- Wright Studies
|
- Conrad and Evelyn Gordon
Residence, Wilsonville, Oregon (1956) (S.419)
|
|
Living in the great Northwest, I have had the
opportunity to visit the Gordon House many times. The first
was during the Gordon House move to the Oregon Gardens in
March 2001, and at the same time the abandoned site. Again
in September of 2001 during reconstruction, the grand
opening on March 2, 2002 and a number of times since then
when I am in the area.
Much has been written about the Gordon
House since its rescue and relocation. Located in Wilsonville from 1963 until 2001
until it was rescued from destruction and moved to the Oregon
Gardens in Silverton, Oregon. Originally designed in 1956
with a budget of $25,000, construction did not begin for
seven years, and construction estimates more than doubled to
$56,000. The 2,100-square-foot Gordon House was
completed in 1964 and was based on Wright’s "House
for a Family of $5-6,000 Income" plan, which was
published in a 1938 issue of Life magazine. E. J. Strandberg was the builder. Burton
Goodrich, who apprentice with Wright in the 1950s, oversaw
the construction. Who would have ventured a guess that
|
|
nearly forty
years later Burton would again supervise the dismantling and
reassembling of the Gordon House in
Silverton.
There are many classic Wright details. The basic materials
are concrete blocks, local cedar and a red concrete floor with
radiant heat, designed on a seven foot grid. There are three
sets of double wood framed glass doors on the East and West
side of the Living Room. They open outward and are one and a
half stories tall. Two cantilevered balconies on the second
floor with walls that step inward as they rise. Cantilevered
and trellised roof overhangs. Rows of vertical block piers.
There are windows with perforated cut-wood light screens. The hidden
entrance. Flush vertical joints and raked horizontal joints.
The vertical cedar siding is the exact height of the
concrete block and lines up with the joints. Like many of
Wright’s homes, he designed the built-in seating, many of
the fixtures and some of the furniture.
Conrad Gordon pasted away in 1979. Evelyn continued to live
in the home until she passed away in 1997.
May 2007 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Images:
- May
2007 March 2002
March & September 2001
Floor Plan
Books and Articles
|
|
|
|
Exterior
Photographs By Douglas Steiner, May 2007 (Silverton, Oregon) |
|
Living in the great Northwest, I
have had the opportunity to visit the Gordon House many
times. There are many classic Wright details. The
basic materials are concrete blocks, local cedar and a red
concrete floor with radiant heat, designed on a seven foot
grid. There are three sets of double wood framed glass doors
on the East and West side of the Living Room. They open
outward and are one and a half
stories tall. Two |
|
cantilevered balconies on the second floor with walls that step inward as
they rise. Cantilevered and trellised roof overhangs. Rows
of vertical block piers. There are windows with perforated
cut-wood light screens. The hidden entrance. Flush vertical
joints and raked horizontal joints. The vertical cedar
siding is the exact height of the concrete block and lines
up with the joints. |
|
|
|
|
|
Grand Opening Photographed By Douglas Steiner,
March 2002 (Silverton, Oregon) |
|
The grand
opening of the restored Gordon House took place on March 2 -
3, 2002. Saturday included an in-depth tour and a panel
discussion including: Frank Mataro who worked on the
Guggenheim Museum; Jack Quina, Director of the Darwin Martin
House in Buffalo, NY; Hetty Startup, Site Administrator for
the Zimmerman House in Manchester, NH; and Lynda Waggoner,
the Director of Fallingwater, Wright's most famous building.
The panel was moderated by Professor Neil Levine, a noted
Wright author and scholar, Gleason Professor, Department of
the History |
|
of Art and
Architecture, Harvard University. “Restoring it Wright”, the
panel discussion covered many aspects, challenges and
rewards, of restoring a Wright building and operating a
Wright home as a “house museum”. Saturday evening at the
Portland Art Museum, Neil Levine presented a lecture
entitled "Wright's Gordon House Move and Reconstruction” by
Kim Knox, project manager. These images are of the Gordon
House after the move and installation, but before final
restoration was complete.
March 2002 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saved from
destruction. The Move. |
|
March 14, 2001 and September 16, 2001
(Silverton and Wilsonville, Oregon) |
|
The original 22
acre site that once was home to the Gordon House, was sold
by the Gordon's son in September, 2000. The new owners were
not interested in the Home, but the property and slated it
for destruction, not knowing it was a Wright home. The Frank
Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy was notified. Agreements
were reached. The interior wood paneling, built-in
furniture, doors, cabinets and shelves were carefully
removed, packaged and marked to assure an accurate
restoration and reassembly. The roof was removed, then the
upper story was cut from the lower. |
|
The concrete red
floor, many of the concrete blocks and interior shower tiles
could not be saved. In February and March of 2001 the
dismantled Gordon House was moved in pieces, 25 miles away
to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. The building was sited
in the exact orientation as the original house. In September
of 2001, the reconstructed but incomplete Gordon house was
open for public tours. I had the opportunity to visit the
original and new site on March 14, 2001, and tour the work
in progress on September 16, 2001.
March 2001 & September 2001 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Text and Photographs by Douglas M. Steiner,
Copyright 2001 |
|
|
|
|
|
Gordon House Floor Plan |
 |
|
Floor plan copyright 1993, “The
Frank Lloyd Wright Companion” Storrer, William Allin, page 451. |
|
|
- Related Books
|
"Frank
Lloyd Wright Monograph 1951-1959", Text: Pfeiffer, Bruce
Brooks;
Edited and Photographed:
Futagawa, Yukio, 1990, page 282-283. |
| “The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion”,
Storrer, William Allin, 1993, page 451. |
| "Frank
Lloyd Wright: The Western Work", Legler, Dixie, 1999, page
96-99. |
|
"The
Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright"
Heinz, 2000, page 265, 272. |
| "The
Gordon House: A Moving Experience" Woodin, Larry, 2002. |
|
|
|
- Related Images and
Articles
- (Note, due to the fact that
the internet is constantly changing, and items that
are posted change, I have copied the text, but give all the
credits available.)
|
| A) "Saving
Wright's Gordon House",
by Brian Libby, January 24, 2001. |
| B)
"Agreement saves Wright's Gordon
Residence from Demolition", by Richard Hovey, |
| C)
"Short Trips: Wright home a tribute
to preservation efforts", February 28, 2002, by Jeff Larsen. |
| D)
Photographs from original site.
Photographs © 2000 Kris Olson, Text © 2000 David Sides |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HOME
ARTIFACTS BOOKS AUDIO
PHOTOS POSTERS STAMPS
STUDIES COLLECTING
|
