56 Years Ago: “Red Charge Stirs Wright to a Boil”
Excerpted from the San Francisco Examiner, August 3, 1957.
Frank Lloyd Wright, a rugged individualist personally as well as architecturally, rebelled yesterday when accused of hewing his political philosophy along Communist lines. He walked out of a meeting of the Marin County Board of Supervisors while the charges were being read, protesting that he is a loyal American who detests Communism.
The colorful 88 year old dean of American architects also delivered a few lines that were just as frank as his professional expressions, if not as original.
“Utter Insult. I am what I am.” he told the supervisors. If you don’t like it, you can lump it. To hell with it all.”
He waved his cane angrily as he paused in his exit and upped with a tag line: “This is an absolute and utter insult and I will not be subject to it.”
It developed, however, that although Wright was walking out on the meeting he was not walking out on his contract with the board. The contract guarantees him 10 percent of the construction cost for designing and planning the projected $8,000,000. Marin County civic center north of San Rafael.
Two hours after his stormy exit from the courthouse, Wright had cooled sufficiently to sign the official contracts…. But first, he lunched at the Meadow Club in Fairfax with several county officials and played the piano for their entertainment.
While Wright fumed outside the supervisors’ courthouse chambers, board members fumed inside.
A one hour recess was called, pending an opinion from County Counsel Lee Jordan on whether as a matter of law, County Clerk George Jones should finish reading the charges. The charges were contained in a letter from Bryson Reinhardt of…Mill Valley. During the recess board members -except Supervisor William Fusselman- and other county officials joined the mercurial Wright for his first inspection of the hilly 130 acre civic center site.
The spry old man explored the terrain with the eagerness of a child at a picnic.
He ducked between the strands of one barbed wire fence and climbed over another one, jumped across several ditches and fought his way through knee high grass and thistles.
“Splendid,” he said. “It’s as beautiful as California can have.”
Two 15 year old Santa Venetia girls, Linda Martinez and Carole Baas, asked Wright to pose for snapshots. He agreed amiably.
“Are you going to knock down all these hills?” one girl inquired.
“Not a single hill,” said the master architect, now beaming with enthusiasm…..”
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
