Week 5, Wood, Reading, "Frank Lloyd Wright and The meaning of Materials" by terry Patterson

This weeks reading was intriguing because it was written by a third party giving Frank Lloyd Wright's opinions and general ideology towards wood.  The opinions of Frank Lloyd Wright seem well researched, documented, and supported, but it is still an article written by someone expressing another's point of view.  That idea that this was someone else writing about another's state of mind in selecting materials really bothered me when I was reading the article.  I know it is an analysis of Frank Lloyd Wright's disposition toward wood as a finish material, but I think she really exploited his ideology towards wood in such a way as to make Frank Lloyd Wright seem exceptionally flippant towards the material.  And maybe that is how he was toward the material, but for someone to portray him that way, even just a little bit does seem a bit like blasphemy against the god of architecture.

Some of the points that the author bring up about Wright's treatment of wood was interesting.  The author separated the article based up different wood qualities, and Wright's treatment or answer to those qualities.  The majority of the reading focused on the 'form' of wood, while other sections discussed wood's 'workability', its strength, and durability.  It is clear that Wright's preference for the material in his work stemmed from woods natural grain and from the linear quality of the product after it had been processed by the mill.  The author also makes it plain that Wright preferred wood for its purely aesthetic value first, and other natural property of the material was secondary to its aesthetic.

The author also seems somewhat critical of Wright's definition of wood as it relates to nature.  Where, according to the author Wright's definition does not follow a strict logical constraint.  In fact, as the author makes clear as mud, Wright's definition of wood allows him a partiality toward the aesthetic over the more intrinsic values of the material.  The author compares Wright's definition against a more literal interpretation of the material, an interpretation that is spelled out through the body of the reading.  Once compared, the author then argues that Wright's hierarchical classification of the important values with wood really begins and ends with its grain.  The author offers Wright's preference for veneer as revealing this clear preference for the grain over other qualities such as its strength, durability, and form.  Which brings me to my only question this week regarding the reading; why did the author take us through that long winded journey through the complexities of Wright's preference for wood, describing all of its qualities, just to say that the only one of high import to Wright was its grain?