weekly Wrap up 12/21/18 -- Franklin Lloyd Wright house and art activities and a Christmas Tradition

Every Christmas the kids get a new Christmas ornament that they pick out, usually it represents something they are passionate about or we find something on one of our trips.  This year we bought their ornament over the summer while on a trip to the south west.  I add the names and year to the ornament.  Every year the kids have fun hanging their ornament on the tree and reminiscing on the ornament they chose for that particular year!

For art we are learning about Franklin Lloyd Wright.  We had the boys watch a documentary on Franklin Lloyd Wright homes and style

 We found out there was a home in the area designed by Wright so we went to visit it.  No pictures are allowed on the inside of the house.  This style of home is called Usonian and still contains original Wright designed furnishings.  Wright designed the Usonian homes for middle class people so they are smaller in design but have many of the same features of his bigger homes.

This home was completed in 1955 and the original owners lived in it for over 50 years before it was sold to the county park service.   The owners were Wright fans and kept everything exactly as designed by Wright the entire time they owned the house.

We had a tour of the house and many of the amazing details were shown and explained to us.  Here we are told how the raking of the bricks was done in order to give a very linear feel to the house.  

All the light features were triangular in shape both inside and outside the house

The owner of the house was an artist- including stain glass so with input from Wright the owner designed the many glass features within the house.  We were told the owners original stain glass door design was rejected by Wright.  So he had to submit a different design.

This house had many angles and was built to coexist with the surroundings 

The design of the house was based on the parallelograms.  The shape is seen throughout the house and in the driveway.

A special shape of brick had to be made to complete the house.   the color of the brick and cement floor inside the house is Cherokee red

an example of the roof line found all around the house.

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the house.  The furniture of this house was very different and many of the pieces were specifically designed by Wright.  MarioFan was fascinated by the parallelogram bed in the bedroom and the origami chairs in the living room.  Neither of which looked very comfortable!!!!

For our art activity I wanted to do something fun and since we chose to do this artist right before Christmas--it was a perfect time to construct gingerbread houses!!!

I cheated a bit and just bought ready made houses

Boys working on their designs after being inspired by Wright.  

Their final pieces.  We still have one more project to complete on Wright but it will have to wait till after Christmas!

I  am taking a two week blogging break to spend time with family and enjoy the holiday season.  See you next year!  Hope you have a wonderful holiday season.