by Michael Finley
Copyright © 1996 by Michael Finley

It was eerie visiting these old houses that for so long were the most modern things in America. They are not in good repair. Wright built them on the cheap with available materials -- he loved plywood -- and many beams and ceiling panels are bending and curling from the years.

The area is Wright's ancestral home. The surrounding green hills and valley beds were farmed by generations of Lloyds and Jones, who exuded the same pontifical air as Wright; they were known locally as the "godalmighty Joneses." As a boy Wright did hard labor in the fields, and later expressede the thought that creativity without hard work -- without suffering, even -- bore little fruit. I always have admired his genius, while remaining a bit leery of this puritanical, controlling strain in him.

The Hillside House still houses an architectural school, 60 years after its founding. Wright intended it to be a working school, whose students would farm the land as he had as a boy, between drafting assignments. Students are encouraged to experiment with the house itself, never mind the Master's original plan. Every week or so the furniture is moved around, and new art appears on the old walls. It is a war of creativity today against ancient reverence, and it is not always clear which is winning.

The gift shop has many books and curios, including a biennial periodical of Wrightiana. A recent issue featured a picture of the old man in a wool suit sitting stiffly on a knoll overlooking the glittering Wisconsin River. The headline: "Picnicking with Frank Lloyd Wright." It didn't look like a very fun picnic.

The guide invited us to sit in the theater seats Wright designed. They were comfortable -- surprisingly so, because, as was pointed out, Wright was supposed to have been constitutionally unable to design a comfortable chair. The chairs he designed for the Johnson's Wax headquarters building in Racine were something of a chiropractic nightmare, and caused a revolt at the waxworks when the space-age building was opened in 1936.

"Mr. Wright explained that chairs should only be comfortable if the sitting occurring in them is worthwhile," the guide explained. Evidently, he thought people did more important work on their feet than on their behinds.

His ergonomics had a bit of ego involved. He was not against dictating standards to people. Wright built many ceilings very low -- 5'10". Though many visitors and students towered over six feet, the ceilings were perfect for his 5'9" frame. If taller men had to bow in his presence, so much the better.

My daughter picked out the perfect birthday present for me -- a $9.95 Frank Lloyd Wright mousepad. Sure enough, an orange and white silkscreen design of Wright's was emblazoned on it.

According to our guide, Wright would have been "all in favor of computers." That seemed like an odd thing to say -- as if computers needed his approval. I saw several PCs at the design tables in the Hillside School. But you would never call the place high tech, unlike the Lands End phone center a few miles away, where farm wives tajke orders for hours at a time, working the immense banks of mainframe terminals.

I have visited the place. Its software knows everything about you. It remembers if a customer likes his deck pants with cuffs or not, if one leg is longer than the other, if the customer has a vendetta against UPS. All that massive technology joins together to give average people with Visa numbers clothes that make them seem to lead effortless lives, with teal-colored, twisted-cotton sweaters tied around their waists.

The Master would not have approved.

Wright would have liked the mousepad, though. You roll a ball on a square, transforming it into a galaxy of discrete X-Y coordinates. What designer wouldn't flip over that?

But I passed on the pad. The design was, well, ugly, and I already have a special pad at home that (I hope) helps prevents repetitive stress injury. And $9.95 seems like a lot for a slab of beaded rubber. Anyway, half the fun of desktop computing is that you get to do things your way, even if it is not the Wright way.

On this vacation, for example, I left my laptop at home. I compose this at campside on a spiral notebook with a Bic pen, wearing Lands End chinos and a T-shirt of no pedigree. The chair is by Wal-Mart, ultralight aluminum tubing and ultracheap nylon straps. A good breeze can send it flying, but it beats sitting at the camp table.

And if I am not suffering as I sit and listen to the slapping of waves on Blackhawk Lake below, I don't have to justify my comfort to Frank Lloyd Wright. Because this is my chair, and this is my picnic. x

"A masterpiece of explanatory journalism!" - New Orleans Picayune "Fast, funny, and highly stimulating!" -Business Book Review Get your signed copy of The NEW Why Teams Don't Work by Mike & Harvey Robbins from Berrett-Koehler Publishers Just click on the book cover!