"This is the first of four textile-block houses constructed in the Los Angeles area. Its two-story high living room is delicately lit by pierced, patterned block and overlooks a lovely pool surrounded by lush gardens deep in the ravine-traversed site...The face relief patterns of the blocks vary for each project. The method of construction consisted of stacking concrete blocks three inches thick, cast in molds, next to and atop one another without visible mortar joints. In all but La Miniatura, thin concrete and steel reinforcing rods were run horizontally and vertically in edge reveals 'knitting' the whole together. A double wythe was common, held together by steel cross ties, the cavity air space serving as insulation."

—William Allin Storrer. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog. project 214.

The Creator's Words

"What about the concrete block? It was the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world. It lived mostly in the architectural gutter as an imitation of rock-faced stone. Why not see what could be done with that gutter rat? Steel rods cast inside the joints of the blocks themselves and the whole brought into some broad, practical scheme of general treatment, why would it not be fit for a new phase of our modern architecture? It might be permanent, noble beautiful."

—Frank Lloyd Wright. from Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer and Gerald Nordland, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas. p67.

Details

645 Prospect Crescent Pasadena, California 91103The Photography of Architecture: Twelve Views. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993. ISBN 0-442-01349-3. LC 86-5627. TR659.B87 1986. exterior photo across pond, p106.

Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer and Gerald Nordland, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8-93-1421-5. LC 87-20755. NA737.W7A4 1988. p67.

Leland M. Roth. A Concise History of American Architecture. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1979. ISBN 0-06-430086-2. NA705.R67 1979. discussion, p254-255, exterior photo, f219, p255.

William Allin Storrer. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: a Complete Catalog. Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1979. ISBN 0-262-19171-7. LC 78-1306. NA737.W7A4 1978. photo of exterior, p214. geographical index, p14.

William Allin Storrer. The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN 0-226-77624-7. LC 93-30127. NA737.W7A4 1993. plan drawing.   Available at Amazon.com

Frank Lloyd Wright. A Testament: Frank Lloyd Wright. Horizon Press, 1957. plan drawing, p145.