Willey House Sketch

I went to Minnesota back in October 2009 to see the Marvin Window factory. The factory itself is actually way up in North Minnesota near the Canadian border in a small town named Warroad. Anyway, before we took the Marvin company plane up there, we had an amazing architectural tour of Minneapolis. The sketch on the left side I did from the balcony of the Guthrie Theater. To call it a balcony doesn't really do it justice. It's really a gi-normous cantilevered bridge that runs through the theater and hovers out over the Mississippi River. I was on the end of this bridge/balcony thing sketching the Gold Medal Flour company building.

The highlight of the trip was seeing the Willey House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The owners, Steve and his wife, Lynette, led the tour and described the restoration process. It was amazing. There is nothing like it I have ever seen. Evidently there were nearly 80 pages of drawings by FLW on this one house that is not more than 1700 sf. Not only did they restore it, they obtained the drawings from the Taliesen Fellowship to actually finish the house and furnish it with the furniture Wright specifically designed for the house. The little sketch on the right was done in the 5 or so minutes (and colored later) I had before we left. I sat in one of Wrights chairs and sketched away. As you can see, I didn't finish and sort of left out the middle. I wish I could have stayed for a week to sketch it and soak up the beauty that is there. If you want to learn more, click here to go to the Willey House website. That's cool too.

Oh and I had my picture taken with Mary Tyler Moore!