One of the greatest American architects of all time, Frank Llyod Wright, shaped the future of architecture in numerous ways. He is often referred to as the “father of organic architecture” and is noted for his revolutionary masterpiece, The Falling Water.
Throughout his seven-decade-long career, he designed over 1114 architectural projects, of which 532 were realized. He designed all types of architectural buildings, from homes, schools, offices, and churches to museums. He also used to be involved with the design of the interior spaces and the furniture details.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s design style was known as the organic style of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture marked his inventive genius, the richness of his conception, and the expressive unison of elements. The style inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement significantly revolutionized American architecture.
The philosophy of organic architecture revolved around the idea of blurring the boundary between the built and the unbuilt nature around it. He exploited the new technology and materials that were available at the time like glass and concrete, to open the structures.
As he quoted, “I don’t create a fantasy world; I create a reality of fantasy.” This essentially changed the enclosed nature of interior spaces and dismissed the absolute perimeters of the space, making it open and expansive, thus enhancing the quality of the interior space. Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural styles, his literary works, and the fellowship have influenced several architects over the decades.
Early Life and Education
He was born on June 8, 1867, in Wisconsin, USA, to William Carey Wright, a musician and preacher, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a teacher. Anna wanted her son to build structures. She had instilled this in Frank since childhood and had even decorated his nursery with pictures of English cathedrals.
Wright distinctly remembers playing with a basic set of toys consisting of spheres, cubes, and pyramids. The exploration of these basic geometries led to the clarity of his buildings.
His early childhood was nomadic, as his father switched ministry positions between Rhode Island, Iowa, finally settling in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1878. His father could not fend for the family, and hence, his parents divorced in 1844. In honour of his mother, Wright changed his middle name to Lloyd.
Wright’s maternal side was rich, and the Lloyd Joneses were prominent Unitarian Welsh farmers. He used to spend a lot of time on his uncle’s farm and described himself as an American primitive. His time at the farm made him realise the beauty of nature, which he later translated into his structures.
After his parents’ divorce, he started working at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, to support his family. Alongside that, he also took part-time classes at the university in the civil engineering department. He always knew he wanted to be an architect, but he never formally trained to be one. With his mother’s encouragement and having faith in himself, he moved to Chicago to work as a draughtsman.
Beginning of a Phenomenal Career
Initially, Frank Lloyd Wright started working under Joseph Lyman Silsbee, who had ties with the Lloyd Joneses and was engaged in their numerous projects. Later, Wright went on to work as a draughtsman for the firm Adler and Sullivan, which was one of the most prestigious firms at the time. Louis Sullivan, known as the ‘Father of Modernism,’ had a great impact on Frank Lloyd Wright. He (Wright) referred to him as ‘The Master’, symbolising deep respect.
In 1889, 22-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright married Catherine Lee Tobin (Kitty). While working under Sullivan, he secured a loan of $5000 against a 5-year work service contract. He used this money to build his first home in Oak Park Studio, Chicago. This was Wright’s very first project.
The Oak Park Studio was a modest East Coast shingle home with a prominent gable roof. The play of geometric masses was evident from his very first project. The house expanded as Wright’s family grew; he had six children with Kitty. A growing family brought bigger expenses, and hence, Wright started accepting independent commissions on the side and designed what are often known as ‘bootleg’ homes. On learning about them, Sullivan charged Wright with a breach of contract, and they both split ways in 1893.
5 Iconic FL Wright Works
01. William H Winslow House (1893)
The William H Winslow House was Wright’s first commissioned project. Relatively conservative, the house was the beginning of the Prairie style of architecture. It revealed the influence Sullivan had over Wright. The house featured a solid, symmetrical facade with ornamented masonry.
The roof was low-hanging with broad overhangs that exaggerated the horizontality of the structure. The house defined simplicity and mastery over form and materials. It grabbed quite a lot of attention and laid the foundation for Wright’s phenomenal career.
02. Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, New York (1902-06)
The Larkin administration building in the industrial surroundings of Buffalo, New York, is designed as a ‘temple to work’. Taking references from the historical revival style, this building is like a church.
The most striking Frank Lloyd Wright house design feature is the central skylit atrium surrounded by galleries in a rectilinear open plan configuration. Contradictory to the interior, from the outside, the building looked like a giant brick-clad monolith that challenged the notion of an office building at the time.
It used advanced technology and materials like reinforced concrete to achieve superior-quality well-functioning open spaces. It was also the first fully air-conditioned office building. The skylight in the atrium surprisingly brings nature indoors, creating an ethereal space.
03. Unity Temple, Oak Park (1905-08)
Unity temple was one of Wright’s first religious structures. It was a radical model compared to the conventional religious structures of the time. The concrete monolith subtly mirrors the rectilinearity of the street, blending the structure into the surrounding landscape.
The building has two wings that meet at the entrance: one for worship and the other for the service of man. The entry hidden at the side disconnects people from the busy street before embarking on a spiritual space.
The worship place is a grand four-storeyed space with a rectilinear configuration, with seating on three sides of the room and the altar on the remaining side. The space is lit with square stained-glass skylights and high clerestory windows. The building was the first monumental structure made entirely of cast-on-site concrete.
04. Prairie Houses – The American Architecture Style (1893-1909)
The first distinctly American style of architecture was the Prairie style, inspired by the flat landscape of the Prairie region. A refreshing shift from the stuffy Victorian houses and classical or revival styles, this was a modern style of building homes.
Replicating the horizontal lines of the landscape, these houses are married to the ground. The typical characteristics of Prairie houses include large roof overhangs, open floor plans, a cascade of windows, handmade craftsmanship, extensive use of natural materials, especially wood, and a connection with nature.
Frank Lloyd Wright made several Prairie houses in the early phase of his career, from 1893 to 1908, all of which were striking. The Robie House is called the epitome of the Prairie style of architecture.
05. Robie House, Illinois, Chicago (1908-09)
Frederick C. Robie’s house exhibits a dichotomy of a private domestic lifestyle and an open connection with the surrounding area. It has a secluded entry along a side sheltered by planar walls juxtaposed within the space. On the exterior, the house appears as a fortress with slits, and the interior embraces an open plan centred around the hearth as a locus of family life.
The house has a long axis with protrusions along the east and west sides. It has exaggerated overhangs and low ceiling heights, all of which highlight the horizontality of the structure. There is a mix of private and public spaces all over the house. A long row of ribbon windows allows nature to flow into the interior space.
01. Mid-life – A Time of Turmoil
After finishing the Robie house in 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright was tired and frustrated with designing one-family houses. Large commissions had been scarce or unyielding. His personal life was also a mess at the time. Dissatisfied with his marriage with Kitty, Wright sought the companionship of a client, Mamah Cheney.
He asked Kitty for a divorce in 1908, which she refused. Nonetheless, in 1909, Wright shut down his office and left his family for a European hiatus with Cheney.
Frank returned to the USA in the fall of 1910; the scandal had tarnished his image, and settingup the practice again was difficult. Wright moved to the southern Wisconsin area and built a home for him and Mamah called ‘Taliesin’. Wright had hired several servants for his house.
In 1914, while he was in Chicago working on Midway Gardens and Mamah and her children were in Taliesin, a servant set the house on fire, murdering Mamah and her children. This traumatising event marked the end of an era, and again Wright left America and moved to Japan to work on a new commission.
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan (1915-22)
Over six years, from 1915-1922, Wright worked on the Imperial hotel alongside the Japanese government. The structure emerged as a beacon of engineering genius and a state-of-the-art revival of Mayan architectural work. He designed every single detail, from the foundation to the hotel’s china tableware.
The architecture of the hotel was a work of art. It combined advanced technology, western design principles, and Japanese architecture. A revolutionary earthquake-resistant foundation system consisting of a floating foundation was anchored using piles driven deep into the soil.
The form of the structure was a series of linked pavilions with an H-shaped layout. The lobby, reception, and common areas in the central wing and accommodation rooms flanked the sides. The material palette consisted of reinforced concrete, brick, and Oya stone.
A series of long, vertical windows provided views of the outside world. The hotel stood the test of recurring earthquakes; however, its foundation was damaged during the World War II bombings. It has become a victim of changing tastes as a modern high-rise structure has taken its place.
Return to the East
Following the completion of the Imperial Hotel, Wright returned to the Far East, this time to California, and set up his practice in Los Angeles. He could not achieve much during his Californian endeavour, and in 1924 he returned to Wisconsin. Wright had received a divorce from Kitty in 1922; he married Mariam in 1923, but soon realised that was a grievous mistake.
In 1924, he met Olgivanna Lazarovich Hinzenburg, they got married in 1928 and stayed married till he died. Professionally, things did not look good for most of the 1920s.
Olgivanna, during this challenging time, encouraged Wright to write and teach. This led to two popular publications by Wright: his autobiography and The Disappearing City. She also devised the genius idea of the Taliesin Fellowship, which allowed apprentices to learn the principles of architecture for $650 per year.
Later Life
The last two decades of Wright’s career were busier than ever. He got a few big commissions that brought him a lot of fame. The Falling Water was a defining moment in Wright’s career.
01. The Falling Water, Pennsylvania (1934-37)
The revival of Wright’s career began with the most well-known project in the history of modern architecture: The Falling Water, Pennsylvania. It was a vacation home for Edgar Kaufmann Sr., who wanted a home overlooking the waterfall in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.
Wright placed the house above the waterfall, making it a part of the Kauffmann family’s life. This house became the most prominent example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture, as it blurred the boundary between the natural and the man-made. The house appears like a series of rectilinear floating terraces anchored by a vertical core.
The interiors are centred around the hearth, a place for family gatherings. Here a rock cuts through the space, bringing the waterfall inside. The house has a low ceiling height, reinforcing the horizontal plane, and is designed to direct views towards the exteriors. A series of large ribbon windows opens the house, bringing the exterior inside.
The exterior of the house followed the scheme of natural materials, with the walls constructed in masonry and the cantilevered terraces in reinforced concrete. Although the structure had several structural issues, the architecture overcame all the flaws. The Falling Water is an architectural marvel that manifests perfect harmony with nature.
02. S.C. Johnson and Son Company Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin (1936-39)
The S.C. Johnson Wax Buildings are a consummate example of Art Modern style with a curvilinear form. The buildings remain isolated from the exterior, with no windows along the facade to create an indoor workplace free from distractions.
The central skylight, made with pyrex glass tubing, floods the ‘Great Workroom’ with light. Flanking the central space are thin white dendriform columns that epitomise Wright’s engineering capabilities. Each column has a diameter measuring 9” at the bottom and 18’ at the top and could support a weight of up to 60 tonnes.
The building reinterpreted the typology of an office in an industrial setting. The main administrative building featured galleries overlooking the central workspace. An additional 15-floors tower was later added. This part too followed the same curvilinear language with Cherokee brick cladding.
03. Usonian House – Herbert Jacobs House, Madison, Wisconsin (1937)
Usonian Houses were affordable houses inspired by the American landscape, like the Prairie architecture style. They followed a similar design language, but were modern and simplified compared to the Prairie houses. Wright made over 140 Usonian houses that kept on becoming elaborate with progression.
The Herbert Jacobs House was the first Usonian house and had a challenging budget of $5000. The house has an L-shaped configuration with a focus on horizontality. A flat roof and a row of ribbon windows reinforce this horizontal plane. The earthy palette of brick and wood blends the structure with nature. It became a prototype for Wright’s utopian urban vision, The Broadacre City.
04. Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York (1943-59)
The Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York was Wright’s last major commission. He did not live to see the completion of this longest work of creation. With the design of the museum, Wright created a work of art that not only changed the discourse of museum architecture but also stood out as a monument in Manhattan’s strict grid architecture.
The organic form of the structure appeared like a series of discs stacked to create a dramatic landmark. The interior is designed as a continuous floor in the form of a spiral ramp with curved walls that leads to the top. In the centre is a huge atrium topped with a glass dome that floods light into the space.
Although the museum faced a lot of criticism for not being adequately functional, as artists could not display their art on the concave walls, it still became one of the most prominent landmarks in New York.
Design Philosophy
“There is no architecture without a philosophy. There is no art of any kind without its philosophy.” – FLW, 1959
01. Design for Democracy
Wright strived to create a functional and humane environment for every person without imposing an ‘architecture for all’ approach.
02. Integrity and Connection
He believed architecture should have integrity and must be true to its form. It should also foster the well-being of the people inhabiting it.
03. Nature’s Principles and Structures
Architecture must exist as a union of everything from the surrounding, the built mass, to furnishings. It should be in perfect sync and harmony with nature.
04. Material and Machine
Wright always experimented with new-age materials and technologies, pushing the boundaries of the field.
05. Architecture as the Great Mother Art
Architecture lies at the intersection of several paradigms and is thus the mother of all arts.
5 things You Didn’t Know About FL Wright
01. Domestic Life and Scandals
Wright’s personal life was full of scandals and controversies. Be it his multiple extra-marital affairs or the brutal murder of Mamah Borthwick and her children at Taliesin, he was not always in the limelight for the right reasons.
02. The Fellowship
Many looked at the Taliesin Fellowship as a cult. The apprentices were made to work on everything other than architecture, be it cooking, gardening, cleaning, or general slave labour.
03. The Guggenheim Conundrum
The museum that many artists found non-functional was originally supposed to be in red marble. The design was negotiated and finished with white concrete.
04. The Leak
Many of Wright’s structures had structural problems like leaking slabs and sagging cantilevers.
05. Feud with the American Institute of Architects
Wright never maintained good relations with fellow architects; he was in a feud with the American Institute of Architects and never joined the institute.
02. Legacy
Throughout his seven-decade-long career, which culminated with his death in 1959, Wright received several awards. Some prominent ones included the Gold Medal from the AIA (1949) and the RIBA (1941).
FLW was an iconoclast; he ideated new ways and methods to create architecture that was humane and in harmony with nature. He had a different take on the modern and international styles of architecture compared to his contemporaries. Where the others focused on minimal, austere forms deprived of ornamentation, Wright paid attention to providing an architecture that was in sync with nature.
After his demise, the apprentices at the Taliesin Fellowship continued working in his firm and converted it into a cooperative firm named Taliesin Associated Architects. The fellowship evolved into the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and later into the School of Architecture at Taliesin.
The works of Frank Lloyd Wright continue to influence generations of architects and designers. His advice to architects is: “Every architect is – necessarily – a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.”
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Author Bio
Saili Sawantt – She is an Architect and Interior Designer by profession. Writing is what she treats as her passion. She has worked as an Architectural Writer, Editor, and Journalist for various design as well as digital portals, both national and international. Formerly she has also worked with Godrej Properties Limited (GPL) Design Studio, Mumbai, due to her keen interested in learning about Sustainability and Green buildings. Apart from this, she runs her blog ‘The Reader’s Express’ and is a practicing Architect & Interior Designer.