INTRODUCTION

Soon after his arrival in the United States, a young German architect named Richard Neutra was walking through the neighborhoods of the Hyde Park area of Chicago looking for Prairie School houses.¹

Earlier, in a European library, he had seen the Wasmuth Portfolio, an album of early buildings by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Now, he had come to Chicago to search for one of Wright’s most admired designs: the famous Frederick C. Robie House on Woodlawn Avenue.

Standing at last in the presence of the Robie House, Neutra was infused with emotion. He rang the doorbell and asked in broken English, “Is Mr. Robie in?” The present owner, who answered the door, replied, “Mr. Robie? Never heard of him.” There had been a succession of owners, and she had bought the house, she explained, because it was “very cheap” and the previous owner “had to get out.” She didn’t particularly like its design, Neutra recalled, and “had all kinds of petty criticisms.”²

In his autobiography, Neutra recalled that this happened repeatedly as he visited famous American buildings, well known and admired by European architects. Inevitably, he found that the current residents (and their neighbors) had little or no understanding of the importance of the buildings that surrounded them. He was overtaken by what he described as a “sad wonderment.”

“I had arrived in fairyland,” he said, “but the fairies had gone. And the occupants of the enchanted forest looked entirely inconsistent and contradictory to what their setting called for. I was downcast, broken, and puzzled.”³

Later, when Neutra actually met Frank Lloyd Wright, he told him how surprised he was that Chicago’s Prairie School houses were not surrounded by prairie. When those homes were built, he asked, were they then in the prairie?

“No,” Wright answered. “There was no prairie…but it was the spirit of the prairie that was recaptured with it and in it.”⁴

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT a group of those Prairie School buildings that somehow survived the destruction (if only by the slightest thread) of historic American landmarks in the mid-twentieth century. It is also about a particular midwestern community, since the buildings that it focuses on are all located in or just a few blocks from downtown Mason City, Iowa.⁵

Further, the buildings all have some connection—directly or indirectly—to Frank Lloyd Wright. And in fact, all of them were designed by Wright or his associates.

Mason City is not and never has been an enchanted forest. It is an unpretentious regional hub for agriculture and industry (building materials, meatpacking, food processing) that slumbers in the vast surround of the midwestern prairie. There have been times in the city’s past when its architectural treasures have come close to being destroyed. There have also been times when its residents were insufficiently aware and less than appreciative of the historic icons in their midst. But surely the same could be said of nearly any community.

In the case of Mason City, unlike so many American towns, the story has taken a turn for the best. In the 1970s, encouraged by changes in values that enabled the establishment of the National Register of Historic Places, gregarious volunteer citizens’ groups (supported and assisted by architectural scholars) began an ongoing campaign to preserve, restore and celebrate the city’s historic architecture. That initiative and the generous vision that fueled it are still alive and well today.

These extraordinary efforts have so far resulted in the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Stockman House (now a house museum) and his City National Bank and Park Inn, where guests can once again stay overnight in what is officially known as The Historic Park Inn Hotel. They have also provided construction, in 2011, of the Robert E. McCoy Architectural Interpretive Center, adjacent to the Stockman House. This educational command post dispenses information about the city’s architectural heritage through talks, tours and publications.⁶

It is especially helpful that the McCoy Interpretive Center provides an annotated guidebook that vicariously leads its visitors on a self-directed walking tour through the Rock Crest/Rock Glen neighborhood, a cluster of Prairie School houses in a scenic landscape setting that was planned by architect Walter Burley Griffin.

In the process of that neighborhood tour, visitors also discover that Mason City’s architectural heritage is far more varied and plentiful than just the Prairie School tradition. As confirmed by such informative texts as Mason City, An Architectural Heritage;⁷ Buildings of Iowa;⁸ and Mason City: Walking Tour Guide,⁹ the city’s buildings represent the widest range of architectural monuments.

A sampling of its styles include Streamline Moderne, Art Deco, Richardson Romanesque, Colonial Revival, English Georgian, Craftsman Bungalow, Usonian, Mission Revival, Italian Romanesque, Neoclassical Revival, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, Shingle Style, International Style, Italianate, Chicago Style and others.¹⁰

This book is not intended to be a pictorial showcase—that has been more than amply achieved by other recent publications on the subject, books that readers are urged to explore. Instead, it is the story of Mason City and Prairie School architecture in the context of modern-era design. To that end, I have made a particular effort to point out what may be surprising connections between Mason City and the world at large.

“FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION,” as Wright’s teacher Louis H. Sullivan liked to say.¹¹ But perhaps it would be better to note that form and function are inseparable—simply, that “form functions”—and the extent to which it functions well is fundamental to the enduring value of any design, regardless of whether the subject at hand is architectural, graphic, product design or whatever.¹²

“Everything that man makes is designed,” design advocate Terence Conran has said, “but not everything is well designed. Good design only comes about when things are made with attention both to their functional and their aesthetic qualities.”¹³

Mason City architecture has an abundance of Modernist building designs. How that came about will always be partly a puzzle. And how those remaining buildings escaped demolition—how they not only survived but also flourished at times—is in some measure mysterious, too. I like to think it has to do with the better angels of our nature (in Lincoln’s words) and our need to discover significance in our everyday lives and surroundings.

As Conran went on to say, “Good design starts from the premise that living is more than just a matter of existing, and that everyday things which are both effective and attractive can raise the quality of life.”¹⁴