Wednesday 24 December 2008

'Man the Enlightened Being': - Frank Lloyd Wright's Christmas Message from 1953

I like to post this Christmas message from Frank Lloyd Wright every year around this time ...
so it's probably a good time to wish all of you a great Christmas and a very happy and prosperous New Year -- that is, every single one of you who doesn't wish increased state bullying upon me and mine and on the rest of the populace of New Zealand who remains here. Just a small number of you, then.

So as the offices here at Not PC Towers begin to shut down for the holidays, I really do want to re-post architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s poetic message on “man the enlightened being” which he used to send out at Christmas time. “The herd disappears and reappears," says Wright's message, "but the sovereignty of the individual persists":

Literature tells about man. Architecture presents him. The Architecture that our
man of Democracy needs and prophecies is bound to be different from that of the
common or conditioned man of any other socialized system of belief. As never
before, this new Free-Man’s Architecture will present him by being true to his
own nature in all such expressions. This aim becomes natural to him in his Art
as it once was in his Religion.

With renewed vision, the modern man will use the new tools Science lavishes upon him (even before he is ready for them) to enlarge his field of action by reducing his fetters to exterior controls, especially those of organized Authority, publicity, or political expediency. He will use his new tools to develop his own Art and Religion as the means to keep him free, as himself. Therefore this democratic man’s environment, like his mind, will never be style-ized. When and wherever he builds he will not consent to be boxed. He will himself have his style...


Read on here for the full message: Man, the Enlightened Being by Frank Lloyd Wright, and remember to have a great individualistic holiday season. And remember this useful advice about responsible holiday drinking: Try to schedule responsibly so you get it all done before lunch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter, there is an op-ed in today's "Australian" that is right up your street, you said very similar things a few weeks ago:

"Be Very Afraid, But Not Of Santa", by Rod Liddle:

"......Santa in his big white friendly beard sits on a bench and there is a large X marked on the bench a safe distance away where the child is firmly directed to sit, allowing a wide corridor of clear and unsullied air between the child and the potential kiddie-fiddler from the North Pole, with his red cheeks, strange reindeer and unaccountable affection for children.

Santa is not allowed to touch the child. The child is not allowed to touch Santa. Happy Christmas, war is over. This is where we are now.

My three-year-old daughter was taken to see a different Santa recently, a more rural Santa, who had set up base on some farm complex, which at other times of the year sold organic produce. When my daughter stumbled, clambering on to the sleigh, Santa reached out and grabbed hold of her: an instinctive reaction, something we all might do. You don't want to see a child fall, do you? But it was the look on Santa's face when he realised what he'd done that chilled to the marrow: a look, according to my wife, of pure, blind panic and fright. "I'm really, really, sorry for touching her," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to. I thought she might fall." This is where we are now......"

Do read the whole thing:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24838486-7583,00.html

Anonymous said...

polo ralph lauren integrates two types of luxury and leisure style, now more and more popular men’s burberry polos“thin” sense, most designers have sought to perfect the cut with “cutting” polo women clothing a bag of bones polo logo of the body. It is amazing that a tight lacoste polo shirts with pencil pants, full of retro style with a European aristocratic culture of leisure. Color of polo shirts in vogue, including white polo shirt, pink polo shirt, blue polo shirt , and yellow cheappolos , timely reflects the mainstream of men’s summer fashion colors polo fashion.