Darwin D. Martin House

The Darwin D. Martin House was built in 1903-1905 and is located in 125 Jewett Parkway in Buffalo, New York. The house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is considered one of the most important projects of his Prairie School period.

"It can be argued that the Martin House Complex ... the most important house design of the first half of Wright's career, is the only, Fallingwater ' 30 years later has its counterpart. "

History

The Martin House Complex was the residence of Isabelle and Darwin D. Martin (1865-1935), an entrepreneur from Buffalo. He was the driving force behind the choice of Wright as architect for the Larkin Administration Building, which was Wright's first major work for a commercial building projects. Martin was an employee of the soap factory Larkin and Wright designed houses for other employees, including the William R. Heath House, Walter V. Davidson and the House.

The Martin House is one of the best works from that Wright's creative period in the eastern United States, together with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. Wright designed the complex as an integrated composition associated buildings whose main components are the main building, a long pergola, conservatory and a coach house. A smaller house, which was built in 1903 Barton House, located adjacent and was built for Delta and George Barton, Darwin Martin's sister and brother in law.

A gardener was housed in a small garden house, which was built in 1908 also projected by Wright. The house owner was disappointed at the small size of the greenhouse, so he left in 1905 to build a 18 -meter greenhouse, located between the garden house and the carriage house. This was the breeding of plants and flowers for the building and grounds. The greenhouse was not planned by Wright and Martin ignored Wright's proposal to "give a little to architecture ". In the garden there are two sculptures by Richard Bock, who often worked with Wright.

Wright worked twice for the family. Two decades later, Wright designed in 1926 a summer home for the family with the name Martin Graycliff, located in nearby Derby on Lake Erie. Nearly a century after its conception, Blue Sky Mausoleum in 2004 was built on Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Design

The design of the building complex represents an ideal example of Wright's Prairie School and is comparable with other works from this section of his career, such as the Robie House in Chicago and the Dana -Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois. Wright was particularly proud of the design of the Martin House Complexes. He named it for over fifty years as his " Opus " and named the complex as " a near perfect composition."

"The main motives and clues were: First - to reduce the number of necessary parts of the house and different rooms to a minimum and put it all together for a united space - so divided that light, air and view permeates the whole thing with a sense of unity. "

Particularly striking are the stained glass windows, the Wright created for the entire complex, some of them from more than 750 individual jewel-like iridescent glass particles composed. These serve as a "light slices " to visually connect the outer space with the spaces in the interior. Wright designed more patterns of these glass art for this project than for any other of its built in the Prairie Style houses.

Restoration

After the Martins had lost their assets due to the global economic crisis and Darwin Martin died, left in 1937, the family 's house. During the next two decades it was empty, was vandaliert and began to decay. In the 1950s, the pergola, conservatory and carriage house which were demolished and a number of apartment buildings was built on the property. The rest of the complex was purchased in 1967 by the University at Buffalo, to gain a seat on the university president.

Created in 1975 the National Register of Historic Places added and 1986 declared a National Historic Landmark.

The Martin House Restoration Corporation (" MHRC ") was established in 1992 as a non-profit organization. Its mission is to restore the house and make available to the public as a museum. The action began in 1992, when the architectural firm Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects was hired from Buffalo to plan the reconstruction of the roof of the surviving main building. Pergola, conservatory and carriage house were reconstructed in 2007. In the reconstruction of the art glazing, furniture, equipment and garden architecture are produced in the form again, as they had originally designed Wright. The project is the first time that a previously broken off from Wright building was rebuilt in the United States.

The MHRC allows guided tours of the property. The visitor center designed by Toshiko Mori and is under construction ( 2008).