PAIRS 29 – CONNECTING TO THE LANDSCAPE

Two recently published projects both have texts that tell of their relationship with ‘the landscape’: see - https://www.dezeen.com/2026/07/15/daechi-ssangyong-studio-libeskind-seoul/ and https://share.google/zADUdSulmsYAgSrGb below. The Studio Libeskind cluster of six, 49 storied towers aims to connect residents with the landscape. The report later expands on this statement, seeming to want to explain this concept for a project located in Seoul’s dense Gangnam district, by including the sky in the broader understanding of connection: We wanted to design a place that connects residents to the sky, the landscape, and one another. The idea might appear admirable, but one does struggle to understand this achievement that suggests an appreciation of a broad, impressive, idyllic context, ‘the landscape,’ when the project seems to boldly highlight a bespoke separation in its declaration of an iconic, stand-alone setting that looks like a grand, self-contained theatrical performance area envisaged as a living work of art.

Fountainhead House.

Fountainhead House site.

Gangnam District, Seoul.

Studio Libeskind project, Seoul.

In contrast to this dense, high-rise concept of designed living, the report on the refurbishment of Wright’s Fountainhead House describes this home as A Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house rooted in the landscape . . . with its low horizontal profile, native materials, open-plan interiors, and close relationship with the surrounding landscape . . . glazed corners and terraces strengthen the connection to the surrounding landscape. The images reveal the house in a clearing in a leafy, naturally treed context. Here one can see and feel the snug fit with place, its quiet, contemplative peace, respecting nature itself, leaving one to question the intention behind the words connect and landscape used by a profession that can apparently accommodate such disparate outcomes.

When the words can be used to justify/explain designs in this way, does one assume that offices are just too easily carried away with the hype of their own promotional material, happy to adopt the shrewd ambiguity of suggestive spin rather than presenting the actual experience of place, which is, for Libeskind’s project, a dense, designed, high-rise living complex, with Wright’s home displaying the more natural, romantic notion of ‘landscape connection’ that involves a feeling for natural place. The photographs accompanying the Libeskind promotional article illustrate some green ‘landscaped’ areas around a group of towers, with more clusters of towers in the distance. The reference to ‘landscape’ in the text seems to be to the ‘landscaped’ areas around the towers, the gardens, rather than to ‘landscape’ in any natural setting of any scale that seems to be alluded to. One might hope that, as a matter of course, the designed green, ‘landscaped’ areas around the towers would indeed relate to the whole of which they are a part rather than being perceived as something of an exceptional, broader context – ‘the landscape.’

The desire to link with the landscape expressed in these texts reveals how the same words can be used to describe diverse experiences/intentions. There is little wonder that the public remains so sceptical of architects and their whims when their explanations seek to accommodate such differences without clarification, comment, or apology: the intimacy of a Wright house with its cosy closeness to nature, the ‘organic’ connection, with subtle acknowledgements to the visions/writings of Sullivan and Thoreau, remains suggested, lingering in the Libeskind concept that, at its best, can be seen to refer to that observational remoteness in the “WOW!” that arises between a person and place when landscape as distant vistas is viewed from a high lookout, admired for its being there as a postcard/calendar image rather than as an intimate, lived, everyday involvement, experienced in all of its quiet, subtle richness; but all we have here in Seoul are more towers and the ‘landscaped’ surrounds that pretty the site up. Libeskind may have all the very best intentions, creating ‘interesting’ fluid amazements at ground level, but it is truly puzzling to try to understand just how this massive scheme might connect to anything experientially enriching as ‘the landscape’ that is suggested in the idea of this connection, other than as a matter of fact: Curving gardens will weave between the residential towers and extend over the roof of the lounge space, which has views across the nearby Yangjae Stream.

The words end up tripping over themselves when one seeks to point out that ‘landscape’ is not ‘landscape,’ and ‘experience’ is not ‘experience,’ making things easier to be left alone as an evocative, unresolved, fuzzy notion of ‘landscape.’ Tower living isolates folk from both place and each other, with chance meetings in lifts and foyers, and ‘landscaped’ garden areas that limit the possibility of any casual connection to others. These landscaped surrounds become the introductory/retreat areas designed to fill in the gaps around the towers - the curving gardens that weave between the residential towers. Any connection to ‘the landscape,’ understood as natural or developed countryside, seems purely a matter of looking from an elevated position, admiring distance; and the connection to sky is similar, and just as remote. Even a passenger on a flight has no relationship with the sky as a lived experience other than being in it, like those dwelling in these 49 storeys.

The article that suggested that architectural offices might do more with their PR staff than promote themselves – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2026/07/can-architectural-firms-do-more-than.html, seems too idealistic, because it seems to be just about impossible to get offices to manage their promotional material reasonably, without the exaggerated, suggestive visions that get published. The dream of any ‘connection to the landscape’ might be happily understood as revealed in Wright’s work, but to harness this romantic, nostalgic link to explain/justify something starkly different seems misguided – wrong, a living work of art or not.

THE REPORTS

https://www.dezeen.com/2026/07/15/daechi-ssangyong-studio-libeskind-seoul/

Studio Libeskind designs cluster of Seoul skyscrapers as “a living work of art.”

Amy Peacock

Architecture firm Studio Libeskind has unveiled designs for six skyscrapers set to form a residential complex in Seoul’s Gangnam district.

Studio Libeskind collaborated with local architecture studios Samoo and HJ Design Partners on the design for the Daechi Ssangyong redevelopment project, which aims to connect residents with the landscape.

The development is set to be built in Gangnam's Daechi-dong neighbourhood by Samsung Engineering and Construction Group, replacing five existing buildings on the site that contain 630 housing units.

Rising to 49 storeys, Daechi Ssangyong will comprise nearly 1,000 residences across six skyscrapers.

Light-toned vertical facade elements will create patterns of curving bands on the exterior of the towers, designed to offer changing views as people and the sun move around the buildings.

"Our ambition was to create more than a collection of residential towers," said Studio Libeskind founder Daniel Libeskind.

"We wanted to design a place that connects residents to the sky, the landscape, and one another," he continued. "The architecture changes with light and movement, creating a living work of art that celebrates both the beauty of Seoul and the experience of everyday life."

Renders show a sinuous lounge space on the ground floor, with glazed walls that curve around a public square and a circular water feature.

Curving gardens will weave between the residential towers and extend over the roof of the lounge space, which has views across the nearby Yangjae Stream.

"In collaboration with Studio Libeskind, we will redefine the standard for luxury residential living through a distinctive exterior design that emphasises architectural asymmetrical forms and dynamic forms," said Cheol Jin Lim, head of residential sales at Samsung Engineering and Construction Group.

Construction on Daechi Ssangyong is expected to commence at the start of 2027, with the aim of completing in 2030.

https://share.google/zADUdSulmsYAgSrGb

Belinda Stewart Architects to restore Fountainhead

The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) selects Belinda Stewart Architects to lead the preservation and restoration of Fountainhead, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residence in Jackson, Mississippi, acquired by the museum in November 2025. The project marks the next phase in transforming Wright’s only building in Mississippi into a publicly accessible house museum and event venue, with an anticipated opening in 2028.

Based in Eupora, Mississippi, Belinda Stewart Architects specializes in the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The firm will prepare a comprehensive Historic Structure Report, including condition assessments, Historic Building Information Modeling (HBIM), and a phased conservation strategy. The appointment also includes architectural services for structural repairs, landscape rehabilitation, accessibility upgrades, and code compliance, balancing public access with the preservation of the property’s historic character.

A Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house rooted in the landscape

Originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1948 for J. Willis and Edith Hughes, the house was completed in 1955, six years after the architect finalized the plans. The 331-square-meter residence exemplifies Wright’s Usonian principles through its low horizontal profile, native materials, open-plan interiors, and close relationship with the surrounding landscape.

Fountainhead is organized around a distinctive Y-shaped plan that follows the topography of a nearly 4,000-square-meter site. Its diamond-shaped modular geometry is expressed throughout the architecture, from the layout and built-in furnishings to the detailing of walls and ceilings. Large expanses of glazing connect interior spaces to the wooded landscape, while original features, including Wright-designed furniture, perforated wooden shutters, skylights, concrete floors, terraces, three fireplaces, the original copper roof, and a fountain flowing into a swimming pool, remain integral to the property.

The residence later underwent an extensive restoration by architect Robert Parker Adams, who purchased the residence in 1980 and maintained it for decades. Following Adams’ death in 2025, the Mississippi Museum of Art acquired the property, drawing inspiration from museums such as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which similarly opened a Frank Lloyd Wright residence to the public. Investigative surveys and diagnostic testing are now underway as the preservation team begins documenting the building’s condition and developing a long-term restoration strategy before construction work proceeds.

WRIGHT - LANDSCAPE GARDENER

Derek Fell’s beautiful book, The Gardens of Frank Lloyd Wright, published by Frances Lincoln Limited, London in 2009, highlights Wright’s work as a landscape gardener. It is indeed astonishing. Usually plants and foliage are seen as sundry scribbles, smudges to illustrate his drawings, to ‘soften’ them. The actual landscapes are considered, if at all, as backgrounds to the buildings, incidental decorative additions, perhaps just the natural setting that Wright had worked with. It seems that Falling Water alone used its natural setting untouched. The only non-indigenous plant added was a white wisteria. All other contexts that Wright worked in were manipulated by him, using nature as his guide. “A tree out of place is a weed,” he declared when a client object to his instruction to cut down a mature oak tree. (p.41) Fell shows Wright as a landscaper working on a scale similar to Capability Brown.

 Wright was as ruthless in manipulating all within his sight to his aesthetic ideal as Capability Brown. (p.38) “The valley will bloom in your hands.” Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother, Anna. (p.40) Before he was satisfied with the views from Taliesin Wright eliminated thirty-two “nuisance buildings” from his view. (p.44)

 Taliesin West - gate to gardens of staff annex

The distinguished landscape gardener Jen Jensen (1860 – 1951) became a close friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. (p.108) “As a model for designers, Jensen’s approach stressed the clear need for careful study of natural landscapes. He objected to design training that was purely academic. He felt than an intimate knowledge of plants and horticulture and a genuine sense of humility were essential for landscape design to reach the level of art.”  (p.111 - quoted from  Robert E. Greese’s biography, Jen Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens, John Hopkins university Press).

We can learn a lot from Wright and Jensen, and from Fell’s wonderful photographs of Wright’s parks and gardens too. This publication truly shows how Wright worked with nature in a manner that was more than philosophical and theoretical.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT - ACCOMMODATING COMPLEXITY

The thought occurred only with the layering of ideas over time, as time and ideas do: it has to do with complexity. Street View had been opened to peruse Taliesin and Taliesin West on a few occasions, to see the contexts and locations; to sense the particularities of place, its awe-full/awful reality, and ponder the possibilities of getting there. One is always surprised by Wright in a different way to how one is surprised by Philip Johnson - see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2017/10/the-need-for-street-view-in-architecture.html

Days later, when strolling past a temporary table of books in the shopping centre, an early Christmas ‘pop-up’ shop, a book on Fallingwater was noticed – and purchased. One had hoped to be able to visit this house when in NYC, but things turned out otherwise; the book would be the consolation for now. Details of the familiar exterior, and the not so familiar nooks and crannies of this place, were presented, along with the landscape, an array of interior images, and various intimate details. It was not as though this publication was a hagiography or hollow coffee table tome. One chapter included information on the strengthening of the cantilevered balconies that had deflected about 150mm. This subject had been covered by Scientific American some years ago. It was refreshing to have the information formalised as a part of the history of the house: Fallingwater, published by Rizzoli, New York, 2011 in association with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy on the 75th Anniversary of this home: edited by Lynda Waggoner, photographed by Christopher Little. There are several stories about Frank Lloyd Wright and structure that have formed a part of his-story: the Johnson Wax building with its ‘lily pad’ columns comes to mind.

Johnson Wax link

Guggenheim stair

Wright's work astonishes: no matter how much one knows about it and its images, there is always more; and more again; and still more, with each image revealing something new and surprising. It feels as though just one of these ideas might have been enough to establish a reputation, but there are many themes, inventions and variations, almost a surplus when compared with Philip Johnson’s Glass House or Meis van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, both examples of minimalism in idea, form and detail. Wright’s work is breathtaking in its creativity and complexity – truly stunning in nearly every surprising way, no matter how familiar one might feel with a project.

Farnsworth House

Entry to reading room in the Guggenheim

Guggenheim toilet

The Guggenheim in NYC had revealed its little surprises too, even though plans and images of this structure have been published and perused time and time again since its completion. There was the keyhole door to the library/reading room, with its semicircular lobby and curved sliding door that had not been seen previously – or had one forgotten? There was the side space on the south with its low, arched perforation into the core spiral void. The quaintly planned little toilets on each floor impressed, both for their utility and compactness. How many galleries offer such convenience? The small, inverted void, vertically connecting the adjacent shop, gallery and cafe spaces – this narrowed with height in contrast to the main spiral that widened as it rose - reminded one of the Louvre's pyramid and its nearby, miniature, shopping centre inversion. Was Wright the inspiration for IM Pei's idea?

Shop, gallery and cafe void

The Louvre, Paris

The Louvre shopping mall

Guggenheim footpath

Interior floor detail

There is always more with Wright. When one considers the difficulty of getting even simple details constructed today, one has to ask how Wright did it? One stands amazed when looking at photographs of the Guggenheim being constructed. The reinforcement alone engages one’s incredulity, the astonishment that it was designed and happened, let alone the concrete itself, its forming. Yet all of this had been detailed with the same perfection and care as that revealed in the circular pavement pattern of the footpath where the tolerances seem to be less than one millimetre. This amazement arises not only as a matter of practicality, the wonder of getting it built: it is the embracing and accommodation of complexity as a commitment, an idea, as a cluster of ideas and intents all resolved and communicated as a set of instructions, that baffles. Not only is the stonework of Fallingwater thought through as an idea, but polished timber shelves are incorporated; water spouts spray out of the walls into pools; natural rock ledges are built around and over, left perhaps for a Buddha: and still there is more thought given in this seemingly insignificant corner, to incorporate a small, square skylight in the slab above for the particular quality of light needed. It turns out that nothing is unimportant or incomplete. One is simply amazed, not only at the comprehension and the documentation required, but also at the consideration and implementation of the vision. Was all of this detail drawn? What did the contractor do? Wright wanted “a competent builder who is small enough to stay on the job and experienced enough to know what to do and how to do it without help.” Hall and Hall was chosen. One wonders if the firm was aware of the task it had taken on. Was there any serendipity in the detailing? Frank Lloyd Wright visited the Bear Run site prior to the beginning of construction. The apprentice who was to supervise the work asked Wright the datum reference of all of the specific levels itemised in the drawings. Wright pointed to a rock, and said that was it: the rest is history. Was there any discovery in this process? Was there ever the question: “What do we do here, Mr. Wright?” when a huge boulder appeared in the clearing work; or maybe didn’t appear?

Looking at some of the documents published on Fallingwater, the answer to the question of documentation seems to be “Yes,” that everything was completely detailed as intended. Wright's ability to manage such richness is beyond reasoning – but it is all there: the thought given to everything shows the breadth and depth of his engagement. Some analysts talk of this ability as ‘working with space’, (Bruno Zevi), but it is far more than this. It is knowing forms, materials and details in all of their complexity, and being able to communicate this feeling for facts for another to fabricate in the everyday matter of ordinary events. It involves an understanding of structure and joints, making – see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/architecture-as-joints.html  in much the same manner as which it anticipates and engages experience.

One ponders issues like waterproofing and junctions, control joints and construction joints, in these complex matters of building: but they are there. A photograph in Fallingwater shows a large natural outcrop intruding into the interior. The caption notes that Wright was concerned that water might seep into the space through the rock, so he built a small channel at its base to drain any water to the outside. There is a history of Wright buildings leaking that has become legend – a negative that thrills critics. The story goes that one of Wright’s clients telephoned him to say that the roof was leaking water on to the antique dining room table. Wright’s response, “Move the table,” is seen as pure, architectural arrogance, when in fact it is the most sensible first step one could take in the circumstance.

Kimbell Art Museum

One struggles to discover a parallel that might help ordinary comprehension of Wright’s skills. It is clear that not all architects have this amazing facility to manage complexity so comprehensively. There is the story of Louis Kahn coming on to the site greatly excited and explaining his new vision, his new idea, perhaps a revised detail, to the contractor, a large Texan in the case of Kimbell Art Museum. The raw, practical response was: "That would have been a good idea yesterday!" What is so impressive with Wright is that all of these 'yesterday' ideas are able to be incorporated in his projects; that he can handle this richness and produce it; embody it. It is in this sense that one can see his work as being inspired by nature, with its integrity and completeness participating as a presence in light.

His works hold that sense of time being made now. Taliesin West was said by Wright that it would make a good ruin. In a sense, Wright made new, old, weathered buildings; he understood how the effects of time can be incorporated now, not in any false manner, but with the honest integrity that he boasted about: the irony of the dishonesty of false humility prompting what appeared to be pride and arrogance. One looks at the early photographs of Taliesin, (The Early Work by Frank Lloyd Wright, Wasmuth, Berlin), and can see a wholeness that amazes in every way; the incorporation of tiny things that might be accumulated only after years of habitation are all there. Looking at the images today, (Street View), one sees the very same parts and pieces that appear to be confirmed by nature’s mosses and algaes that have been welcomed into the surfaces: as if nature took its time to get there, to catch up with Wright’s expectations. Images of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo have the same feeling of age about them. His work incorporates a sense of sedimentation; of fretted and worn walls, ledges, paths and steps – surfaces and forms anticipating a future in the same way as his Taliesin West ‘ruin’ does. It holds the intelligence of life, nature. Is this its inherent vitality?

Where else might one sense this miracle? A similar thought arises with the rug maker, who, thread by thread makes the most astonishing of patterns in huge surfaces, intricate and complete. One event that occurred in this layering of ideas for this text is the new rug. It is a beautiful thing, modest in size, with a precise pattern both rich and complex; and three-dimensional. Someone sat and made this item. How on earth might the perfect pattern, its symmetries and varying depths be pieced together piecemeal, thread by thread: weft and warp; long and short; this knot or that? What concept was held by the maker? What organisation?

Yet it has occurred. The eye can test every detail in its slow, enjoyable perusal of this coloured, patterned, textured surface, but it reveals no slip-up; no errors at all. Even though the idea of imperfection - perfection being for the gods only – can be accommodated meaningfully, there is none. One discovers only a slight mismatch in colour: is this the deliberate imperfection? Otherwise the carpet maker has organised everything, from the geometry of the pattern in the overall rectangle and its subdivisions, and in every detail part of these, to be revealed, as planned, in complex, thread-by-thread perfection. How? It is truly astonishing, and astonishingly beautiful.

Architecture needs to concentrate on the accommodation of complexity rather than hunt for slickly smart, stylish forms. Minimalism and grand, formal iconography can come to be seen as a poor excuse for inabilities. It is too easy to be brashly bold and confident: a con? This concentration needs to occur by incorporating Sullivan’s dictum of ‘Form Follows Function,’ not ignoring it as some past, outdated theory. We have to know how to grow ideas onto past experience rather than to stride boldly over these understandings, ignoring them as irrelevances. Wright’s works are richly embellished in every way, and yet they work. Facts become little miracles in light: space and time. Tucked away in the shelving in one small, seemingly insignificant corner of Fallingwater is a slotted shelf – the heating. It forms only a minor complication in the intersections of these intimate ledges, yet it is there as a part of the whole, not as an apology or brashly expounding some quirky rationalist theory with its presence. Here one thinks of Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery at Eveux, France. Corbusier fitted all of the services into this building surface-mounted, exposed in all of their awkward random messiness. Was the idea ‘honesty,’ or was it too difficult to incorporate these pipes and conduits into the idea? The question deepens when one realises that Corbusier could not, or did not bother to vary the concept to express the rigour of function in its forming and use of balconies: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/corbusier-renaissance-man.html Was ‘honesty’ merely a ruse?

Rayner Banham tells of his surprise in one of Wright’s houses. He had been invited to a party, and, during the evening’s chatting and socialising, he had sat on a window ledge, only to discover it was the source of the heating. Wright incorporated services and integrated these within the complexity of his space, structure, materials, forms, and decoration without apology or excuse. He designed everything – lights, furniture, fabrics, rugs, leadlight windows. Fallingwater’s open fire water boiler astonishes. That something so simple could be considered by the master shows his mastery – his link to humanity: flesh and blood. There is a mind and body at work, feeling for place and people; embracing a world of wonder with care and interest: intrigue – being there. Wright’s were no mere intellectual games, and yet they were.

There is the story of a child writing to Mr. Wright. He had designed the family’s home. The request was for Wright to design the dog house. Wright responded, explaining that he was busy at present, but that he would do it when he had time. He did! It was Wright who added the yo-yo to the rendering of the Guggenheim interior that illustrated a child looking over the balcony into the spiral space. There seemed to be nothing that did not interest him; nothing too insignificant to be ignored – except stupidity that always stimulated his intolerance.

There is a quality that is more than skill here: it has to do with loving life and people; the world: nature. An unbelievable astonishment – where we cannot marvel enough, (Martin Lings on Islamic art) – is embodied in his works. One has to ask not only what this is, but also how it is possible? How can good work, (Good Work Schumacher), be accomplished? It involves something personal, rich and caring; loving, as Schumacher noted. The wonder of nature hums in both location and building with Wright: their dialogue. Only the Guggenheim struggles in this regard, torn away from nature, remote in NYC. The project was accepted almost as a challenge by Wright, to prove that he could do it - build in a big city context. Interestingly, Wright selected a site that was located as close as one might get to nature in NYC, Central Park, without being in it. The Guggenheim stands near one of the main entrances to the park on Fifth Avenue, at E90. It appears to be inviting folk to experience the beauty of the trees as well as the building – its longing to be with the park.

Looking out from the Guggenheim cafe

The experience of not being able to marvel enough needs pondering, for it has to do with the accommodation and embodiment of complexity – a richness of subtlety, feeling, love integrated into a wholeness – a holiness: truly a spiritual wonder.

What does it mean for us? What must one do? How can a knowing humility of honesty and certainty be embraced both in the doing and its outcomes? We need more than the wonders of technology to accomplish this.

On technology, one can turn again to Wright to understand more. He was emboldened by the new technology of his day. All of the mechanical tools were not seen as a loss of craft, as Morris envisaged them. Wright spoke of these gadgets, this mechanisation, as being a way to perfection. Alas this change has taken the lowest denominator, the path of least resistance, to become a way of doing things faster and cheaper, leaving one yearning for the integrity of the lost Morris handicraft that can no longer be afforded. One has to ask how the technology of our era can help us rather than embolden us to a false greatness of hopelessness: a phantom grandeur described as progress. Considering that Fallingwater was completed in 1937, one has to wonder about our ‘moving forward,’ as the jargon describes it.

Do we have to learn to become 'rug makers'?