Soundwave Ennis

By Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was an American architect widely recognised for creating USA:s first domestic architectural style; the Prairie Style. In his work he pioneered the open floor plan, championed new building techniques and cultivated a tradition for the use of natural and local materials. In the early 1920s Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) identified the artistic shortcomings of concrete, which at the time was both a new and economical building material. In an effort to overcome its limitations FLW developed a construction system to build houses out of customised squared concrete blocks. These blocks were “woven” together by steel rods, and due to this particular construction method, the houses that were built were called “textile block houses”. Four houses were completed according to this principle in California in the 1920s and for each one of them FLW designed a unique graphic pattern. The patterns that decorated the concrete blocks drew influences from nature as well as the pre-Columbian architecture of Mexico and Central America. The house designed for the couple Mabel and Charles Ennis, built in 1924, was the largest out of the four textile block houses and the only one of these experimental buildings that remains intact today. The Ennis block was immortalised in pop culture when the Ennis house was chosen as the location for the home of character Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, in Ridley Scotts Sci-Fi masterpiece Blade Runner (1982). The Ennis block was developed and produced as an acoustic pannel by Swedish furniture company Offecct under licence from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation between 2018–2023. (Photos by Jens Andersson)