Sept 12, 2008
In July, Charles went to Chicago and spent a few days languishing in one of his favorite hamlets, Oak Park.  Staying at the same charming, century-old Write Inn located in the heart of the neighborhoods, he passed several days as he has on several occasions, walking the neighborhoods so rich in the heritage of Frank Lloyd Wright.   His purpose?  To absorb himself within the aesthetics of a specific geometry that would be borrowed, mutated, distorted and eventually define the Column Towers that existed, at this juncture, as a forming mental image only.

 Frank Lloyd Wright's William Martin house in Oak Park.  Here we're interested simply in the low-slung rooflines and extended eaves  

 Frank Lloyd Wright: Arthur B. Heurtley .  Columns more associated with the residence itself, fixed structurally to the continuity  But again, it is the primary geometry that interests us.  The placement of various accoutrements such as the relief columns, offering a weighted balance and acting as ballasts to  

Frank Lloyd Wright: Thomas House, with frontage columns as a mirrired accessory to the proximity of a protruding wing.

 Leaving Oak Park, reluctantly, after four days of packing a lunch made up by the hotel and hiking elm-lined neighborhoods of not only Oak Park, but Forest Park and an afternoon foray into charming Hinsdale, and the evenings occupied with a performance at the Lyric Opera House and an evening cruise on the Chicago River and an extraordinary visit to the new Milenium Park downtown for more insights into how our urban park designs are changing and shifting.  But eventually returning to the coast, to the prefabricated synthetic stone columns and the all-too-familiar architecture of the notorious gated community.

 Demarcating the entry to a community of homes developed in 1930. Atherton, CA.

 Sept 12, 2008

So why the slide show of homes, many of which are so well known, you've seen them before.  Well, ideas and inspiration come from all quarters and perhaps the best is from architecture itself.  Details, nuances, accessories.  All of them roll around one's mind and settle gradually into the basis for something new.

CPW's original columns were 10-1/8" x 10-1/8"  Intended not only as gate columns, but as lighted garden columns. These developed into smaller versions for mailbox pilasters and atop stone and masonry  But if one considers grand columns in the vein of announcements to what lies beyond, we must think bigger.

Bigger in that often properties set back from the walk exhibit large masonry and stone columns flanking their driveways and walkways, without gates and fences.  This is civilized.  Extending the architecture of the residence out to the frontage, but not as a perimeter barrier warding off all comers.

But also seen in public concourses and formal parks.  Large columns serving no other purpose than to set the precedent for something within, something beyond.  

 Sept 20, 2008

Because the methods of construction for the larger columns is identical to the smaller, we'll skip ahead and pass over the mundane day-to-day progress of the basic column boxes, which we might add was an enormous undertaking;

  Below, showing the flush grids that appear on two pyramid faces of each of the three columns. 

 Sept 28, 2008

Assemblying two sides of the largest, #17 column.

 Oct 4, 2008
Creating the Caps for the three columns.  The basic tiers, which is only a beginning. 

 Oct 8, 2008
The lower apron for the largest, #17 column cap, with the light slots dadoed in.

 Oct 10, 2008
Creating the dadoes in the caps that will eventualy accept the small wenge extensions. 

 Oct 11, 2008
The wenge extensions in place, as seen from the underside of the smallest, #19 column.  Also shown is the center apron, although hard to know what it is from this angle. 

 Oct 14, 2008
Cleaning up the lower tier of the large #17 column, showing the wenge extensions as they appear

 Oct 15, 2008
This tier showing the wenge middle apron.

 Oct 18, 2008
Mounting the lower tier of the #18 column cap to the upper tier.  Turned upside down for this.

 Oct 19, 2008
The upper #17 tier right-side-up, with Cp shown installing the middle apron.

 Oct 19, 2008
Gluing, clamping, and screwing this tier to the upper tier

 Oct 21, 2008
The lower apron for the #17 cap, in an errant attempt at mimicing a detail that might suggest the skyscrapers of New York City, with their pedestaled Art deco motiffs. 

 Oct 23, 2008
Visiting NYC over the holidaysin 2007 and spending most of his time exploring the great buildings from the 30's, Cp continues to look for a detail that will draw from this lingering image.

 Oct 23, 2008
Clockwise,from the upper right, The Barclay-Vesey Building. The New York Bank Building.  The inimitable Chrysler Building.  The Empire State Building.  A rendition of the Woolworth Building, considered by many as the epitome of skyscraper architecture, all 13 million dollars of its cost paid in cash (the building has never had a mortgage!).  And finally one the many motifs within the Rockefeller Center's RCA building, originally commissioned to Degas Rivera, but whose political theme had John Rockefeller Jr firing him in mid-project in lieu of a more universal appeal.

Do you ever wonder why it is that America's greatest architectural achievements, throughout the entire country, were carried out during America's worst economic depression?  Or why it is also considered today as the pinnacle of American literature, and fine art.  This is food for thought, and a subject that interests Cp enormously.  We might look to a number of contributing factors: 1) The elimination of distractions that come with the greed of opulent consumption that defined the 1920's. 2) The solidarity of hard economic times. 3) The presence of FDR, and his indefatigable optimism and his New Deal as a plan when Americans were desperate for a plan.  4)  Cheap labor, from the NY skyscrapers to the Golden Gate Bridge to Hoover Dam to the endless walls and assemblies that are jewelry to our Federal parks.

 Oct 23, 2008
Finishing up the Deco corner details to the #17 lower apron (turned upside down)

 Oct 25, 2008
The Deco corner details scrapped and re-designed to something less convoluted, yet still within the range of a modest embellishment.

 Oct 26, 2008
Mounting the tiers together. 

 Oct 26, 2008
Three Columns.  Pondering just how on earth to raise and fit the large and heavy #17 cap in place.   The caps themselves were subsequently scrapped and comletely redesigned. Adding the plexiglas domes.

 The 2nd generation of cap design.

  Although this accentuates and complies with the rising pyramid theme of the grid pattern, it remains ill-proportioned to the entire column assembly.