Exhibition Catalog - Lawrence Technological University

they told Wright, “We don’t like attics; we don’t like
basements, and we don’t like furniture,” and asked
him for “a house with a lot of windows, a large fireplace,
a carport instead of a garage, room enough
for three people to live in but large enough for six to
sleep in.” 23
9
Bloomfield Hills in 1940
Bloomfield Hills was a very small and new community
in 1940, but it was already gaining a reputation
around metropolitan Detroit as a desirable residential
location for wealthy automobile executives and
other professionals. Affleck described it as “not a
cheap neighborhood” with many “Old English”
houses costing more than $50,000. 24 While Bloomfield
Township had been incorporated in 1827, the
town of Bloomfield Hills had only recently been incorporated
in 1932. The 1940 U.S. census listed its
sparse population at 1,281. 25 There really was no
town center or shopping district; nearby Birmingham,
with over 11,000 inhabitants, fulfilled those
needs. The cultural center of Bloomfield Hills was
the Cranbrook campus, a wooded 315-acre oasis
consisting of three schools and nearly thirty buildings,
courtyards, and pools designed by Finnish architect
Eliel Saarinen. 26 Curiosity later would bring many artist
and architect visitors from Cranbrook, many of
whom became friendly with the Afflecks, including
Saarinen and sculptor Carl Milles. 27
Wright’s Design
Wright’s typical working method by the 1930s involved
designing from a distance. He rarely visited
the site for one of his houses more than once, and in
many cases he never visited at all, working instead
from photographs and topographic maps supplied
by the client. This was the process he used with the
Afflecks. Wright did not see the property before creating
the house. He began making drawings in July
1940. From the beginning he conceived the project
as a Usonian house, albeit a slightly more elaborate
version. The drawings envisioned a structure of almost
2,400 square feet in an L-shape, with the longer
leg anchored into the hillside and the shorter leg a
boldly cantilevered living room/dining room/terrace
hanging over the ravine. As Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer has
pointed out, Wright situated the house “diagonally
to the contour lines to take full advantage of the
sloping terrain in its woodland setting.” 28 The picturesque
siting and dramatic cantilever responded
to Gregor’s desire to have Wright devise something
special, indicated by a letter sent just before the first
drawings were produced. “Bloomfield is considered
an ART centre and now we have an opportunity to
show what art in architecture really is and fortunately
there will be no chance to compare it with any
other house,” boasted Gregor. 29
Taliesin Drawing
Taliesin Drawing