Darwin D. Martin House
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| Darwin D. Martin House | |
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | 125 Jewett Parkway, Buffalo, NY |
| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Built/Founded: | 1905 |
| Architect: | Frank Lloyd Wright |
| Architectural style(s): | Prairie School |
| Designated as NHL: | February 24, 1986[1] |
| Added to NRHP: | February 24, 1986 [2] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 86000160 |
| Governing body: | The Martin House Restoration Corporation |
The Darwin D. Martin House Complex, built between 1903 and 1905 and located at 125 Jewett Parkway in Buffalo, New York, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is considered to be one of the most important projects from his Prairie School era. Wright scholar Robert McCarter said of it:
"It can be argued that the Martin House Complex ... is the most important house design of the first half of Wright's career, matched only by Fallingwater over 30 years later."[cite this quote]
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[edit] History
The Martin House Complex was the home of Isabelle and Darwin D. Martin (1865–1935), an entrepreneur in Buffalo, New York. He was instrumental in selecting Wright as the architect for the Larkin Administration Building, Wright's first major commercial project. Martin was the secretary of the Larkin Soap Company and Wright also designed houses for other employees including the William R. Heath House and Walter V. Davidson House.
The Martin House ranks among Wright's greatest works east of the Prairie, along with the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. Wright designed the complex as an integrated composition of connecting buildings, consisting of the main Martin House, a long pergola connecting with a conservatory, and carriage house. A smaller residence, called the Barton House (1903), shared the site and was built for Delta and George Barton, Darwin Martin's sister and brother-in-law.
A gardener was housed in the gardener’s cottage, which was also designed by Wright and built in 1908. Martin was disappointed with the small size of the conservatory, and so in 1905 he had a 60-foot-long greenhouse constructed, between the gardener's cottage and the carriage house, to supply flowers and plants for the buildings and grounds. This greenhouse was not designed by Wright, and Martin ignored Wright's offer "to put a little architecture on it".[3] The garden includes two sculptures from Wright collaborator Richard Bock.[4]
Two decades later in 1926 Wright designed a summer home for the Martin family named Graycliff overlooking Lake Erie in nearby Derby, NY.[5] And after nearly a century, the Blue Sky Mausoleum that Wright designed for Martin was installed in 2004 at Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery.
In 2008, The Gardener's Cottage was included on In-Depth and Focus Tours of the Complex. This building has rarely been seen by the public before now.
[edit] Design
The design of these buildings exemplifies Wright's Prairie School ideal and is comparable with other works from this period in his career, such as Robie House in Chicago and the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois. Wright was especially fond of the Martin House design, referring to it for some 50 years as his “opus”, and calling the Complex "a well-nigh perfect composition."
The main motives and indications were: First- To reduce the number of necessary parts of the house and the separate rooms to a minimum, and make all come together as an enclosed space--so divided that light, air and vista permeated the whole with a sense of unity.
- —FLW [6]
Particularly distinctive are the art glass windows (pictured) that Wright designed for the entire complex, some of which contain over 750 individual pieces of jewel-like iridescent glass, that act as “light screens” to visually connect exterior views with the spaces within. Wright designed more patterns for art glass for the Martin House than for any other of his Prairie Houses.
[edit] Restoration
Following the loss of the family fortune due to the Great Depression and Darwin Martin's death, the family abandoned the house in 1937. For the next two decades, it remained vacant, was considerably vandalized, and began to deteriorate. In the 1950s, the pergola, conservatory, and carriage house were demolished, and a set of apartment buildings were constructed on the site. In 1967, the complex was purchased by the University at Buffalo, for use as the university president's residence.
It would be added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and then became a National Historic Landmark in 1986.[1][7]
The Martin House Restoration Corporation (“MHRC”) was incorporated in 1992. The MHRC is a not-for-profit organization with a clearly focused mandate to restore the house designated National Historic Landmark and to open it to the world as a public house museum. The restoration process began in 1992, when Buffalo architects: Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects ("HHL") were engaged to design the restoration of the roof of the original main house building. The demolished pergola, conservatory and carriage house were reconstructed in 2007, and the entire restoration is planned to be completed in 2008 or 2009. HHL continues to lead the restoration effort, with the final stages to include the return of or recreation of the art glass windows, furniture, furnishings and landscape that Wright originally designed for the house. This is the first time that a demolished Wright structure has been rebuilt in the United States.
The MHRC operates docent-guided public tours and presents educational programs for volunteers and the general public.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Darwin D. Martin House. National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2007-09-11.
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ Tom Buckham. "Darwin Martin complex to include working greenhouse", The Buffalo News, 2006-06-21, p. B1.
- ^ Carla Lind, Frank Lloyd Wright's Furnishings. Consulted on August 14, 2007.
- ^ Frank Lloyd Wright's Graycliff.
- ^ Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, pp. 45
- ^ Carolyn Pitts (Undated), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Darwin D. Martin HousePDF (632 KiB), National Park Service and Accompanying Photos, exterior, from 1910 and 1975.PDF (976 KiB)
[edit] External links
- FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S BUFFALO LEGACY
- Current restoration
- Darwin Martin House State Historic Site at NYSOPRHP
- Darwin D. Martin House, 125 Jewett Parkway, Buffalo, Erie County, NY: 15 photos, 27 drawings, and 15 data pages, at Historic American Building Survey
- The Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin D. Martin House Complex
- Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo, NY
- Darwin D. Martin House. National Historic Landmarks Program. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- PBS Documentary 'Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo' to Air Nationwide
- Information about Buffalo's architecture: Wright Now in Buffalo
- Podcast of remarks about Buffalo architecture by Dr. Neil Levine, author of The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
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