Oct 14, 1971
Ennis House - National Register of Historic Places
Statement of Significance: Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses sexist only in California, and are of a period unique in his work, one in which surfaces were ornamented heavily. The material for the four California textile block houses was concrete block cast in an ornamental pattern; the total impression of^ the blocks, is an overall textile pattern. This series of houses (Millard, Ennis, Freeman and Storer) carried forward Wright’s preoccupation with common materials which began with the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (1916-1922); Wright writes of lifting material from underfoot (lava stone) for the hotel, and lifting concrete block from the gutter and making of them noble materials. Wright felt that concrete block was suitable for the semiarid climate of Southern California, and was a modern version of the indigenous adobe block. He drew from the Maya culture many motifs for these houses, and his method of using ornament resembles in several ways that in the Maya temples of Yucatan the insloping walls of the Ennis house is a structural practice borrowed from the Mayas. The Ennis house is the most formidable of the textile block houses, but the plan was devised for comfortable, informal living; all of the plans have a spatial flow but the Ennis plan is especially interesting because of the device of a long gallery on the east into which various rooms flow. The series of textile block houses represents a variation on a structural theme which offers an insight into the creative process of America’s foremost genius in the field of architecture.
Ennis House - National Register of Historic Places
Statement of Significance: Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses sexist only in California, and are of a period unique in his work, one in which surfaces were ornamented heavily. The material for the four California textile block houses was concrete block cast in an ornamental pattern; the total impression of^ the blocks, is an overall textile pattern. This series of houses (Millard, Ennis, Freeman and Storer) carried forward Wright’s preoccupation with common materials which began with the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (1916-1922); Wright writes of lifting material from underfoot (lava stone) for the hotel, and lifting concrete block from the gutter and making of them noble materials. Wright felt that concrete block was suitable for the semiarid climate of Southern California, and was a modern version of the indigenous adobe block. He drew from the Maya culture many motifs for these houses, and his method of using ornament resembles in several ways that in the Maya temples of Yucatan the insloping walls of the Ennis house is a structural practice borrowed from the Mayas. The Ennis house is the most formidable of the textile block houses, but the plan was devised for comfortable, informal living; all of the plans have a spatial flow but the Ennis plan is especially interesting because of the device of a long gallery on the east into which various rooms flow. The series of textile block houses represents a variation on a structural theme which offers an insight into the creative process of America’s foremost genius in the field of architecture.
Oct 14, 1971
Posted Date
Mar 15, 2022
Historical Record Date
Oct 14, 1971
Source Name
United States Department of Interior - National Park Service
