Wednesday 11 September 2024

Frank Lloyd Wright: Midway Gardens

 


Hypnolysis has animated old photographs to produce a "live" photographic walkthrough of Frank Lloyd Wright's European-inspired indoor/outdoor concert garden with space for year-round dining, drinking and performances. Built near downtown Chicago. Midway Gardens was a delight, creating a home for sophisticated pleasure-seeking and playing host to many of the early swing bands like Count Basie and Benny Goodman (who was 'discovered' while playing the Gardens in 1926). 

But the timing was rotten, the complex completed just a few years before the wowsers brought in Prohibition, closing large drinking establishments and handing booze profits to gangsters. 

Wright at least had the satisfaction of hearing that two demolition companies had gone bankrupt demolishing the beautiful structure.





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