La Miniatura

Restoration

What needs doing, and what a gift pays for

The system that made the house is what threatens it

Wright's textile blocks are thin concrete with steel rods running through the joints. A century of California weather has carried water into those joints, the steel has rusted and expanded, and the blocks have cracked from the inside out.

Every one of the four Los Angeles textile block houses has faced the same problem. There is no quick repair for it. Blocks come out one at a time, the corroded steel is cut back and replaced, and a new block is cast to match — the same aggregate, the same colour, the same pattern.

Below is the work in front of us, in the order we are able to do it.

The programme

  • Ravine elevation, block replacement

    Underway

    The south face takes the weather and the damp off the ravine floor. Roughly 400 blocks show spalling or exposed steel; about a fifth have been recast and reset so far.

  • Roof and parapet waterproofing

    Underway

    Water entering at the parapet is the source of most of the damage below it. Until this is sound, replaced blocks are only a delay.

  • Steel survey, all elevations

    Next

    Ground-penetrating survey to find corroded reinforcement before it shows on the surface, so repairs can be planned rather than reacted to.

  • Glazed block reglazing

    Next

    Original glass survives in some perforated blocks and not in others. Matching it is slow, specialist work.

  • Garden terraces and pool

    Next

    Retaining walls in the ravine have moved. The pool and its terraces are part of Wright's composition, not landscaping around it.

  • Studio roof, 1926 building

    Complete

    Lloyd Wright's studio was made watertight first, which gives the project somewhere dry to work from.

Figures on this page are indicative and updated as work proceeds.

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There is no endowment behind this house. Visits and gifts are what pay for the work, and every gift goes into the fabric of the building.

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