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The reason people sat out in the 50s and 60s was not that they weren't afraid of being uncomfortable, it was b/c the house was hotter inside.
Yes, we sat outside sometimes because it was hotter inside, but most summer nights we spent time on the stoop even when it wasn't hot inside, we did it because we knew our neighbors and liked spending time with them.
I don't know what you mean about "phony" community organizations. Community organizations give a community, well, a sense of community.[/quote]
"Community" organizations in NYC neighborhoods were often organized and dominated by Yuppie blow-ins from the suburbs who wanted to change the existing networks and dynamics of the neighborhood, rather than sit back and learn how to belong first. I know that from years on the Upper West Side, living in the West 80's and 70's. In New York a "community" is a place that used to be a neighborhood.
In my hometown, most men worked shift in some steel mill or other heavy industry. Even if they worked "daylight", they came home tired. They were not necessarily interested in sitting out and schmoozing with the neighbors, offering them lemonade night after night. The Pittsburgh Pirates games were a big attraction in the summer. They were on the radio if at home (and in the early 50s there were no portable radios), and sometimes on TV if away. This was the situation across most of the idustrial northeast and midwest, with different baseball teams, of course.
The homemaker, or "housewife" as they were called then, couldn't just pop the dishes in the dishwasher after dinner and go sit out on the porch, either. She had to wash the dishes, by hand, or get one of the kids to do it. She also had to clean up (Pittsburghers say 'red up') the house and get things ready for the next day.
Yes, some nights people did sit out on the front porch, or the back porch for a bit, and people did go for walks after dinner. You'd see a few neighbors out; you'd stop and chat. My neighborhood is like this today, as I posted previously. I don't think society has changed *all* that much in that regard.
This is an interesting blog on the decline of the front porch . . . and since the reference is the Midwest, I believe it is particularly relevant . . .
great blog post...I especially liked this part, I think it does a great job of encapsulating the whole underlying theme of this thread, FLW or no FLW:
"But as we grew prosperous, we lost trust in one another. As we found diversity, we lost our sense of community. And as we gained freedom to do as we wished, we lost some of the very foundation upon which that freedom was founded: love of one another."
It's funny, my friend and I were JUST yesterday discussing this...she was telling me how she read an article a couple decades ago and they were saying that houses of the future would all have no front porches, kitchens in the back, and big back decks. The backyard would be the oasis from the harsh world. Seems to have happened. I remember as a kid all we did was hang out on the porch and people watch, talk to neighbors, eat cantaloupe and watermelon when it was so hot, I don't know maybe the prevalence of a/c DOES have a lot to do with it too. I'd love to read some books on it, anyone have any suggestions? I Just requested the bowling alone one from the library.
Don't fret, I'm a huge FLW fan too. I've always been nutty about his wonderful architectural creations - you should have seen me when I visited the campus at Florida Southern College, which was designed by Wright...lol.
This October, I'm going to visit Fallingwater in PA, which I've wanted to see for a long, long time. Think I'll spring for the $65 "in depth" tour of the house, as I absolutely adore that place.
IF YOU GO FALLINGWATER: 1478 Mill Run Road, Mill Run, Pa.; http://www.paconserve.org or 724-329-8501. Open mid-March through Thanksgiving weekend, Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. From Thanksgiving to the end of December, open 11 a.m.-3 p.m., weather permitting. Closed January and February. Tours: Adults $16, children 6-12, $10. Children under 6 are not permitted inside the house but can tour the grounds. A grounds-only entrance is $6 for adults. In-depth tours of the house are $55 and a sunset tour is $100. Advance reservations necessary.
KENTUCK KNOB: 723 Kentuck Knob Road (Chalk Hill-Ohiopyle Road), Chalk Hill, Pa.; http://www.kentuckknob.com or 724-329-1901. Regular tours, Tuesday- Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday tours at 12 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m.2, 2 and 3 p.m. Reservations required. Children under 6 are asked not to participate. Tours are about an hour long, and an independent tour of the sculpture garden takes about a half-hour. Regular tours, adults, $16; children 6-12, $10. In-depth tours are $55.
DUNCAN HOUSE: Usonian Drive, Acme, Pa.; http://www.polymathpark.com or 877-833-7829. Open year-round. Overnight accommodations; book well in advance. For three people to stay overnight, $385 plus tax. Each additional person is $50. Children under 6 are not permitted. Tours available on select Sundays year-round; adults, $16; children 6-12, $8.
Just 15 miles from there — but about a 30 minute drive along winding mountain roads — is the Duncan House. A more modest, prefabricated Usonian, it is one of only nine of this type ever built.
Carefully reconstructed on the 125-acre Polymath Park Resort, the home opened in June to overnight guests, nearly a year after the grueling process of putting it back together began.
"Every day was problem-solving really ... The challenge was not only rebuilding a house built 50 years earlier, but one that had fallen into disrepair," said Laura Nesmith, the resort's director, explaining that many parts had to be refurbished as construction was in process.
Since it opened, the house has been a raging success. Overnight stays are already booked straight through Thanksgiving.
"A lot of these people, their life dream is to see Fallingwater and they can't sit and they can't touch and then they come here and they can lay on the coach, and they love it," Nesmith said.
Spacious, bright and affordable at $47,000 — or about $350,000 today — Duncan House is a perfect example of Wright's attempt to allow the middle-class family to leave what he called "the box." Fifty years after it was originally built, the home remains modern.
The ignorance of some on this thread in the URBAN PLANNING forum is frankly troubling. Even if your only knowledge of architecture comes from a single film it is flat out WRONG to say either that anything in Wright's architectural style for higher end residence OR his decidedly more limited experience in designing larger collections of more affordable homes -- Usonia Homes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia contributed to any kind of decline of EITHER the "front porch" or any sense of community.
If one gets "angry" over something that one has incorrect KNOWLEDGE of perhaps one ought learn more about the subject.
As others have correctly stated FLW was well attuned to the role of "green" elements in his design NEARLY A CENTURY before the importance of consideration like seasonal site light / weather patterns, native plantings, naturalistic design elements and harmonious flow were more widely appreciated. Instead of paving over a whole lot and then sticking a few pathetic plantings here and there as "landscaping" FLW often had very functional / multi-purpose FRONT FACING areas with materials like crushed river rock that lead to a broad COVERED entry way that was deliberately designed to encourage folks to linger OUTDOORS. Pretty much ALL the Usonian homes have some variation on this idea. Even the relatively MODESTLY PRICED homes were designed with the idea of LOTS of outdoor areas for relaxing and enjoying the existing natural setting. It would be absolutely COUNTER to any FLW design aesthetic OR conceptual site planning to lump his work in with COOKIE_CUTTER designs that are common in cheap urban and suburban developments.
While FLW did often have identifiable elements that unified his designs those elements, even in the most affordable of home designs, highlighted things that were far more "artisan based" than houses /towns that lack any scale -- it is absolutely incorrect to say that his designs EVER had "small windows". He was HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL in pushing for absiolutely HUGE amounts of glass, often from the tip-top of the eave to the very lowest points BELOW the apparent floor! The placement of expanses of glass in UNEXPECTED WAYS enabled him to shift focus toward things like TREES, HORIZONS, and STARLIGHT much more so that jarringly unattractive things like alleys and garbage bins. Only someone with no sense of how MOST builders put no effort into "framing a view" would prefer a window that essentially looks at only another structure's walls!
I complete agree that anyone that has an incorrectly romantic view of city life / suburban paradise in the early part of the 20th century, when FLW was most credited with breaking from tradition, really ought to check some of the FACTS that caused things like movements to limit child labor, have limits on work hours and the generally cavalier attitude that most "city zoning" had toward anything like "land use" that kept ordinary people living in hovels under pollution spewing mills / factories. Pretty hard to sip lemonade on the front porch with the acrid stench of rot all around...
First of all, I have no idea why this thread is in Urban Planning.
Secondly, your post seems to extoll the virtues of FLW . . . glad you like his work. I don't and in the film I saw, they attributed turning the porch sideways to him - and whether you acknowledge that or not, it had an impact on community dynamics. That is the entire point of this thread . . .
I wouldn't even know how to find the film to post a link but if it could be found, you could argue with the filmmakers.
Last edited by imcurious; 07-09-2012 at 10:31 AM..
First of all, I have no idea why this thread is in Urban Planning.
Secondly, your post seems to extoll the virtues of FLW . . . glad you like his work. I don't and in the film I saw, they attributed turning the porch sideways to him - and whether you acknowledge that or not, it had an impact on community dynamics. That is the entire point of this thread . . .
I wouldn't even know how to find the film to post a link but if it could be found, you could argue with the filmmakers.
I see this thread has been moved, however, I thought it was a perfect fit for "Urban Planning".
You saw a film about FLW, and found it very moving. Fine. Now dig into the subject a little deeper. People get interested in urban planning for all sorts of reasons. There is a thread on the UP forum about how people got interested in the topic. I think that's great. However, one film, possibly by a biased source (we don't know) does not by itself mean much.
I love the front porch and I happen to live in a house with one.
And love him or hate him, FLW was not the first to "turn the porch".
Federalist homes built in the early 1800s, frequently have side porches, as do Dutch Colonials; and both styles have been around since before Mr. Wright was a glimmer in his father's eye.
I think something completely non architectural changes American life and residential homes.
The Automobile. Garages that gape like open mouths ready to devour that became attached to the house and actually a status symbol - rather than a detached building in the back of the house - that's what killed the front porch.
I agree. The McMansion styles and front loading garages are hideous, the house has no style, and emphasizes a storage/ garage
Ugly.
I would take a FLW house over these cookie cutter houses anyday.
FLW was a cult of personality, he really brought into his own crap.
This explains a few things. From what I've seen of his houses, they tend to be dark inside, and someone here mentioned low ceilings and small windows. Who wants to live in a cave? Like so many of his creations, the houses look nice from the outside, but look uncomfortable to live in.
Take the house, "Falling Water". This is one of the most celebrated designs of his career, but the finished product was the exact opposite of what his clients had asked for (and paid a pretty penny for!). They asked for a house that would allow them to view from the home the beautiful waterfall on their property. Instead, he built a house on top of the waterfall, so it was hidden from view! wtf??! Can't the guy follow instructions? I'd have sued if I were that couple! And the house proved to be unlivable, because of the glass walls. It was impossible to heat and cool. I read the couple sold it. They couldn't live in it, and they couldn't enjoy the waterfall, so what was the point of it all?
There was a tendency in his work to completely disregard the practical, and go for flashy design. Like the office building with the pillars that looked a little mushroom-shaped. The roof leaked constantly, and the office staff had to work with buckets placed all around the columns to catch the drips. This guy had a lot to learn about basic engineering. The flat roofs he was known for were completely impractical and prone to leaks in climates that had either heavy winter snowpacks, or heavy rains.
I consider him to be an embarrassment.
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I've always been nutty about his wonderful architectural creations - you should have seen me when I visited the campus at Florida Southern College, which was designed by Wright...lol. 
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