TIDR FLWright Art and Craft of the Machine
Transcript of TIDR FLWright Art and Craft of the Machine
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9 0
FRANK
lLOYD WRICHT [55)
19 1
Frank lloyd Wriyht, The Art
and
Craft of
the
Machine"
I ~ r a n k Uoyd Wright (1867-1959), one of the United States' foremost architt'Cts,
was a theorist as
well
as a creator
of
buildings and furnishings.
Like
most
designers and architects of his generation, he had been reared on the writings
of John Ruskin and William Morris, and his architectural and theoretical
works, including his renowned Prairie S c h o o l ~ houses of the early 1900s, were
clearly shaped in large part by rhe TWO Englishmen's ideals. However,
in
this
well-known essay,
Wright
declared-in
clear opposition
to
Morris's and Ruskin's
sentiments-that the Machine (a word he deliberately capitalized) an inte
gral parr
of
modern society that had the potential
to
do great good, both
socially and artistically.
Excerpted from Frank l.Ioyd Wright, The An and Craft of the a c h i n e ~ an
address delivered to the
Chicago
Arts
and Crafts Society,
at
Hull-Hou.'>C, March 6,
1901, and to the Western Sixiety of Engineers, March 20, 190
I,
and reprinted in
the
Gualogu( tb( Four/untb Annual bibiti on
th
Chiolgo ArchitufUrtii Club
(Chicago: Chicago Architcctural Club, 1901).
A
e work along our various way., there take hape within U , in some
sort, an
ideal-something we
are to
become-some
work
to
be done.
This, I think,
is
denied to very few, and
we
begin really
to live
only when the
thtill of this ideality moves us in what we will to accomplish.
r
n the years which
hllve been devoted
in
y own life
[Q
working
out in
stubborn materials a feel
Ing for the beautiful, in the vortex of diSTOrted complex conditions, a hope has
K OWtl stronger with the experience of each year, amounring now TO a gradually
,kc:lx:ning conviction that in the Machine lies the only futute of art and craft
I
helic:ve,
a glorious future; that the Machine
is, in
fact, the metamorphosis
lJf ancient an and craft; that we 3re at last face to face with the machine-the
modern Sphinll-whoSC' riddle the artist must solve if he would that art l ive
ti,r his nature holds the
key.
I';or one. I promise whatever gods may be to lend
Mtch energy and purpose II.' I m:lY poSSCS5
t,o
hdp make that meaning plain; TO
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Nt t H D U S 1 R I H
DESIGN
REA1HR
19 1: fRANK lLOVO W ~ I H T 57
reflll'lI ag;lin and ag;lin [ the task whenever :llld wherever need
he;
for this plain
The evidence
is
100 substantial.
(lilly
is thus
rclemlessly marked OUI for fhe artisr ill Ihis.
the Machinc
Age.
Art in the gmnd old sense-meaning Art in Ihe sense
of 51tuClUrai
lradi
ahhough
there is involved all adjustmeOl
f'O
cherished gods. perplexing :tnd
lion, whose crafl is filShioned upon the handicrafl ideal, :Incient
or
modern; an
painful in thc exneme;
the
fire of many long-honored ideals shall go down to
art
wherein this form
and
that form as structural
pans
were bboriously joined
:Ishes 10 reappear, phrenix like, with new purposes.
ill
such a way as
to
bC:lllt'ifully emphasil.e the mann er of t'he joining: the million
The great ethics
of
the Machine 3re as yet, in the main, beyond the ken
of
:lnd
one
ways of beautifully s ~ i l i s y i n bare structural necessities, which have
lilt:
artist
or
student of sociology:
but
the artist mind may now approach the
COllle down [ us chiefly through the
books
as KArl.
n:lwre
of
Ihi thing from experience. which has lx'Come Ihe commo nplace
of
his For
the
purpose
or
suggesting hastily
and
therefore crudely wherein
the
fidd, to suggcsl, in time.
I
hope, 10 prove, that rhe machine
is
capable of carry
machine has sapped the vil'ality
of
this art, let us assume Arelliteemre in the old
ing ro fruilion high ideals in an-higher than the world has yet seen
scnse as a fitting reprcsenlative
of
Traditional-art. and Printing
:IS
:1 filling rep
Disciples ofWiJliam Morris ding to an opposite vicw, Yct William Morris
resentation of the Machine,
himself deeply sensed the dange r to art
of
the transforming force whose sign and
What printing-the machine-has
done
for architecture-the fine a r t -
symbol
is
lhe machine, and though of the new art
we
eagerly seek he sometimes
will have been
done
in measure
of
time for all art immediately fashioned upon
despaired, he quickly renewed his hope.
the early h:llldicmft ideal.
He plainly foresaw that a blank in the fine arts would follow
the
inevit:1ble
[ I
abuse of new.found power. and duew himself body and soul into Ihe work of
And.
invincible. triumphallf, lhe machine goes
on
gathering force and
bridging i, over by bringing into our lives afresh the beauty of an
as
she had knitting Ihe m ~ l e r i l nec(:SsitiC5 of mankind ever closcr into a universal auto
been, rh:u the new an to come mighl lIOt have dropped too many stitches nor matic ftbric; the engine, the momr, and the baltic-ship, the works
of
art
of
the
h:l\Ie Ilnraveled what would still bc useful
10
her.
century
Th:lt he had abundalll ftirh in [he new
an
his every
< . - S ~ a y
will tcstify.
Thc
Machine
is
Intellect mastering the drudgery
of
earth that lhe plastic
an
Th:H he miscalculated the machine docs nOI marter. He did sublime work lllay live; that the margin of leisure and strength by which man's life upon the
for il when he pleaded so well for Ihe process
of
elimination its abuse had made earth can be made beautiful, may
j m m c a ~ u m b l y
widen; its function
ultimatdy
IIl'CeSS:lry;
when he foughr the
innate::
vulgarity
or
theocratic impulse in arl as
10 emancipate human expression
oppo5C:
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hel
THE
INDUSTRIAL
DESICN READER
and
the
Art to comd A distinction made
y
the tool which frees human boor,
lengthens
ana
broadens the life of the simplesl man, thereby Ihe basis of Ihe
Democracy upon which we insist,
[ I
The Art of old
i d c a l i a ~ d
a Structural
Necessity-now
renaercd obsolete and
unnaTUral by the Machine-and accomplished it rhrough man's joy in the labor
of
his hands,
The
new
will
weave for
the
necessities
of
mankind, which his Machine will
have mastered, a robe
of
ideality no less truthful, but more poetical, with a
rational frcl-dom made p O ~ s i b l e by the machine, beside which the an
of
old will
be as The
~ w e c r
plaimive wail
of
rhe pipe: to rbe
ourpouring
of
full orchcsrra,
Ir will clothe Neccssiry with
the
living Aesh of virile imagination,
as
the liv
ing Aesh lends living grnce to
the
hard and bony human skeleron.
The
nl'W will pass from
the
possession of kings and classes {Q the every-day
lives of all-from duration in poinl of time to immortality.
This distinction
is one
to be fdt now ralher than clearly defined.
The
definition is the poerry
of
this M:lchine Age, alld will be wrinen large
in time;
but
the more we,
as
artists, examine illto this premonition,
the
more
we will find Ihe utter helplessness of old forms to s:lIisfy new conditions, and
the crying n(ed
of
the machine for plastic
trealmerll-a
pliant. sympathetic
treatment of its needs that
the
body of structurAl prccedelll
Co,nnot
yield,
To gain further suggestive evidence
of
this. let us { Urn to the Dt'Corative
ArtS-the
immense
m i d d l e ~ g r o u n d of
all art now mortally sickened by the
Machine-sickened that
il
may slough the art ideal of the construclllml art for
the plaslicity of the new art-the Art
of
Delllocr:lcy,
Here
we
iind the most deadly p e r v c r ~ i o n (Jf all-the magnificent prowess
of
the machine bo mbarding the civilized world with the mangled corpses of stren
uous horrors that once stood for cultivatt' O l i . ~ i b i l i t i e s unwillingly forc(.'(11'O degmda
I,or: IRAi' l l LLOYD
WRICHT
h91
tion in the nalne
of
the
artistic; the machine, as f.,r as its ani.Hic capacil'Y is con
cerned, is itself the crazed victim of the artist who works while he wailS. and the
artist who waits while he works.
There
is
a nice distinction beTween the
twO,
Neither class will unlock the secrets
of
the be:lllty
of
this timc,
They arc clinging sadly
to
the old order. and would wheedle the
giam
framc
of things back to ils childhood
or
fOlW3rd
10
iI S second childhood, while this
Machine Age
is
suffering for the
attist
who
accepts. works, and sings
as
he
works, with
The
joy
of
the /}n r and IOIV.
We want the man who eagerly Sl'Cks and finds.
or
bl;lIlles himself if he fails
10 find, the bcaury
of
this time; who distinctly acceprs as a singer :Ind a prophet;
for no ,man may work while he waits
or
wait as he works in the sense that
William Morris' great work was legitimately done-in the sense that most an
and craft:
of
to-day is an echo;
the
rime when such work was useful has gone.
Echoes arc by nature decadent.
Anists who feci toward Modernity and the Machine llOW :IS William Morris
and Ruskin were jus[ified in feeling then, had best distillcdy wait and work
sociologically where great work may
still
be
done
by them. In the field of art
:lcliviry they will do distinct harm. Alrcady they have wrought much miscr:tble
mischief.
If
the artist will only opcn bis eyes he will s(.'(' that the m:tchine he dre:lds
has made it possible to wipe out
the
mass of mcaningless lUnure
to
which
mankind,
in
the name
of
the artistic. has been more or
l c ~ ~
subjected since time
began; for that maner, has made possible a cleanly strength . an ideality and a
poetic fire that the an
of
the world not yet seen; for the rn;lchine, the process
now smoOlhle)s away the necessity for petty structllr:tl deceits, soothes this
wearisome struggle to make things seem wh:lt they are not. and can never be;
atisfies rhe simple term
of
the modern art equation as the ball
of
clay
in
the
~ l l l p l O r s hand yields
to
his
desirc-cornforting
forever
t h i ~
realistic. brain-sick
masquerade we arc wom
to
suppose an.
William Morris pleaded well for simplicity as the basis
of
all true an. Let
LIS understand the significance
to an
of thaI word-SIMPLICITY-for it
is
vilal
10
the Art
of
Ihe Machine.
We may find. in place
of
the genuinc thing we have striven for. an
aWccl'a
lion of Ihe na lve, which wc should detest
as
we detest a full-grown woman with
h:lby mannerisms.
English arl
is
saturated with it, from the brand-new imitation of
the
old
hnuse that grew and ramblcd from period to perio
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1601 THE I N D U S T ~ I L
DESICN ~ E D E R
1905:
JOSIF
HOFFMANN
& KOLOM N M O S l ~ 161]
A natural revulsion of feeling leads
us
from the meaningless elaboration of
lJl}ssible to Olll' the mass of meaningless torrure to which wood has been
today
to lay
lOO great suess
on
mere plalitudes, qu ite
as
a clean shecf of paper
.ulJjcCled since Ihe world began, for
il has
been universally abused and mal
is
a relief affer looking at a series
of
bad
dr:awings-bul
simplicity
is
not merely
UCJted
by
all
peoples bUl the Japanese.
a neutral or a negative
qU:llity.
Rightly appreciatcd, is not lhis the very process of elimin:llion (or which
Simplicily in art, rightly understood. is : synthetic, positive quality, in MMris pleaded1
which we: may
see
evidence:
of
mind, breadth
of
scheme, wealth
of
derail, and
Not alone a protest, morcover,
for
the mach inc, considered only tcchnically,
wilhal a sense of complcfencss found ill a rree or a Rower. A work may have the
If
yOll please, has placed in .mist hands
fhe
means of ide:1lizing (he true nature
delicacies
of
a rare orchid
or
thc stanch fonitllde
of
fhe oak, and srill be simple. wood harmoniously with man's spiritual and material needs, without waste,
A fhing to be simple needs only 10 be true ro iuclf in organic sense.
wlrlJin reach of all.
With this ideal of simplicity, let liS glance hastily ar a few innances of the
[ I
machine and
see
how it has been forced
by false
ideals
to
do violence to rhis sim
plicity;
how it has
made possible the highest simplicity, rightly understood and
T
S
so uscd. All perhaps wood is most :wailable of all homely materials and lhere
forc
naturally, Ihe mosr abused-let us glance at wood.
I. The 1893 WorlJ', u l t l l n b i ~ n
E . x l x ~ i t i o n
in Chkago. Wright detem...J
uniform. d;wici1,
Machinery has been invcnlcd for no orhcr purpose lhan lO imilatc. as
ing architectore:. feeling il
w u
an inappropriate rorm uf
nl'rusiun
for lhe modem United
closely
as
possible. the wood-carving of the early ideal-with the immediate
SlaiCS.
rc:sulr thai no ninety-nine cent piece of furniture
is
salable withoul somc horri
2, Richrcl Crvker (1841-1922)
was
an Irish-burn York City polilician who was a nlem
ble bOlchwork meaning nothing unless if means that art and craft h,wc com
her of the OOrtllpl M'l:lImnany Hall- eily govcrnmc11l, who Ix-co.rnl ridl from lhe \'ribes
bined
to
fix in the mind of the masscs lhe old hand-carved chair as the l t plus -prOtection" money he eollt,clcd
whik
in officc.
ultm of l'he ideal.
J
Culmination
or
U m()jit
lillli .
The
miserable, lumpy rribllle fO this perversion which Grand Rapids4 alone
4, Cr :lnd lUrid$, Michig.UI,
w . o ~
Ihe center
of
the U.S. furniture i l l d l l ~ l r y in Ihe
laiC
ninetttmh
yields would mar the f.tce of Arl beyond repair; to S< Y nothing of the e1abonuc
and c:lrly Iwcmil.'fh centuria.
:lIld
fussy
joinery
of
posts, spindles, jig s,1wcd beams and braces, bu tted and st rut
lcd, [ outdo lhe sentimentality of the already over-wrought antique product.
Thus is the wood-working industry glutted, cxcept in rarest instances. The:
whole scntiment of early craft dcgenerated
to
a sentimentality having no longer
dccent significance nor commerci:ll inttgriry;
in
f.,Ct
all
thal
is fussy.
maudlin,
and animal, basing its cxisttnce chiefly on vaniry and ignorance.
19 5
Now ICI us learn from M a c h i l \ ~
It f ~ a c h e s
us
thal Ihe
bC:luty
of wood lies first in its qualities as wood; no
treatment Ihat did not bring our Ihcse qll:lliries all the rime could be plastic, and
Josef HoftllaM and
Kolollan Moser,
therefore not
appropriate-so
not beautiful, the machine tcaches us, if
we
have
lefl
it
1'0
the machine that certain simple forms and handling are suitable
to
The
Work-Pro'Jram of
the
Wiener
Werkstitte"
bring OUt thc beauty of wood and cenain forms are not; thal all wood-crving
is apl 10
be
a forcing of the material, an insult to
irs
finer possibilities as a male
rial
having in itself intrinsically artistic properrics, of which
its
bcauriful mark
'I'he Austrian architcct-designcrs Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and Koloman
ings
is
one, its texlUre another, its color a third.
Moser (1868-1918), both membc-rs of the VielUla Secession movemcm
oflhe
The
machine, by
its
wonderful cutting, shaping, smoothing, :md repetitive
1890s, cofounded thc Wiener Werlmanc (Viennese Workshop: 1903-1932)
capacity, has made it possible to so usc il without waste that the poor as well as
with the industrialist
:\nd
collcctor
I ~ r i t l
Warndorfer, who provide(l financial
the rich may enjoy to-day hc:wtiful surface treatmcnts of dean, strong f o r m ~
hacking for the endeavor.
I
MoJeled on C. R. Ashbee's Guild of H:1l1dicraft (sec
that the branch veneers of SheratOn and Chippendalc only hinted at, with dire
next selcction), the Wiener Werkstatte
was
an enterprise dediclted to realizing
extravagance, and which the middle ages uuerly ignored. lhe
idc3S of
John Ruskin and William Morris
by
producing exquisitely hand
The machin '
has
emancipalcd thcS