphoto, MartinHouse, Wisteria

Here we are in Buffalo, NY about to tour the famous Frank Lloyd Wright House called the Darwin Martin residence.  Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) designed the house and campus for the wealthy Buffalo businessman Darwin Martin in 1903-1905.  It is now a National Historic Landmark.  The design is from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie House period and is thought to be one of his finest.

You are greeted by a Welcome Center building on the complex which is a modern glass design that is the reverse of anything on the Frank Lloyd Wright house next to it.  One of the themes in the Darwin Martin house is Wisteria and here they have craftily draped the flowering plant on the horizontally lined wall nearby.

Fallingwater and Frank Lloyd Wright

Tags

Architecture, Black & White, Canon, Canon 5D Mark III, EOS 24-105 L Lens, Fallingwater, Jazzersten, Pennsylvania, photo, photography, Water, Waterfall

Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built the most famous house in the world called “Fallingwater”.  It is in Bear Run Pennsylvania and situated right over a waterfall.  I have visited it before when it was nearly dry, but this time of year the water was flowing quite briskly.  The owner had wanted the house to be placed on the shore facing the waterfall so he could view it directly, but Wright instead moved the house to directly over the falls and the owner, although mad, finally accepted it.  They don’t allow photography in the house itself unless you go on a special arranged tour.

Click image for a larger view:

ISO 50, F/13, 1/6 sec, 60 mm Lens

Here is a view further out and converted to black and white, (not infrared):

ISO 100, F/9, 1/30 sec, 50 mm Lens