That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in LA

In That Far Corner, which kicked off the ninth season of KCET's artbound series earlier this month, Hawthorne goes on both geographical and intellectual journeys to, in his words, "crack the mysterious case of Frank Lloyd Wright's Los Angeles houses." He visits Chicago and speaks with critics there about Wright's Prairie houses. He speaks with museum curators about Mayan and other Pre-Columbian art and their influence on American architecture. He even speaks with his eight-year-old daughter's piano teacher, who lives in Wright's Millard House, also known as La Miniatura. And he visits other textile-block houses Wright created in Los Angeles in the late 1910s and early 1920s. In the end, Hawthorne posits his own take on Wright's LA houses, born as much from personal concerns as architectural ones.