Unravelling the Networks: Frank Lloyd Wright, Jaroslav J. Polívka and Their New Social Matrix

conference proceedings

English

When Frank Llolyd Wright was remembered in 2017 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth, a spotlight was shed on his collaborator of Czech origin, Jaroslav Josef Polívka (1886–1960). As Frank Lloyd Wright had built up an image of an individual genius and usually intentionally neglected broad scale of collaborators, students, employers and other agents, or preferred and spotlighted only a very limited number of them, the image of a collaborative nature of modernist architecture has been distorted. Polívka has been presented as Wright’s engineer who worked on seven projects with Wright between 1946 to 1959, including the Guggenheim museum and the Mile High Building. As a result of my six years research, it turned out not only that there were actually eight projects that Polívka worked on with Wright, but also that their relationship was far from genius architect and his contracting engineer who did the mechanical, unimaginative work. Polívka actually brought a large social network to Wright, such as Italian engineer Giorgio Neumann, Italian-Chinese engineer Paolo Chelazzi, Spanish engineer Eduardo Torroja or architectural critics and editors such as Bruno Zévi and Elisabeth Kandell Thompson. The paper will focus on the question, how these new social ties that Polívka brought to Taliesin West shaped the particular choices in Wright’s projects – about materials, such as experiments with aluminum, or construction systems, like Paolo Chelazzi’s patent for WW2 air force hangars –, as well as on the question what new opportunities – in architectural practice or media presentation – these networks brought to Wright and his label.

Frank Lloyd Wright; Jaroslav Polivka; Eduardo Torroja; Paolo Chelazzi; modern architecture; SAH

JACKSON, L.

13. 4. 2023

Society of Architectural Historians

Montréal, Québec, Canada

ISSN 0037-9808

Abstract of Papers Presented at the 76th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 12–16, 2023

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https://www.sah.org/2023/program