WINDOW OF MYSTICAL DAWN VS. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
As a builder, when I saw the Weekly Photo Challenge: Windows, I had numerous ideas. I first thought of doing a post about Frank Lloyd Wright, because he greatly influenced American architecture by using windows to replace walls, and hence blurring the line between indoor and outdoor space.
Then I considered a photo-essay about window-walls in tall buildings, to be titled Skyscraperism . . . A Wrightonian term to be sure. I’ll leave this for a later date.
I also thought about windows in Passive Solar Design . . . utilizing free energy of the Sun to pass through appropriately designed windows to reduce or eliminate the heating requirements for a building.
I’ve talked about this in Home in the Country and Keen on Conservation, Renewable Energy & Social Ecology. Considering the rising costs associated with both climate change and energy, I simply can’t help to speak up about this. So, at the bottom of this post I include F.L. Wright’s 1943 design of the “Solar Hemicycle”. A moderately sized solar masterpiece.
But what I’m really going to focus on, is to go back a quarter century as I sat in the upper window of our cabin, pictured below, while writing a poem . . .
Below the photo, is Mystical Dawn.
Over years the cabin and the world has been shaped and changed, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. So have I.
MYSTICAL DAWN
Lone morning star, burns
Bright early darkness
Hours of dawn, framed
The window with the odd shape
Mystical cloudiness, black
(to blue, then grey)
Obscured slightly moving
Intellect, stirs a heard heart
Leaps green, action alert
Remembering woman’s dream
He loved, her joy
With angers flickering
Stars flanking Venus, now
What, I ask, blue morning sky
Ones bright two, had waned
Momentum times continuum fringes
Three with purple
She rises, rose coloured
(through glass)
Larks song awakening
My world
Alone: odd shaped
In windows
Early hours of dawn.
b. thomas witzel
from
Green dragons and
arising Mayan sun
Conclusion: Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Solar Hemicycle”
Photo credit: green architecture notes
![Jacobs-II-passive-solar-Interior.jpeg.644x0_q100_crop-smart[1]](https://throughtheluminarylens.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/jacobs-ii-passive-solar-interior-jpeg-644x0_q100_crop-smart1.jpg "Jacobs-II-passive-solar-Interior.jpeg.644x0_q100_crop-smart[1]")
Photo credit: green architecture notes
Donald Aitken writes: “The Solar Hemicycle is semicircular in plan, featuring a single concave arc of fourteen-foot high glass spanning the two stories both vertically and horizontally, and opening southward to a circular sunken garden and the Wisconsin prairie beyond. The north, east, and west sides are bermed up to the height of the clerestory windows on the second floor, protecting the house from cold winter north winds, while the sunken garden in front combines with the rear smooth berming to create am air pressure differential that deflects snow and wind up and away from the large south-facing windows.”
Source: Global Possibilities
Postscript
I almost didn’t publish this, thinking it being too obtuse. I give credit for my change of heart to Annette, of Beauty Along the Road. Her post Windows into the Inner Sanctum, gently nudged me forward.
Cheers – Bruce
This is your cabin in the woods? It’s bigger than my whole darn house! I am envious- not really of the house but of your garret. I keep asking my wife for permission to turn the guest bedroom into a writing/photography room but she maintains we need it “just in case” we have overnight visitors. In the past year we have not had one overnight visitor. As for your poem, I admit I do not understand it fully, but I do get a sense of awakening, stretching towards knowledge. Great information about Frank Lloyd Wright, too. When we moved here, my wife had me remove all the window coverings facing the back yard. Now each morning it is our own little piece of paradise. I will take a photo one day. Maybe right now!
🙂 “The cabin” is indeed a bit of a misnomer. Our friends and family have always known it as such, so the term has stuck.
Our home (and cabin) has indeed evolved over 35 years, from an intial rustic 900 square feet and kerosene lanterns, to its present 1300 square feet, complete with an off-grid energy system, etc. Two more big improvements have been an access road to eliminate our old boardwalk and 70 stairs from the main gravel road, as well as the modern day communications of cell phone and satellite internet. This is a huge change to our quality of life . . .
Picture us calling “mayday” over a radio telephone when someone dropped a cigarette outside and started a fire.This really happened, on the day Fran and I were married here at “the lake” (another one of our vernacular terms) Lucky our 50 guests were able to set up a bucket brigade and put the fire out before the forest service arrived!
I’m looking forward to seeing you’re own little piece of paradise, Emilio. Small is beautiful, and more affordable, right?Good for your wife to having you remove the window coverings. I know people need privacy, by I don’t know why we have windows and then just cover them up.
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Lovely. Lovely poem and lovely home. And I, too, love Frank Lloyd Wright’s use of light. Thank you for following! 🙂 Pat
Your welcome ‘Opreach’ – you may also enjoy numerous posts I have be creating from the work of Fr. Charles Brandt, a Catholic hermit priest located on Vancouver island.
I look forward to your posts, like the one today of the grandeur of the south west with the Maori proverb.
Peace to you.
Thanks Ishaiya. I appreciate your appreciation. Peace and best regards. Bruce
Lovely. Thanks. Our house, while close to the city, is like a little cabin, all tongue and groove wood inside, and cedar outside, and our windows in what we call “the great room” (although it’s not all that large) go from the floor to the edge of the ceiling, which then goes up into a type of vault. We’re surrounded by trees, so not much heat comes in, and being Oregon, not much sun, either! But it is lovely, like being outside in the woods. Your room looks so cosy and delightful! Good job all around, Bruce.
What a lovely sound home you have Susan with having both the wonder of seclusion in the trees and still having the convenience of being close to the city. A bonus in many ways. Thanks for descibing your place.
such a heartful
place to lay one’s hat
and feel at home 🙂
Thank you David.
Love your poem and all the photos, especially the one with your odd shaped window. Now you’ve got me thinking about windows.
I really love using “rake window” in the top 1/2 story of a house. It can be tricky sizing and getting the angles correct, but high school trigonmetry comes in handy with that. Thank you for appreciating (sp) my poetry and photography.
Enjoyed your commentary accompanied by the images and poem.
Glad I could nudge you in the direction of your heart….like you, I was thinking about all kinds of windows (not that there aren’t really, really interesting window shapes, window opening without glass, windows covered with curtains, etc), but then it hit me and I ended up doing Windows to the Inner Sanctum. Thanks for the mention.
Your welcome Annette. I was pleasantly suprised in reading and looking over your post on Jungian Sandplay and it acted as sort of catylsyt. Thanks again for that.
Very interesting post, thank you for sharing your learned insights and your marvellous poem 🙂
Thanks Ishaiya. I appreciate your appreciation. Peace and best regards. Bruce