Easier seen than done

When last we visited the friable, if fertile structures of Frank Lloyd Wright, at the urging of Philip Johnson, we ran into the Lally column in the living room, against the drooping cantilever. Satan in construction's curious canon, gravity. Impromptu perpendiculars play hell with circula-tion, though glossy they are bossy in their upright concentration.

But now the maintenance of life's materials lands squarely on our desk, to test our own commitment to their conservation. Our beloved Guggenheim is patched and spiffy once again, and various other charities flock to spackle what's left of the Master's crumbling legacy. Yet who can say he hasn't had to make choices in his own priorities of repair, as the taste for things of elegant projection lays claim upon the highest maintenance? The builder's work seems never to be done - and just when one thought one might cash out one's chips, somewhat ahead for the night, there's dawn to light a crumbling cornice, a buckling buttress needing bolstering . .

Yet still the thirst for the heroic is not strained, computer-assisted design going only so far to nourish its requirements. The imagination can tell you only what you want, it can't deliver it on a plate. This tiresome lesson leads many into compromise, and others into trade, but at the end of the day, a thing meets specifica-tions or it does not. 
For a few, the great, unbending arc of time inspires the diligentest use of it; the romance of the thrilling edifice is engineer enough. And we find them, coiled as if a chord to spring a tangent from its center. But even they depend on a solid footing, and that does look like a bother.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Edgar J. Kaufmann House, 1935-39

Bear Run, Pennsylvania