A Fresh Look at the Imperial Hotel – Part 1

© Mark Hertzberg (2023)

Frank Lloyd Wright is known by many people only for his domestic architecture. But some of his undisputed masterpieces were public buildings. One was the sprawling Imperial Hotel in Tokyo which was 76,865 sq. ft. in an area which measured 156,442 square feet. The hotel, which opened 100 years ago this month, was demolished in 1967-1968, despite an international outcry which included efforts to save it by Olgivanna Wright and Edgar Tafel.

The lobby and entryway were saved and rebuilt at Meiji-mura, a large park with buildings of diverse architecture from the Meiji era (1868 – 1889). It is near Nagoya, several hours from Tokyo by Shinkansen (bullet train), local train, and bus.

The scholars and archivists at Organic Architecture and Design (OA + D), including Kathryn A. Smith, have made two new significant contributions to our understanding and appreciating the breadth and scope of Wright’s Tokyo tour de force. In 1923, concurrent with the opening of the hotel, the management published The Jewel of the Orient, a richly illustrated 32-page brochure about the building and its amenities. The narrative was written anonymously, and takes the reader on a walking tour through its public places and service areas. OA + D has republished the brochure, with an introductory essay by Smith. Only 500 copies were printed, it is a bargain at $20.00:While one can visit the remnants of the grand hotel at Meiji-mura, the OA + D republication of The Jewel of the Orient is a stark reminder of what was lost when the first wrecking ball struck and breached Wright’s hotel. What the Kanto Earthquake on opening day and the bomb couldn’t take, the wrecking ball did.

https://store.oadarchives.org/product/jewel-of-the-orient-the-imperial-hotel

On the back cover, the writer describes the hotel as “Neither Of the East Nor Of The West, But Might Fittingly Be Called A Blending Of The Ideals Of The Two Civilizations.” He (presumably) quotes an unnamed “Writer of International Fame” describing the hotel “As A Symphony In Brick And Stone.” It certainly was.

The 1923 black and white photographs are illuminating, particularly the double truck (one photo over two facing full pages) on pp. 14 – 15, an overhead view of the complex. The collection of photographs reinforces the wonder of how one man could design such an intricate and complex masterpiece, especially in the pre-computer age. It has been written that Wright conceived of such landmark buildings as Midway Gardens and Fallingwater long before he “shook them out of his sleeve” and articulated their design on his drafting table. We can only wonder how Wright imagined the Imperial Hotel before drawing it. Because there had to be plans for each hotel ornament, as well as the china and the furniture, and not just plans for the building itself and its ancillary structures, Smith wrote me, she estimates that there may have been between 2,000 and 3,000 drawings made. Only 822 drawings of the hotel survive in the Wright archives at the Avery Library. Consider the volume of drawings, at least one for each element of the hotel:

 

As for the furnishings, the author of the brochure notes “The thing which strikes one most forcibly on entering any of the rooms, be they parts of a suite or otherwise, is the absence of ready to buy wares.” Everything was “especially designed and made for the hotel…conceived by the mind of a master and manufactured with a view to forming integral parts of a completed and harmonized whole…”

Film 100 years ago was infinitely less sensitive to light than today’s digital cameras which can take pictures even under dark conditions. The anonymous photographer capably used natural (ambient) light in many interior photos as well as lighting others. There are photos of lesser known aspects of the hotel including the Arcade shops in the basement and the reading room. A post office as well as a branch of the Japan Tourist Bureau were also in the hotel. Hotel staff members took English lessons in the Service School (nine-tenths of the complaints to management over the years in the prior Imperial Hotel had been about guests and staff having difficulty communicating with each other). Look at Wright’s use of indirect lighting in the (reconstructed) lobby:

Smith writes it is “surprising” that the writer of the brochure “not only sensitively describes Wright’s architectural accomplishments, but he also emphasizes the technological progress represented in everything hidden from sight. There are not only descriptions, but  photographs of the mechanical rooms.”

Wright, who many think was loathe to collaborate with anyone, had hired a Chicago company and a mechanical consultant to oversee electrical machinery for the hotel kitchen and service facilities. Meals could be served to 3,000 guests at a time. There are photographs of the “huge electric Blakes-Lee dish washing machine capable of cleaning and drying 5,600 dishes in one hour” and one of the four “large Tahera autonomic (silver) burnishing machines.”

The photographs of the powerhouse, laundry, and ice plant are of particular historic importance because they were destroyed in the Allied bombing of the hotel, May 25, 1945. The Banquet Hall was also destroyed. Although the Allies rebuilt it in 1946, the work was not executed to Wright’s design.

Wright relentlessly spent months “testing and rejecting the texture and color of the brick, just like a Japanese tea master choosing the perfect ceramic cup for his ceremony,” writes Smith. Only appliances were ordered out of a commercial catalogue. The indirect lighting, indeed all aspects of his design, she writes, were “certainly in sympathy with omotenashi, a subtle Japanese concept of hospitality and personal behavior.

The writer of the brochure takes note of the furniture and fixtures in the hotel. “They were conceived by the mind of a master and manufactured with a view to forming integral parts of a completed and harmonized whole,…possessing all the characteristics to be found in a home of refinement and culture.” He observes that the guest rooms are “convenient” to the public areas. “This feature is what has caused many to declare that the Imperial Hotel is not a single structure but the systematic and convenient grouping of a number of structures that go to form a community in themselves.”

I chuckled when I read about the barber and beauty shops in the basement in her essay. I recalled that my parents stayed in the hotel in 1957. They never mentioned Wright to me (I was not quite seven at the time). My mother kept a diary during their trip to Japan. Her only remark about the hotel was that she had her hair done there while my father was in a business meeting.

A curious phrase in the text of the brochure implies the author was writing, at least in large part, for an American audience. While describing “The Ground Floor” in his walking tour of the hotel, he notes, “The prohibition craze has not invaded Japan as yet and the Imperial Hotel has provided a place where friends may meet after the day’s task is done and enjoy one another’s society over an anti-Volsteadian cup (emphasis added).” This references The Volstead Act, the law that created Prohibition in the United States.

It is not surprising to read in Smith’s essay of the “conflict between commercial value versus cultural value” of the hotel, and that the budget eventually quadrupled. The first page of the 1923 text notes “The apparent indifference of the management to the cost of hammered copper, brass, gorgeous upholstering and the like, all bring down the wrath of the dividend seeker on the heads of the director, who approved of the structure, the architect who conceived and designed it and the builders who dared to construct it. To them the new Imperial Hotel is a masterpiece of folly, a source of never ending expense and a case where pride took the bridle in its teeth and ran away with judgement and common sense.” Aisaku Hayashi, the hotel manager who hired Wright, was forced to resign.

The hotel was arguably “The Jewel of the Orient,” as evidenced by the cover photo. The hotel is shining at night with Wright’s artful use of indirect lighting. Smith’s closing remarks address the photo. “The building looked like a glowing beacon and could be seen from miles around. It not only stood for technological progress, but for the architect’s humanistic view of how architecture could express a spiritual dimension. While it stood, it also had great meaning as Wright’s effort to embody omotenashi.”

Every issue of the OA + D Journal of Organic Architecture and Design is devoted to a single topic. The new issue, titled “100 for 100,” is 120-pages edited by Smith. It showcases 100 objects from the hotel’s history. The objects, some of which are being published for the first time, come from the OA + D archives:

https://store.oadarchives.org/product/journal-oa-d-v11-n2

It is Smith’s second Journal about the hotel. The previous Imperial Hotel issue, published in December 2018, is well illustrated with construction photos:

https://store.oadarchives.org/product/journal-oa-d-6-3-pre-order

I photographed the rebuilt portions at Meiji Mura in 2018 and enjoyed a drink in the coffee shop above the lobby:

https://wrightinracine.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/imperial-hotel/

https://centrip-japan.com/spot/meijimura.html

Some of the last photographs in my web piece show the unfinished and very raw rear of the rebuilt portion of the hotel, underscoring the inevitable destruction of the greater hotel in 1968. The rear of the building mocks us, making us think that what we saw inside and from the front was a Hollywood set. I wrote above the photos, “But, what about the rear of the structure? I had to look, but it was a bit like peeking behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain.”

A new Imperial Hotel was built after Wright’s was demolished. The  hotel website asserts that there are plans to rebuild the 1923 main building and “merge” it with the modern hotel. In the meantime, the hotel, in partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, now incorporates “Wright-inspired motifs, patterns and designs into the furnishings of its current buildings.” And, for $10,000 a night you can stay in the Frank Lloyd Wright Suite, “the only one in the world (which) features an Oya stone relief, handmade stained glass and oak furniture staged in the symmetry for which Wright was famous.”

https://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/e/tokyo/special/wright_building/

No, thank you, that’s not for me, not after seeing the real thing in the century old photographs in The Jewel of the Orient.

OA + D Home Page:

https://oadarchives.org/

Please scroll down for previous article on the website.

Catching Up on All Things Wright

© Mark Hertzberg (2023)

It seems like more than a month since I last posted, but, a month it is, almost to the day. Today is catch-up day, with a variety of things for you.

First (and most important?!) are my latest photos of our dear friend Minerva Montooth. I had the pleasure of chatting with her June 30 when I was taking another Road Scholar group – my 14th since 2017 – to Taliesin, at the end of their week-long Wright adventure in Illinois and Wisconsin (I am with them for the three days in Wisconsin). I will post a link to this particular Road Scholar trip at the end of this article.

Minerva and her friend and assistant Renee

Minerva turned the tables on me with her phone camera:

Next, I am a few months late to the party, but I just finished an important book about the Jacobs houses in Madison and Middleton. It is published by OA+D:

https://store.oadarchives.org/product/frank-lloyd-wright-s-jacobs-houses-experiments-in-modern-living-pre-order

The book was edited by Neil Levine, and starts with an essay by him. Neil’s late wife was Susan Jacobs Lockhart who grew up in the two houses. Hers is one of  six essays in the book (the others are by her sister Elizabeth and brother William, and by Michael Desmond) There are profiles of Herbert and Katherine Jacobs; first-person accounts of growing up in the houses; and compelling perspectives on the history and architectural significance of the two houses. There is also a rich collection of historic photos and of Wright’s drawings. I was particularly taken with the photos of the Madison house under construction, and shortly after, when it stood almost alone in the neighborhood.

Thirdly, Michael Schreiber of This American House, sent me a link to a “Reconsideration of William Cary (sic) Wright,” Wright’s father, by Hope Rogers, William Carey Wright’s great-granddaughter. The architect’s father has been given short-shrift in many accounts, wrongly portrayed as a thoughtless man who abandoned his family. One other recent setting straight of the record was Paul Hendrickson’s 2019 book Plagued by Fire. Here is a link to her telling of his story:

https://thisamericanhouse.com/the-architects-father-a-reconsideration-of-william-cary-wright-the-father-of-frank-lloyd-wright/

And, finally, mentioning Paul Hendrickson is also a way to segue into my last offering for this article. He recently attended a conference at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Rosemont hotel near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. We were going to meet at the hotel and he emailed me that he was anxious to show me a variety of homages to Wright in the hotel. They are like fish out of water, with no apparent context. After all, the hotel was near the airport, not in Oak Park in River Forest where acknowledging Wright would have been a logical. Regrettably, the manager of the hotel has not had the courtesy to return a number of calls over several weeks, calls in which I had hoped to learn the genesis of the Wright decorations. So, here with no explanation, are some photos from the lobby and one of the ballrooms:

Road Scholar Illinois /  Wisconsin: Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

What’s next? “Only the Shadow knows,” as was said on the long-ago radio program. I rarely know in advance what and when the next posting will be. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, scroll down for previous articles.

OA + D’s Encore

© Mark Hertzberg (2022). Chandler photographs courtesy of, and © Michael Rust

There are seemingly not enough hours in the day for some people, including Randolph C. Henning, Eric M. O’Malley, and William B. Scott, Jr. 

O’Malley, left, Henning, and Scott  June 28, 2019, at Taliesin for a meeting of the Taliesin Fellows.

They have “day jobs,” but because they are also three individuals who are passionate about, and collected material associated with, Frank Lloyd Wright, his students, and other organic practitioners, they founded Organic Architecture + Design (OA+D) in 2013. Their mission is to honor the past, celebrate the present and encourage the future of organic architecture and design through education, conservation of original design materials, publications and exhibitions.

O’Malley, Tim Samuelson, left, then the City of Chicago Cultural Historian, and David Jameson meet in Samuelson’s archives near OA+D’s, in June 2018 to plan an exhibit about Alfonse Iannelli at the Racine, Wisconsin, Heritage Museum.

Christopher Paulson, right, Executive Director of the Racine Heritage Museum looks at cartoons of windows Iannelli designed for Francis Barry Byrne’s St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Racine, which Samuelson was lending to the museum.

They felt that big institutions are selective about what is saved, often rejecting worthy collections. They perceived a rapid loss of material with historical value associated with the organic movement—especially regarding lesser known architects and designers. Drawing from their own personal collections, as well as others that they were aware of, they also felt that a journal promoting an awareness of Organic Architecture (past, present and future) could be of interest and sustained.

OA+D’s list of accomplishments since 2013 is impressive:

-They are in their ninth year of publishing the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, a quality glossy journal produced three times a year, each issue guest edited by a scholar and devoted to a single topic supporting their mission.

-In 2016 they built and placed on long term loan to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation a replica of Wright’s model of the unrealized San Francisco Call newspaper building (1913) to replace the original model which left its longtime home in Hillside at Taliesin when Wright’s models were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. 

-They have published several books, including a monograph about the box projects of William Wesley Peters:

-They maintain archive space in Chicago, in Los Angeles, and in Lexington, Kentucky, and now also in Chandler, Arizona. A link to their noteworthy holdings is at:

https://www.oadarchives.com/collection-s-list

So, what could Organic Architecture + Design (OA + D) do for an encore? How about recently adding a fourth archive site (Chandler) after being selected by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in July to be the stewards of what remains of the vast archive of Taliesin Architects (TA), first known as Taliesin Associated Architects (TAA), formed after Wright’s death in 1959? After the Museum of Modern Art and Arizona State University took their share, the majority of the collection, which includes more than 50,000 drawings, is housed in OA+D’s new archive in Chandler, Arizona.

The grand opening was in December. (While one of OA+D’s missions is to make their holdings available to scholars and aficionados of Wright’s and related work, the TA archive is so extensive that it will take time to ingest it, and there is no definite date for public access.)

Scott says, “Probably the most exciting things they (the Foundation) gave us are these models.” Those models include a seven foot model of the 1963 proposal for the Belmont (N.Y.) Race Course, a proposal published in Architectural Forum, and a model built by the late David Dodge of a country club in Hawaii ( based on Wright’s design for a home for Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe). There is also a seven foot long rendition of the Court of the Seven Seas in San Francisco by Ling Po. He adds that Stuart Graff (President and CEO of the Foundation) “deserves a big thank you for this” as does the entire archive staff at Taliesin West.

Some might step back and rest their laurels on an accomplishment like the TA acquisition. But that is not OA+D’s nature. Inevitably they will surprise us again. In the meantime, follow their work in the Journal. An annual subscription is $50, money well spent. 

Links:

OA+D: https://www.oadarchives.com

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on the transfer of the TA archive to OA+D: 

https://franklloydwright.org/frank-lloyd-wright-foundation-partners-with-oad-archives-to-steward-taliesin-architects-archive/

Hardy House: Photo Proof Positive

© Mark Hertzberg (2021)

Several features of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine have been the subject of speculation for years because of the dearth of historic photos. Three newly discovered 1908 photos of the house, which was completed in 1906, end the speculation.

The first of the 1908 photos, showing the Main Street side of the house, may have been taken on Flag Day or on Independence Day:

© 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

 

We can now definitively answer questions about the two front gates to the house, front plantings, the seven front hall windows, the south first floor bedroom windows (on our right in the photo above), the original dining room windows, and the rear gutter and downspouts.

Many people contributed to our getting the new photos and to understanding them. They are credited at the end of this article.

Until we got the new photos, the only clear vintage photograph of the house we had was this one from the Wright archives, evidently taken as the house was nearing completion in 1906:

© 2021 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

I was sent this 1906 “real photo postcard” below by Patrick Mahoney in 2018:

The Gates: This 1906 photograph, taken around the time Hardy moved into his new home, is regrettably not clear enough to let us examine the windows, but we can now affirm that the gates were stucco. Until we got the 1908 photos, Mahoney and I thought we were looking at the stucco walls inside the gates rather than the gates themselves.

By the time that Henry-Russell Hitchcock photographed the house in the late 1930s or early 1940s for his book In the Nature of Materials, there were wood panels on the gates:

The wood panels are also evident in photos that Anne Sporer Ruetz took in the early 1940s when she was growing up in the house (her parents were Hardy’s second stewards, from 1938 – 1947). You will see her photos further down in this article. The gates seem to have insets on which there could have been stucco panels. Did the stucco panels prove to be too heavy?

The gates were removed by the third stewards of the house (the Archer family, 1947 – 1957). The late Gene Szymczak, who became the seventh steward of the house in 2012 extensively rehabilitated the house, which needed major work. He also commissioned new gates for the house. He elected to use Wright’s first design, gates with diamonds atop the gates:

© 2021 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art / Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

Plantings: Marion Mahony’s elevation drawing of the Main Street side of the house shows plantings below the front hall windows. Original to the house, they are long gone, as are the climbing plants:

 © 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

Front Hall Windows: There has been speculation about the original design of the seven windows between the two front doors. The 1908 photograph and Anne’s affirm that the windows in the house when Szymczak bought 1319 Main Street in 2012 were original, but they did not conform to the only Wright drawing we have of them. The windows were badly deteriorated, below, and were replaced with new ones by Szymczak:

Wright’s drawing, below, is shown in the correct orientation. The text block was positioned as if the drawing is to be viewed as a horizontal sheet, rather than vertical, says my friend Bob Hartmann. At the upper left we see the front hall window design. The five-panel living room windows are at right. Bottom center are the bedroom windows:

 © 2021 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art / Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

Robert Hartmann, an architectural designer in Racine, has been of invaluable help to me in all my Wright projects, helping me navigate design territory unfamiliar to me. He studied the drawing and photographs closely and observes: “The windows that we see in these photographs appear to be the same windows that were in the house when Gene [Szymczak] bought it. But, they are different than the window design that Wright put on paper. Wright’s design was symmetrical with less elements. His design (on paper) for the hall windows referred to the symmetry and simplicity of the living/dining and upper bedroom windows.

“However, the hall windows that we see in these photos are most likely original to the house. It is not unusual to see a design modification occur during construction.”

Bedroom Windows, Living Room windows: These are the second and third photos from the 1908 collection. You will see the original photos and my enlargements of them. The south bedroom windows are to the left and the two-story living room windows center. Pull down shades are evident on the windows. Anne told me that her parents removed the original living room windows because they leaked badly. They have been clear glass in recent memory. We had a hint of their design from the 1906 construction photo, but now we can clearly see Wright’s original leaded glass living room windows:

© 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

© 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

Hartmann comments first on the first floor bedroom windows: “It looks like it is just clear glass in the bedroom windows.  If it were art glass we would be able to see some traces of the pattern. The key is in the window on the east side that is visible in the photo. Bright light is coming through the window and yet we do not pick up any representation of the art glass pattern. There is a curtain drawn to south side of the window in the foreground. It is pulled back to the window casing  and of a medium grey value. If the art glass were present it would stand out in contrast against the curtain. But, the photo is not in perfect focus so there is a percentage of doubt.”

© 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

© 2021 The Organic Architecture + Design Archives, Inc.

Gutter and downspouts: Many people have questioned me about the gutter and downspout on the rear (lake side) of the house. The historic photos show they are original or hew to the original design.

Anne was given a Brownie box camera, likely for Christmas, when she was around 10 years old (the same age I was when I was given my first Kodak Brownie camera!). “Not too many of my friends had a camera but I just thought it fun to take and get the pictures. It would take about a week to get them developed [at Red Cross Drug, 13th and Villa streets], hard to wait.” Her snapshots of her friends show us the windows, the gates, and what may be a coal chute in front of the house (there is no evidence of it anymore).

Anne is at left in this photo.

I must credit the people who contributed to our being able to better understand how the house was built:

–Mike Lilek, the force behind Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block in Milwaukee, alerted me April 16 to a 1908 photo album with photos of the Hardy House and one of the Mitchell House for sale on eBay (Mitchell is grist for a later separate article). He pointed to the 45 or 46-star flag (some of the stars are obscured). The former was in use from 1904 – 1908, the latter from 1908 – 1912. The album is dated 1908.

-Lilek’s email was followed by an alert from Racine historian Gerald Karwowski.

– I notified the stewards of the Hardy House as well as Eric O’Malley of the Organic Architecture and Design Archives (OA+D). OA+D entered the bidding to ensure that the photographs had a safe new repository. They successfully acquired the photos and quickly shared high resolution copies with the Hardy House stewards, with Hartmann, and with me.

I urge you to explore OA+D’s website, and to subscribe to their Journal:

https://www.oadarchives.com

I thank Anne Sporer Ruetz for her friendship and eagerness to share her memories of what she has called her “dream house.”

I also thank architect Patrick Mahoney of Buffalo, another friend and well known Wright Scholar, for the July 1906 “real photo postcard” he sent me in 2018.

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