Frank Lloyd Wright - From the Ground Up

Having been a child in New York City, I hankered for something other than conversation or museums... I wanted to go camping, fishing or simply take a hike.  This was hard when living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn  (the Greenwood Cemetery was the closest greenspace) or later, the Upper West Side of Manhattan...

Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, a magnificent, historic green space

I wanted to get away from intellectuals and hang with someone close to Nature ( I went to East Africa -with no money- at age 18)...

Taken by me with my instamatic camera - Ngorongoro Crater, 1970

So it follows that I went into landscape architecture and planning...finally ending up with my hands in the earth, planting shrubs, trees and flowers.  Nevertheless, my childhood remains and I am still an avid reader and digester of ideas....

Yet I always credit my earth-bound profession for helping keep my feet on the ground and preventing me from living 'in my head'... you know, living life 'from the ground up'..perhaps you feel the same...


So it was with lovely surprise that I see the estimable Frank Lloyd Wright, the great architect of the 20th century, agrees with me!


 Wright's advice is timeless - this is a very short video clip on his opinion of intellectuals ( and, of course, he was one of the great intellectuals of his time) ...

Comments

  1. KimberlyJune 3, 2010 at 2:33 PM

    FLW is a favorite of mine...we owned a house in Illinois that was built by a direct apprentice of his. GORGEOUS!! Anyway, good for you! You followed your heart and look what happened! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jan JohnsenJune 4, 2010 at 7:02 AM

    wow - that must have been something. FLW's last wife studied with Gurdjieff and she influenced him very much...just an aside.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BrittJune 4, 2010 at 4:28 PM

    I liked this post a lot Jan. I hope the new semester is going well! xoxo Britt

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jan JohnsenJune 5, 2010 at 9:19 AM

    Ah, Britt - keep up your art work! and take a look at FLW's buildings and grounds...'space master', indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJune 8, 2010 at 10:23 PM

    Great clip! A man intouch with his "feminine" side.

    our feminine is nurished from the soil - or ground up
    our masculine is nurished from the sun - or top down

    (Your blog is a treat!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jan JohnsenJune 13, 2010 at 5:06 PM

    Thank you Kara...I appreciate your insight re 'from the sun' vs 'from the soil'..yang vs yin..

    ReplyDelete

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