Probably more questions are asked of this, the author of the only catalog of the built work of Frank Lloyd Wright, about the Vincent Scully (Jr) house. Scully, then a distinguished professor of architecture history at Yale University, had a house designed for the hills of Connecticut. It was built for Taliesin Architects client West, in Manassas, Virginia about 1987 at 6121 Turkey Run Court. Superficially it is a near replica of the Scully design.

The Sims house in Hawaii is one of the solar hemicycle variants, apparently that 1954 first design for Gibbons Gray Cornwell, to be built in West Goshen, Pennsylvania

Pfeiffer Residence, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona (1938-1974) is based on the Ralph Jester home for Palos Verdes, California, a reaction to the possibilities of plywood. Wright liked the idea, and reused it for Gerald M Loeb project (1944) in Redding, Connecticut, then Dr Paul V Palmer (1947) in Phoenix, Arizona, so the Scottsdale site can be considered appropriate. This version is enlarged vertically to suit Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation archivist Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer's father Arthur, and is a fine example of how the Taliesin (Associated) Architects can update Wright.

Kitchen

Lovness Cottage, Stillwater, Minnesota

(1958-1976) Based on the Seth Petersen cottage (S.430, left, above)

Feldman Residnece, Berkeley, California, (1939-1974)[below]. Based on the Lewis N Bell project, and predecessor to the Carl Wall house (S.281)[right]. Photograph courtesy Joshua Freiwald.

First Christian Church, Phoeniz, Arizona, (1950-1971/77). Original designed for the Southwest Christian Seminary. Photograph courtesy of the First Christian Church.

Monona Terrace, Madison, Wisconson, on Lake Monoma. It is hard to put a date on this, for Wright had several plans for his Monoma Terrace, but Wright's last plan dates 1954 and work was complete by 1997. It is more Anthony Puttnam's masterpiece than a work by Wright.

Note the parking level with its dish-shaped barriers. Wright had perfect partial circles, but they dipped below "safe level" according to someone's idea of the building code. So TAA accepted the change that was requested.

It is not easy to get commissions when you are way ahead of the curve. So when you get a really good one there can be a tendency to not argue with those paying your way. In the issue above, they could have said "you can never call it 'by Frank Lloyd Wright' if you make us make the change." So I say that Madison and Monona Terrace should admit that this is Anthony Putnam's masterpiece, not faux Wright.

Haddock residence, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Hilo, Hawaii, overblown Wright based on the Arthur Miller house. There are other projects being built in this subdivision-development.

Nakoma Clubhouse (1924-2002) was, under Wright's design, a clubhouse for a golf course in Madison, Wisconsin. It has been built in the Sierra Nevada's of California near Lake Tahoe as Nakoma Resort & Spa.. It is surrounded by Gold Mountain, a residential real estate development by the Taliesin Architects. Nakoma Clubhouse was adapted to current use and building codes by Arnold Roy and John Rattenbury. A comparison with Wright's original plan and what was built indicates enlargements and alterations that are significant revisions which make it necessary to deny Wright's authorship. It's location in a climate far from that for which it was designed must also be noted. Why, when a client asks to build a "Wright design," do they then ask for changes?

The Lloyd Burlingame "Pottery House" (1942) was designed for El Paso, Texas, but was given two treatments by different Taliesin architects, each with his own vision of what Wright wanted. One is in Phoenix, the Bendheim house, the other in Santa Fe known as the Klotsche-Soiero residence.

The fact that two similar but different designs could be realized from Wright's concept, each claiming to be authentic Wright, is proof that each of the TAA Wright designs is an interpretation, not a replication.

Yet each such design deserves to be considered on its own merits, which in most cases is considerable.

Paradise Peak Activity Center by John Rattenbury is located north of Phoenix. It is a Rattenbury original, and quite fine.

The Usonian Exhibition House, a modern interpretation of the Erdman Prefab series S.406-S.410. It toured the United States but, strangely (pacé Philip Johnson whose jealousy of Wright is legendary) did not accompany the national Wright tour to the Museum of Modern Art for its New York City presentation, tho there was room for it!