Frank Lloyd Wright1867-1959

“I’ve been accused of saying I was the greatest architect in the world

and if I had said so, I don’t think it would be very arrogant ...”

The chronological contextof Wright’s architecture

Chronological context in Architecture- Modernism to Postmodernism -

1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

First generationmodernists

Second generation modernists

Third generationmodernists

The pioneers of modernism.They each treated form, space, structure, materials and ornament in novel ways.

These were the architects of ‘high modernism’- the universal International Style- as well as the fashionable Art Deco period.

These were the architects of Postmodernism.They reacted against the orthodoxy of high modernism.

Peter Behrens - Berlin Walter Gropius Frank Gehry

Auguste Perret - Paris Le Corbusier Philip Johnson

C. R. Mackintosh - Glasgow Mies van der Rohe Charles Moore

Otto Wagner - Vienna Gerrit Reitveld I. M. Pei

Adolf Loos - Vienna William Van Allen Michael Greaves

Louis Sullivan - Chicago Napier Art Deco architects Louis Kahn

Frank Lloyd Wright - Chicago and mid-western states of USA Robert Venturi

The context of his architecture

Geographical context: Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect. His buildings are located

throughout the United States, but mostly in the greater Chicago area and in the mid-west.

Chicago

Context continued…Historical and Social context:

Wright was an extremely influential pioneer of modern design, and arguably the greatest architect of the 20th century. During his exceptionally long and prolific career over 500 of his designs for buildings were constructed, dating from 1893 to his death in 1959.

Wright was a first generation modernist who sought to rid American architecture of its European revivalist tendencies and to define a uniquely American architecture suited to American life and landscape.

Wright rejected the historical European styles that his fellow American architects emulated. He believed these styles had no relation to modern American life; “Classicism is a mask and does not reflect transition. How can such a static expression allow interpretation of [modern American] life as we know it? A fire station should not resemble a French Chateau, a bank a Greek temple and a university a Gothic Cathedral”, he said.

After a brief spell studying engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wright served as senior draughtsman with Louis Sullivan. In 1893 Wright set up his own practice, but Sullivan’s ideas about architectural structure, integral ornament and functional design remained with Wright throughout his career.

Context continued…Historical and Social context: Wright was primarily a designer of American homes. He first made his name

designing houses for wealthy clients in the mid-western States between 1900 and 1916. These grand houses became known as his Prairie Houses. Wright’s career took off again in the mid-1930s when he was aged in his late 60s and when most architects of his generation were either retired or deceased. The next 20 years were the most prolific of his career and he designed and built over 140 Usonian houses for middle-income Americans, as well as grand masterpieces like ‘Fallingwater’, The Johnson Wax Headquarters and the Guggenheim Museum.

Wright had a major influence on European architects. In 1909 he toured Europe and at the same time the Wasmuth Papers were published, a portfolio of his Prairie houses, the Larkin Building and Unity Temple. Dutch and German architects were impressed with his simplified geometric forms, his arrangement of planes in three dimensions, his cantilevered structures and open, flowing spaces. This influence is particularly evident in designs by De Stijl designers and in the early works of Mies van der Rohe.

Strictly speaking there is no single Wright ‘style’. Wright designed according to set principles rather than a pre-determined visual vocabulary. Wright believed that fundamentally a building had to be ‘organic’, meaning that it must be harmoniously conceived according to its time (the materials and technologies of the age), it’s place (the nature of it’s immediate physical environment and the culture of the people) and it’s requirements (the needs of it’s inhabitants). This is why a Wright house in suburban Los Angeles is different in style to a Wright family home in the Arizona Desert or to a Wright house in the woods of Kentucky, and to Wright’s design for a Jewish synagogue in Philadelphia.

Influences on Wright

The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement is evident in the craftsmanship, the natural

materials, and simplicity of Wright’s furnishings.

Nature inspired Wright’s ideas about structure,his colour schemes, materials and ornamentation.

Wright’s mother was

determined her sonwas going to be agreat architect. Shebought him a set offroebel blocks to

playwith. Wright latercredited this as aninfluence in his

work.

Wright admired traditional Japanese architecture, with it’s

structural clarity, geometric design, clear, dynamic spaces

and harmony with nature.

Louis Sullivan, Wright’s‘master’, shaped hisideas about

architecturalform and functionand taught him thatornament must be“of the building, not on

it”.

Significant buildings by WrightThe Robie House, Chicago, 1909

‘Fallingwater’, Bear Run, 1936Unity Temple, Chicago, 1906

The Johnson Wax complex, Racine, 1938

Wright’s Prairie StyleWright’s Prairie houses, designed between 1900 and 1916, broke with the fashionableAmerican taste for homes in a European revival style.

Fashionable Victorian villa typical of the time F.L. Wright, Ward Willets House, Chicago, 1902

Oriented to the street with frontal entrance vs. Set back from the street with hidden entrance Wrap-around porch with decorative ironwork vs. Broad eves, balconies merge interior/exterior Tall sash windows with shutters vs. Bands of casement windows set under eves Steep-pitched roofs, gables, several tall chimneys vs. Low-pitched hipped roofs, broad central chimney Vertical, compact emphasis, unrelated to site vs. Low, spreading, horizontal. Integrated with site.

Watch this short video of the stylistic context of Wright’s Prairie houses.

Wright’s Prairie Style continued…Wright’s interiors were strikingly different to the prevailing American taste for Victorian-style rooms.

Fashionable drawing room typical of the time Living space of the Meyer May House , 1909Busy, cluttered, enclosed static space vs. Geometric, open-flowing, opening-out spaceDark, heavy upholstery vs. Oak furniture, abstract and organic* Patterned wallpaper, rugs, carpetsvs. Abstracted natural motifs in lamps and rugsHeavily ornamented to display wealth vs. In-built furnishings and fixturesLayers of curtains to keep the light out vs. Leadlight windows feature abstract natural motifs Variety of period styles vs. One single, unified organic* environmentElaboration, artiface, accumulation vs. Simplicity, natural materials, finely crafted

Click here to explore the living space Wright designed for the Francis W. Little House in 1912. * Click here to learn about Wright’s concept of organic architecture.

Wright’s treatment of space.

One of the most innovative aspects of Wright’s style was his development of the open plan. In

traditional houses of the time (above left) spaces are defined by the walls that enclose them.

The spaces are ‘closed in’, static, specific, with doors that close shut to complete each boxed

space. But in Wright’s houses the walls, doors and corners dissolve so that space flows from

room to room, from one level to another, and between inside and outside (above centre and

right). Wright equated this flowing spaciousness with American freedom and democracy.

Hear the current owners of the Heurtley House, 1902, speak about the living space of their

early Wright house and hear about space in the Chaney House, 1903, both built in Oak Park.

Robie House,

Chicago, 1909Click here to view a short video about features of Wright’s Prairie Style and to

find answers to the following questions about this iconic Wright building:

1. Who labeled Wright’s early houses as ‘Prairie Style’ and why?2. State FOUR ways Prairie houses like the Robie House fit with the

landscape.3. Identify one traditional feature of American homes that Wright

incorporated into his Prairie houses?4. State THREE points about the design of the windows in the Robie House.5. What materials does Wright typically use to construct Prairie houses like

the Robie House?6. What is unique about the treatment of the mortar between the bricks of

the Robie House?7. What colours does Wright typically use in his Prairie houses? Why?8. How did Wright make the living space of the Robie House feel intimate

and close, and yet tall and open at the same time.9. What function do the art glass windows and doors of Wright’s Prairie

Houses serve?

Robie House, Chicago, 1909

Wright’s Prairie StyleHow many Wright-style features can you spot in these images of the Robie house?

State ONE Wright-style feature that you don’t see in them.

Unity Temple, Oak Park, 1905Unity Temple is a significant building in the developmentof modern architecture. Even Wright himself regardedthis building as his ‘jewel’, the building where he firstdiscovered that “the space within becomes the reality ofthe building”. The great American architect Philip Johnsonreferred to Unity Temple’s interior as “the most intimateand monumental space in America”.

View this introductory video of Unity Temple.

Watch this brief video tracing the movement of a personthrough this building. It is a good illustration of the wayWright treats space, and its effect on the ‘residents’ ofthe building.

Use your mouse to look around the interior of the Templeand of the adjoining community hall.

This video about Unity Temple’s restoration shows manystylistic features of Unity Temple.

Hear what Wright himself had to say about Unity Temple.

Unity Temple, Oak Park, 1905What you should know about this building…

1. With what material is Unity Temple constructed? Why was this material chosen by Wright? What was significant about the Temple’s construction in this material at the time?

2. State THREE ways Unity Temple’s design is different to that of traditional church architecture?

3. What are the three main sections of the building? State TWO functions performed in each of these sections of the building?

4. List THREE functions contained within (or served by) the corner piers of the Temple.

5. How does the form of the building express its functions and its method of construction?

6. How is the entrance to this building typical of other works by Wright?

7. How is the treatment of space in this building typical of other work by Wright?

8. Wright says that the side structures of Unity Temple are not ‘walls’ but ‘features’. In what way are they not ‘walls’? What do the ‘features’ protect the congregation from?

9. How is it that the congregation can see “out into the infinite in every direction”?

Wright’s Usonian Houses, 1936-1959From the late 1920s Wright began to promote his vision for the modern American city and in

1932 he published The Disappearing City in which he first proposed his Broadacre Cityconcept. The residents of this new concept of American life would live in what Wright termed‘Usonian homes’. Usonia was Wright’s name for the future United States of North America.The earlier Prairie houses he had designed between 1902 and 1916 had been grand andexpensive, built for the urban elite. In contrast the 60 Usonian houses he built across theUnited States, were offered as low-cost homes for middle income families. With Wright’sUsonian houses a young family could build their own home, fulfilling the American dream ofhome ownership.

The first Usonian built was the Herbert

Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin, in

1936 (right). Visit this building here.

Visit another Usonian, the Weltzheimer

House built in Oberlin, Ohio, in1948. The text describes at leasteight features of the typicalUsonian home. Here are furtherimages of the house.

Wright’s Usonian Houses, 1936-1959Two more Usonians:

Right:Zimmerman House,

Manchester NH, 1950

Left and below:William Palmer

House,Ann Arbor MI, 1950

Wright’s Usonian Houses, 1936-1959Pope-Leighey House, Falls Church VA,

1939This is an excellent and well preserved exampleof an early Usonian house by Wright.

Visit the Pope-Leighey House website.Here is one visitor’s photographic record, withan accurate commentary, of the house.Here is a video of the exterior.

Wright and OrnamentWright believed that ornament was essential to architecture. However, like mostmodernists, he opposed the decorative, applied ornament of past architectural styles.

The ornament Wright regarded as essential was integral ornament.

Wright’s concept of ornament was integral because it was part of the organic nature ofthe building. The ornament was the natural pattern of the structure: the colour and

grainof wood; the colour, texture and shape of the bricks, or the stones, or the concrete orthe plaster; the geometric patterns and colours woven into the rugs; the patterns andcolours of the glass pieces leaded together to become the windows, skylights and

screendoors. The ornament was integral to the materials and structure of the building, it is “ofthe building, not on it” as Louis Sullivan said.

For Wright ornament and structure were integral. For this reason Wright always soughtto express the natural qualities of the materials from which his buildings were made.Natural materials like wood or stone were always used in a natural way. Man-madematerials like plywood, glass or concrete could be shaped or coloured according to thearchitect’s imagination, the environment of the needs of the client.

Wright and Ornament

Wright said it…Form follows function -that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one,joined in a spiritual union.

Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of spiders' webs, buildings qualified bylight, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.

I would like to have a free architecture. Architecture that belonged where you see itstanding - and is a grace to the landscape instead of a disgrace.

True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with the structure itadorns, whether a person, a building, or a park. At its best it is an emphasis of structure,a realization in graceful terms of the nature of that which is ornamented. I have been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, almost all my life from toointimate contacts with my own furniture.

He exposes all the function on the top and puts the form below. It's as if you were towear your entrails on top of your head. (in reference to Le Corbusier)

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