Дом Розенбаума: Усонианский шедевр Фрэнка Ллойда Райта в Алабаме

Historic house in Alabama, United States

The Rosenbaum House is a single family house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built for Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum in Florence, Alabama. A noted example of his Usonian house concept, it is the only Wright building in Alabama, and is one of only 26 pre World War II Usonian houses. Wright scholar John Sergeant called it "the purest example of the Usonian."

In 1938 Stanley Rosenbaum (a professor at Florence State Teachers' College, now the University of North Alabama) and his new wife Mildred were given a building lot in Florence, Alabama and funds to build a house on it by Rosenbaum's parents. Both newlyweds had read Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography and a cover story on Wright in Time magazine. They commissioned Wright to design and build the house; it is the only Wright house in Alabama. This is an example of Wright's "Usonian" style homes, which he intended as low cost housing for middle class American families. But the first phase of the house ultimately cost $14,000 (14000.0 in 1940 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years), nearly double the wealthy couple's original $7,999 budget. The flat roof leaked almost immediately, the heating system failed, and the Rosenbaum family seldom used the custom furniture built on site for the home. After the Rosenbaums took up residence in September 1940, the first photographs of the house were exhibited the following month at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City the following month. This house was also the childhood home of notable American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Wright Archive is known as the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, held at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University in New York City. Following the restoration, the city opened the house in 2002 as a public museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright Rosenbaum House. The museum displays some of the original Wright designed furniture. The restoration won the 2004 Wright Spirit Award in the Public Domain from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. for her tireless efforts for preservation and interpretation through the Frank Lloyd Wright Rosenbaum House Foundation. In her last five years in residence, which ended in 1998, nearly 5,000 visitors received personal tours conducted by Mrs. Rosenbaum, who died in 2006.

The Rosenbaum House was the first of dozens of Wright's Usonian houses based on the 1936 Usonian prototype Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin. The house was built on a plot at 117 Riverview Drive (now 601 Riverview, after renumbering), on the north bank of the Tennessee River. Built in an L shape, the house is made from natural materials, largely cypress wood and brick, and features multilevel low rising steel cantilevered roofs covering both the living spaces and an adjoining carport. A distinctive feature of the house is its glass; USA Today described it as "blurring the distinction between indoors and outdoors." The original Usonian floorplan provided 1,540 square feet (143 m2) of living space, but when the Rosenbaums had their fourth child they asked Wright to design an extension to the now cramped house. His modifications, completed in 1948, added a further 1,084 square feet (100 m2) in a second L shape.

It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places individually, and also as a contributing building in the McFarland Heights historic district.

These photographs are from the George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

These photographs were taken after extensive restoration of the home in the early 2000s.