THE WRONG WRIGHT?

By John Elson

The good people of Wisconsin have always had mixed feelings about one of their best-known native sons. They took pride in the achievements and fame of Frank Lloyd Wright, arguably the 20th century's most original architect, who died in 1959 at 91. Yet they also deplored his bohemian life-style, his arrogance and bombast, his leftist politics and above all his predilection for scandal. In 1909, to cite one notorious example, he abandoned his first wife and their six children to carry on a flagrant affair with a client's spouse. One result of Wisconsin's ambivalence: while the state has several houses and a still remarkable corporate headquarters (Johnson Wax in Racine) that bear Wright's distinctive stamp, it has no major public building designed by him.

Until now, that is. This Thursday, the 128th anniversary of the architect's birth, Republican Governor Tommy Thompson will preside at the official groundbreaking ceremony for what is probably the most important Wright-designed project never executed in his lifetime. Monona Terrace is a five-level, semicircular, 1.8 hectare convention center now under construction at the edge of Lake Monona in Madison. Wright spent his youth in the state capital, which is about 65 km east of Taliesin (Welsh for "shining brow"), his home and architecture school at Spring Green. Those historic connections with Madison must have given Wright a special feeling for Monona Terrace. Between 1938 and 1958, he designed at least four different versions of the project. (His pupil and son-in-law William Wesley Peters produced another revision after Wright's death.)

Yet the architect's endless feuding with local politicians and businessmen guaranteed that, as Wright once ruefully predicted, the Terrace would never be built while he was alive. Amazingly, the arguments continue, even though an overwhelming majority of Madison elders are now committed to the $67 million project. Opponents of the Terrace have filed four lawsuits to block its construction, primarily on environmental grounds. One such suit claims that the 1,700 pilings supporting the edifice, which has a rooftop terrace and spiral parking ramps at each end, will cause groundwater contamination. Terrace opponents have also asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to add the site to the Superfund's list of ecological trouble spots because toxins are buried in the landfill on which the convention center will be situated.

Some critics believe the Terrace is a pricey boondoggle that cash-strapped Madison can ill afford, even though more than half the cost will be borne by state and county funds and by private donors. Yet another source of acrimony is whether the Terrace deserves to be considered a Wright design at all. A local organization called It Ain't Wright has argued that the architect's original concept envisioned a 2.8 hectare multipurpose civic center, complete with jail and railroad station, on a pristine stretch of lakeshore. The scaled-down version being built snuggles up against a cluttered Madison neighborhood. The proximity, critics say, violates Wright's central thesis that architecture should be in harmony with surrounding nature.

Opponents also charge that much of the Terrace's design will be no better than guesswork by architects from the master's school at Taliesin West in Arizona, who are supervising the construction. Wright completed only a handful of sketches for the Terrace's interior, so the project supervisors have had to imitate colors, textures and materials used by Wright in other designs of the 1950s. Says architectural historian Narciso Menocal: "It's like finding a 15-page synopsis of a Hawthorne novel and having someone else turn it into a 500-page book. Whose novel is that?"

Taliesin-trained architect Anthony Puttnam, who was a Wright apprentice back in the '50s, defends the project's authenticity. "I don't think we've done anything that Wright wouldn't have done," Puttnam says. "He was very open to change. He knew the importance of accommodating the client."

To the environmental concerns, Terrace boosters respond that surveys have cleared the project of contributing to water pollution. As for the cost, advocates believe convention business will generate some $20 million a year in revenue for Madison, even though the Terrace itself will operate at a loss. "People will flock from as far away as Tokyo to see Frank Lloyd Wright's last building," predicts Governor Thompson. "It's going to be a centerpiece."

That would have pleased Wright. But the ever combative architect also knew the importance of controversy: he liked few things better than a war of words. To the lord of Taliesin, the fact that Wisconsinites are still battling over one of his designs would have been further proof of his immortal genius.

--REPORTED BY WENDY COLE/MADISON

With reporting by WENDY COLE/MADISON