This free event for ARCLIB members was held on Wednesday 27 May 2020. Twelve of our members got together on WebEx to share our experience with a variety of virtual tours and short videos from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Some anonymised highlights from the group chat will be interspersed through this review.
The 360 tours were well-received in general:
“I enjoyed the 360-degree tour of Taliesin – particularly the theatre. Amateur theatre is what I do in my other life, so the design was of particularly interest to me.”
“Being able to navigate your way around the houses on the 360 tours, it was quite like exploring an actual property!”
However, as two ARCLIBbers noted:
“I got lost in Hollyhock House, so glad there was a site map.”
“[It is] … easy to get lost in some virtual buildings, such as Hollyhock House. It would have been nice if the floor plan showed where you were located during the tour.”
The short videos were also popular and a source of several interesting facts:
“I found out that not only did FLW design furniture for his houses he even designed dresses for the ladies of the house!”
“Marin Civic Centre – Film Gattaca filmed there as futuristic even though building 30 year old.”
A few fun exchanges ensued:
“…one of FLW’s quotes: ‘do you feel friendly to a tree when you see one’ ” received this immediate reply: “Frank was quite “rooted” in nature I think, especially given Fallingwater House.”
360 degree virtual tour links:
The videos varied a bit in content and quality. Some focused on a specific room, piece of furniture or material (I’m looking at you Tidewater Red Cypress!). They were just as engaging as the 360 tours with audio and were great for giving a sense of space. As one contributor noted:
“My son […] the architecture student did watch the videos and thought it was beneficial to see the 3D space – rather than just a photo on Powerpoint.”
“Some of the short videos were better than others. Interesting fact on visit to Hollyhock House – they have no photos of what the library looked like in the 1920s. The emphasis on the horizontal bricks by painting horizontal lines as seen in the Westcott House.”
“Gordon House video was particularly good with audio from the architect himself.”
Weekly short video series links:
- April 30 #WrightVirtualVisits
- May 7 #WrightVirtualVisits
- May 14 #WrightVirtualVisits
- May 21 #Wright Virtual Visits
As an additional recommendation beyond the FLW Building Conservancy, we did point out the documentary Frank Lloyd Wright. The man who built America (also available via Box of Broadcasts). This is a great documentary, with Jonathan Adams reinforcing the Welsh connection! (2019; 55 mins).
Beyond the virtual visits, we discussed how we might collaborate to compose a shared list of free online resources on Frank Lloyd Wright, many of which were suggested during our chat and will not be spoiled in this post. These will go into a Google Doc, which will soon make it into the ARCLIB website’s members area, so every member can access it, not just those who attended.
Finally, we discussed future events and there will very soon be an announcement about the next (with a social media flavour). Do please comment below if you have any ideas you would like to share with us. There was certainly support for future talks, potentially a mini online conference, or perhaps an extended series of online discussions, covering topics such as online information skills training, architecture collections during lockdown and more.
In g
eneral, this new online events approach was well-received. By popular demand we will be using Microsoft Teams rather than WebEx in future, following a few initial teething troubles with the latter. It was great to catch up with some new and familiar faces. Again, we had a nice consensus:
“I like this format of Arclib meeting”
“Arclib is a great group to be in… Loads of friendly peeps.”
“It was lovely to see you all and I look forward to the next event. thank you for organising this. ’till next time.”
That’s right everyone; ARCLIB is a friendly, collaborative group and it’s great that we could include a little time to talk about how we are handling remote working, key issues we are all dealing with, plus a bit of social interaction with our fellow librarians from further afield!
Following this initial success, we will be looking at what timely and relevant topics we can discuss as part of our nascent summer programme of events. Please let us know your thoughts as soon as possible.
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