Steel Beams Arrive Today

Here are some photos and videos from early today when the flatbed arrived with steel beams.

Updates from the building site. Here are some of the latest photographs.

Pallets of blocks

 Construction is slowly coming along. Here are some shots of the blocks that have arrived. They are sitting on the pallets ready to become a new Frank Lloyd Wright Building.

Construction in the Heat

It is July in Florida and the heat is overwhelming! But the construction of the new Usonian building moves along.  The Florida Southern Tourism and Education Center is now called the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center. There is a nice article in the July 16th Lakeland Ledger about the new building. There are over forty different styles of concrete blocks being made for the building in North Brookfield, Massachusetts.

 Here are two photos and a video from July 6, 2011:

Here are a few photos from July 18th:

The building is slowly progressing...

Some shots today of the work going on at the site.

The Official First Usonian Home

The first Usonian home that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was the Herbert Jacobs house in Madison, Wisconsin. The house was a modest 1500 square feet and was built for $5500. The Usonian design was Wright’s solution to a small house problem as he saw it. The Jacobs house, like most of the other Usonian houses Wright designed incorporated natural materials, such as low priced concrete block, wood and brick; was one story, had no storage areas (no attics, basements and a carport for a garage) and had radiant heating in the floors. Almost all of the Usonian homes featured spacious outdoor patios. They were a uniquely American design for the average family.

The construction of the visitor's center is moving along. There is a Wright block right near the fence that suggests what the building will look like on completion.

New Frank Lloyd Wright building coming soon

No activity today at the construction site, the gates are closed;

but there are some Wright blocks on the ground!

Construction Activity Started up Again

It has been a few weeks since there has been construction activity at the site of the new visitor's center, but today there were a few men and a machine!

The first Usonian house

Frank Lloyd Wright built a home in 1923 in Pasadena, California for Alice Millard, a rare book dealer originally from Highland Park, Illinois and it is called La Miniatura. Thirty years after he built the home, he called La Miniatura his first Usonian house.

 In 1936 Wright built a home in Madison, Wisconsin for Herbert and Katherine Jacobs and Wright termed this home a Usonian house. It was believed that the Jacobs home was the first Usonian home Wright designed, but Wright himself in 1953, gave that honor to La Miniatura.

Construction has picked up today; more dirt moving about!

Work continues...

The work area has been fenced and the garage that was behind the green house has been torn down.

New Tourism and Education Center will be coming soon!

The Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian designed Tourism and Education Center will be coming soon. The land is starting to be cleared. This center will be built according to Wright's plans, even including his signature concrete blocks. It should be about 1500 square feet and include a gift shop and book store and space for conferences and exhibitions. There will be a a tourism kiosk with information on other Polk County attractions and docent-led audio and self-guided tours  The interior will have Wright designed built-in furnishings. The center will be constructed using plans for a Usonian house (Usonian is an acronym for United States of North America) that Mr. Wright created as part of the campus master plan but which was never built. Mr. Wright designed 18 structures for the campus, 12 of which were built between 1939 and 1958.