Rudolph Schindler (architect) - Establishing Contact With Wright

Establishing Contact With Wright

Schindler continued to seek contact with Wright, writing letters despite his limited English. He finally met him for the first time on December 30, 1914. Wright had little work at this stage, was still plagued by the destruction of Taliesin and the murder of his mistress earlier that year, and did not offer Schindler a job. Schindler continued work at OSR, keeping himself occupied with trips and study, notably familiarizing himself with the early tilt up slab work of Irving Gill.

Wright was able to hire Schindler after obtaining the commission for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, a major project that would keep the architect in Japan for several years. Schindler's role was to continue Wright's American operations in his absence, working out of Wright's Oak Park studio. In 1919, Schindler met and married Pauline Gibling (1893–1977) and in 1920 Wright summoned him to Los Angeles to work on the Barnsdall House.

Schindler was engaged to design several private commissions while in Los Angeles, notably, he completed what many think is his finest building, the Kings Road House, also known as the Schindler house or the Schindler-Chase house, as an office and home for two professional couples by late spring 1922. He and his wife were one of the couples living in the communal structure. He also started to take on several projects of his own.

During this time, fractures started to appear in the Schindler-Wright relationship. Schindler complained, with some validity, of being underpaid and exploited. As well as his architectural affairs, he was running Lloyd Wright's businesses, such as the rental of the Oak Park houses.

Of the houses Wright built in this period, the Hollyhock House was undoubtedly the most significant, for which Schindler did most of the drawings and oversaw the construction of, while Frank Lloyd Wright still was in Japan. The client, Aline Barnsdall, subsequently chose Schindler as her architect to design a number of other small projects for her on Olive Hill and a spectacular beach-side 'translucent house' in 1927, which remains one of the great uncompleted projects of the twentieth century.

As Schindler was applying for a Los Angeles license to practice architecture in 1929, he mentioned his extensive work on the architectural and structural plans of the Imperial Hotel. Wright, however, refused to validate these claims. Eventually, disputes over whose work was whose, escalated until Schindler released a flier for a series of talks with Richard Neutra, describing himself as having been, "in charge of the architectural office of Frank Lloyd Wright for two years during his absence". Wright refuted this claim. The two split in 1931 and never reconciled until 1953, less than a year before Schindler's death.