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_frank lloyd wright _
By: john Dell
"...having a good start, not only do I fully intend to be the greatest
architect who has yet lived, but fully intend to be the greatest architect who
will ever live. Yes, I intend to be the greatest architect of all time." -
Frank Lloyd Wright 1867-1959 It appears that from the very beginning, Frank
Lloyd Wright was destined by fate or determination to be one of the most
celebrated architects of the twentieth century. Not only did Wright possess
genius skills in the spatial cognition, his approach to architecture through
geometric manipulation demonstrates one aspect of his creativeness. Forever a
great businessman, Wright seemed to know how to please his clients and still
produce some of the most innovative and ridiculed buildings of the early
century. While the United States appeared to be caught up in the Victorian
style, Frank Lloyd Wright stepped out in front to face the challenge of
creating "American architecture" which would reflect the lives of the rapidly
growing population of the Midwest United States. Howard Gardner in his book
"Creating Minds" does not make any mention of Frank Lloyd Wright, an innovator
who drastically influenced architecture of the twentieth century around the
world. In 1887, at the age of twenty, Frank Lloyd Wright, broke from the
comfort of his childhood in Wisconsin and moved to Chicago. Chicago during the
late nineteenth century was an exciting place. The fire of 1871 destroyed most
of the old city allowing for it to be rebuilt in the new industrial age.
Skyscrapers were the all the rage in architecture, using steel and glass to
create "shrines" piercing the sky. This complimented the trend in residential
homes where Victorian influence created pointed gables, lace-like
ornamentation, plaster walls, and wooden structures. With education in
Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Wright found a job as a
draftsman in a Chicago architectural firm. It is rumored that Uncle Jenkins
(the family minister), now in Chicago guiding a growing Unitarian community,
helped his nephew Frank to find the position. During his short time with
Silsbee, Frank began his first project, the Hillside Home for his Aunts Nell
and Jane. Maybe because he wanted to break away from the Lloyd-Jones clan's
aid, or because he was impatiently moving forward, Frank left his first job
within a year and found a position with one of the best known firms in Chicago
at the turn of the century, Alder &Sullivan . Sullivan was to become Wright's
greatest mentor. With the new industrial age, came a growing suburban
population, and a division between home and work. While the firm of Alder
&Sullivan concentrated on the demand for downtown commercial buildings, Wright
was assigned the residential contracts. His work soon expanded as he accepted
jobs outside the firms assigning. Sullivan discovered this in 1893 and called
Frank on a breach of contractWright referred to him as "Lieber Meister" and
admired Louis Sullivan’s talent for ornamentation and his of drawing intricate
plans and designs. Wright picked up on the philosophy of Sullivan and was so
loyally devoted to his employer that he soon moved ahead of Alder in
importance within the firm. Sullivan was extremely critical of classicism
which was appearing across the USA during the 1890’s in reaction to the 1893
Chicago’s world fair exhibits. Wrights relationship with his employer caused
great amounts of tension between Wright and fellow draftsman, as well as
between Sullivan and Alder. When Wright left the company, Sullivan's quantity
of contracts declined quickly. Sullivan had reached his peak of innovation,
and without a young prodigy to carry it on into the new century, many
potential clients turned away. Wright would call on his "Leiber Meister" when
Sullivan ran into economic and personal troubles, his international reputation
had dwindled by 1920 and Wright found him rejected, ignored, penniless, and
dealing with alcoholism. Sullivan died in 1924 without regaining the glory
that the firm held during Wright's early years in Chicago. Using the
Lloyd-Jones' philosophies of unity, truth, harmony, and simplicity; and
Sullivan's approach of "form follows function", Wright quickly built up a
practice in residential architecture. At one point in his career, Wright would
produce 135 buildings in ten years. Patience, concentration, attention to
detail, and constant revision marked Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the studio;
things that would be lacking in his personal relationships. Many stated that
Wright had a great amount of nervous energy, and allowed no interference or
suggestions from his clients. Wright took an integral approach to architecture
by designing the interior furnishings of the building as well as the
structure. He seemed to possess a skill of site memorization, and would visit
the grounds sometimes only once before creating a building which blended with
and complimented the site. His own houses were continuing experiments,
especially the first one in Oak Park to which his studio was attached. Using
nature as inspiration and geometric abstraction, both obvious influences from
his childhood in Wisconsin, Wright created a unique type of architecture which
would become known to the general public as the Prairie style. Marked by
horizontal lines, this form would dominate his work from 1900-1913. Wright
included the technology of the cities into the suburban residences of his
design. Wright would continue to pass through at least two more recognizable
stages in his architectural design, the textile block (1917-1924), and the
Usonian (1936-1959). In 1909 Wright took off for Europe, once again walking
out of a comfortable home life including a wife and six children and a well
established business. His European travels brought him fame across the sea at
a greater level than that he had received in his native homeland. Wright did
not stay long in Europe, returning in 1910 to Chicago and Wisconsin where he
began construction on his second home, Taliesin in 1911. The year 1913 brought
Frank a contract for Midway Gardens in downtown Chicago, an entertainment park
on the south side of Chicago which exists today only in the original plans and
drawings. The Imperial Hotel project provided Wright with an engineering
problem as well as an architectural challenge. Finished in 1922, the Imperial
hotel was criticized for its aesthetic design, but when it survived a 1923
earthquake, which left the majority of Tokyo in rubble, it found praise.
Wright had managed to design a "floating foundation" for the building which
combined oriental simplicity, in modern world comfort. This was one of the few
periods in Wright's life were his financial situation was at a positive level.
Returning to the United States in 1922, Wright pursued the use of a new
material in residential homes, concrete. Most of these "textile block" houses
were built in California with a Mayan and Japanese influence. Though some
claimed that Wright had peaked in 1910, with the Prairie houses, others
claimed that in 1924 Wright's development was only just beginning. A 1932
autobiography sparked new interest in the architect and pulled Wright out of a
plateau in his work with two of his most famous buildings: Fallingwater, Edgar
J. Kaufmann's home in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, and the Johnson Wax Company
Administration Building in Racine,Wisconsin. Wright's last "style", Usonian,
was caused by a shift in society in the 1930's. Adapting architecture to the
simple and economically tight lives of families in the 1930's, Wright used
down scaling to bring the house to a more appropriate human level and reflect
the informal and comfortable lives of the average American family. The Wright
Fellowship was opened in 1932, welcoming apprentices to live, learn, and work
at Taliesin, an idea comparable to that of a medieval manorial estate, and
reflective of Aunt Nell's and Aunt Jane's Hillside House. Wright taught
principles and philosophies of architecture, not a style. Many apprentices
came out of the large, caring, and often chaotic community to complete
successful career's in the world of architecture. During the thirties, Wright
formed a social vision, associating the evils of society with the modern city.
This was expressed through his design of Broadacre City, a section of an
idealistic decentralized and restructured nation resembling not a city and not
an agrarian community, but something in between. Wright continued to produce
work into the forties and fifties including houses, churches, theaters, and
stores. The Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan is said by some to be his last
great work, as he passed away in April 1959, six months before the museum
opened By the time of his death in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright had produced
architecture for more than seventy years. What is even more remarkable is that
Wright had redesigned American architecture for at least a century and created
an area of the domain which America could claim as it's own. As early as 1894,
Wright was defining his philosophy of architecture. In a 1927 essay entitled
"In the Cause of Architecture" Wright presented an outline stressing
architectural design as truthful and obedient to purpose, site, occupants, and
materials. He believed that buildings should be integral units, simple,
unique, serving civilization and eliminating the "box" effect of the past.
Space in Wright's design was fluid, free, and informal. His scales were
brought down to create comfort for the occupants and a feeling of oneness with
the house and the natural settings. Wright used materials which would blend
the house into the setting, and limited the variety of materials within a
project. Stone, brick, wood, stucco, concrete, copper, and glass were all
manipulated by Wright in a distinct way, that had never been done before. His
exteriors and interiors of a buildings varied little, as he philosophized that
one should move naturally into a shelter, feeling a certain flow rather than
an abrupt transition. Wright often used the colors of autumn in the Midwest,
however red was his signature especially in 1930's. For light he relied
heavily upon the sun's power, and many of his building included skylights or
subtle electrical lighting. The ornamentation should compliment all this, not
distract from it . Treating the building as a integral unit, Wright often
designed down to the littlest detail including all dining ware, furniture, and
statues. His geometric designs were interpretations of nature. In furniture,
textiles, and accessories, all designed by Wright, simplicity, respect for
nature, and dignity if the individual was considered. His was an architecture
of democracy for an era of political freedom. It is apparent Wright felt no
constraints from the popular culture and faced harsh criticism many times for
his works. REFERENCES Boulton, Alexander O. Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect: An
Illustrated Biography, Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 1993.
Gill, Brendan, Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
New York, 1987. Heinz, Thomas A., Frank Lloyd Wright: Architectural Monographs
No 18, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992. Lind, Carla, The Wright Style,
Simon &Schuster, New York, 1992. . Secrest, Meryle, Frank Lloyd Wright: A
Biography, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York, 1992..
Word Count: 1820
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