Wednesday, August 13, 2014. The House on the Rock.... and Kyle!

One of the House on the Rock staff claims Alex Jordan and Frank Lloyd Wright never met. Wikipedia retells stories from two biographies of Alex Jordan Jr. of how Alex Jordan Jr. committed to building House on the Rock near Dodgeville, Wisconsin. Jordan was a devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright. One day Jordan drove to Frank Lloyd Wright's home Talisen, near Green Springs, Wisconsin to show Wright some blueprints. After looking over the blueprints, Wright said he wouldn't hire Jordan to build a cheese crate or a chicken coop. On the way home, Jordan pointed to a tower of rocks and said he would build a pagoda on top of those rocks. And he did. Then he spent the rest of his life collecting stuff and erecting buildings to house them. The end result is the most visited tourist attraction in Wisconsin.

Wright's influence on Jordan's construction is unmistakable. Wright had a building technique called compress and release. Front entrances had low ceilings about 6 feet above the ground. This seem oppressive, but about 15 feet inside the ceiling jumps up to 12 to 20 feet. Compress. Release. Jordan's house contains extreme compression, since my head sometimes bumped the ceiling, with little release. And dark, oh my gosh.

Wright played with windows. In one house Wright built a rock garden with bowling ball size boulders.  The bottom of a glass wall is cut to fit the exact shape of the boulders separating the garden half inside and half outside the house. Cool idea. A more common Wright technique is to have to large panes of glass meet at the corners of a room without a frame between them. The glass is beveled to fit tightly together at the corners. The glass may h,ave fit together tightly when first installed. Decades later, the glass is now separated by at least a quarter of an inch. And, as I recall, there is no cawking filling the cracks. And these are the windows in Talisen in the middle of Wisconsin. Fortunately, Wright was also fond of huge roof overhangs which prevents water from blowing in.

Unfortunately, Jordan did not adopt Wright's use of windows. Several walls have some rows of windows about chest high or facing down toward the ground. They add little light. Most lighting comes from a few recessed bulbs or indirect lighting from somewhere.

Like Wright, Jordan uses wood and stone for some walls and ceiling. Unlike Wright, most of Jordan's walls and ceiling are darkened by a thick, deep red plush carpet, the type I have seen in sleezy, dark discos. This carpeting even covers the kitchen. Reading a recipe would be impossible. And where are the cabinets to store cooking equipment and cans of food? Several rooms have bookshelves reaching to the ceiling some 15 feet overhead. Reading the spines and reaching the overhead shelves are impossible. I have to agree with Wright's assessment of Jordan's architecture.

Then there are the collections which go on and on and on. Several of the collections are interesting for those who like that "stuff". The best collections are the doll houses, the guns, butterflies, ships, and crown jewelry. With the exception of the ships and the crowns, few items are marked and identified, so people have to bring their own knowledge. The mechanical instruments are the most entertaining collection. There are several orchestras and bands with and without mannequins play a variety of tunes. I think I prefer instruments playing by themselves. The music is not played perfectly, but it is amusing.

After leaving the house, we drove to Madison to see daughter Kyle. We ate at a sidewalk cafe. Kyle told us about her Alaskan trip.