Exhibition Catalog - Lawrence Technological University

17
Living Room and Terrace
The living room and terrace comprise the public area
and act as the heart of the Affleck house. This combination
of spaces embraces many of Wright’s salient
concepts of domestic architecture, including such
notions as the sanctity of family (symbolized by the
oversized hearth), the fireplace as the spatial locus of
family life, the psychological attraction of prospect/
refuge design, and the essential connection between
nature and architecture. All other spaces in
the Affleck house are secondary.
The living room is a rectangle forty feet long and sixteen
feet wide. It is dominated by two elements: a
continuous row of French doors that extends along
most of the eastern side and part of the southern wall;
and a massive fireplace set off-center in the western
wall. Because of its size, “some people think our fireplace
will never work,” wrote Gregor Affleck. 45 But
they were wrong. Its function, however, was almost
secondary to its symbolic value. For decades Wright
had been utilizing immense living room hearths to signify
family togetherness and harmony – a characteristic
design feature he may have adopted from the
nineteenth century Arts & Crafts movement.
The living room demonstrates another of Wright’s design
characteristics – the use of a diagonal axis. As
historian Neil Levine has demonstrated, Wright utilized
diagonal planning throughout his career as a means
of allowing for a “new sense of freedom, breadth,
and connection to nature” while serving as “the positive
organizing principle of his planning.” 46 Early in his
career Wright began to place doorways or entries in
the corner of a room to give the impression of greater
interior depth. At his own home, Taliesin, in Spring
Green, Wisconsin, Wright introduced the diagonal
axis that extends from one corner of a rectangular
room through the opposite corner in the far wall
and out into the landscape. This manner of imparting
depth to a space – and harmonizing inside and
outside – was emphasized by either partially or fully
glazing the corner where the diagonal axis breaches
the enclosure and continues outdoors. In most of
Wright’s Usonian houses, then, one can stand in front
of the fireplace and look out across the living room
through a transparent corner to see nature. At the
Affleck house this view travels through the corner,
over the terrace, and out to the ravine in front of the
house slightly below treetop level. The vista unites the
structure with its surroundings, giving the impression
that the living room continues outside and into the
trees and sky with only a minimal barrier between.
Wright described this spatial effect in his autobiography,
claiming that the Usonian house “liberates the
occupant in a new spaciousness. A new freedom.” 47
This was part of Wright’s career-long effort to remove
barriers both inside the house and between inside
and outside. “There is a freedom of movement, and
Photograph by Harvey Croze
Photograph by Harvey Croze
Photograph by Harvey Croze