On Mar 3, 2017, at 10:37 AM, Matthew Gardiner <m...@airstrip.com.au> wrote:
> Dear o’listers, > > I came across something quite wonderful in my PhD research today. > > I picked up a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect with a > considerable global reputation, at the University library, therein I > discovered that he was inspired for a series of window-frame designs, and I > suspect for the use of proportion in his career, by the seventh gift of > Froebel as his insight into proportion. > > Curious if anyone knows anything more about this topic? > > best, Matthew > Matthew, You should get the book Inventing Kindergarten by Norman Brosterman. There is a whole chapter about the influence of kindergarten ideas (and behind that, Froebel’s) on Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as other modern artists. Quoting from its cover: “Using examples from the work of important artists who attended kindergarten —including Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, among others —he demonstrates that the design ideas of kindergarten prefigured modern conceptions for the aesthetic power of geometric abstraction.” Norman Brosterman’s amazing collection of Froebelian crafts was part of a MoMa exhibition, Century of the Child, in 2011: http://www.brosterman.com/kindergarten.shtml. But get the book, you’ll love it. Laura Rozenberg
