Frank Lloyd Wright Biography

Russel Wright is an American industrial designer and architect that lived during the early to mid twentieth century. Many of Wright’s ideas and designs were considered to modern at time, drawing influences from not only ingenious designers like Frank Lloyd Wright but nature as well. Wright’s influences would lead him to create a design style unlike any at the time; a style that would eventually become almost standard in many homes in the United States. The designer Russel Wright and his wife, Mary Wright together published a guidebook known as Guide to Easier Living. In it contains numerous suggestions and thoughts on home architecture, interior design, as well as product design. Many of the thoughts and suggestions conveyed in the book can be seen in present-day design and architecture. Wright’s book also laid the groundwork for his home, Dragon Rock, which of itself possesses elements of design that are seen in today’s homes. Russel Wright’s Guide to Easier Living is clearly a response to interior design at the time; containing numerous design ideas, Wrights guide influences Wright’s own future works.

“Frank Lloyd Wright was a modern architect who developed an organic and distinctly American style. He designed numerous iconic buildings” (biography.com). Frank Lloyd Wright was instrumental in developing the “Prairie Style” of architecture. In 1893, when Frank Lloyd Wright founded his architectural practice in Oak Park, a village in Chicago, he had no idea that his Oak Park Studio

These impossible lengths of the building gives the reader insight on how powerful Burnham is with architecture. Burnham’s mind “pioneered the erection of tall structures” (13). that gives the visual image that Burnham made the first tall buildings of his generation, a huge accomplishment for an architect. Larson uses Burnham as the “leading architect”

But, one may ask, what kind of major impacts has Frank Lloyd Wright had on the world? Well, homes with a living room, open garage, or a floor plan with many open spaces have all been majorly influenced by Mr. Wright. Frank himself pioneered all of these designs. His low and sweeping rooflines, many windows, and central fireplaces changed how houses would be built for centuries to come ("Frank Lloyd Wright"). In 1952, Wright completed a home for a World War II veteran that is completely accessible for a person confined to a wheelchair, such as the owner Kenneth Laurent. The house is built on completely one level, with curving walls, added space for turning radii, and lowered light switches and heighted electric plugs; giving the perfect example for just how much Wright could bend to certain

Without a doubt, Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the greatest architects in American history and the greatest architect of the 20th century. Nature was his muse and his architectural structures embodied organic qualities. He took full advantage of the technological advances of the 20th century but redirecting the concept of space and employing new techniques; Wright was known for his modern and innovative designs. He believed that, “architecture was not just about buildings, it was about nourishing the lives of those sheltered within them”. Wright is not only one of the most well known architects in America but he is also thought of as one of the most influential architects in the world.

Frank Wright (1867-1959), is an American architect born on June 8th in Richland Center, Wisconsin (Biography.com n.d.). A modern design, he produced an organic and clear American style (Architectural Digest n.d.). Wright founded his own firm and developed the Prairie School- single-story homes with low, slanted roofs and extended rows on the windowpane, using the available materials from local business and clean and not painted wood (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2017). The Robie House (Figure 1) located in Chicago and Unity Temple placed in Oak Park (Biography.com n.d.). Wright was known mainly in Europe but not in the United States. In 1913, Wright designed his home on his maternal ancestors land in Spring Green, Wisconsin (Architectural Digest n.d.). This home was named Taliesin, sadly it got burnt down twice and he still remodeled it again (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2017). Wright wrote two books in 1932: “An Autobiography” and “The Disappearing City,” both are known as architectural literature (Biography.com n.d.). In addition, to publishing the two books, he

This essay will focus on how those works are informed by both regional and international course. In this context, Sydney Ancher and his strong Miesian simplicity as well as Peter Muller’s affinity with Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture principle.

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in the year 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. Both an architect and writer, he is considered a genius of the American architecture (Kaufmann 1). Wright went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a few terms where he took engineering courses (Kaufmann 3). He finally left Madison after a few years and found work with J.L. Silsbee, in architectural detailing. After a few years he opened his own architectural practice. One of his styles that became the residential design of the 20th century in the United States was the Prairie Style. The Prairie architecture was known for its revolutionary approach to the building of modern homes. Wright built about 50 prairie houses in ten years. Two of his major works that stand out is the Guggenheim Museum located in New York and the Marin County government Centre located near San Francisco.

Many of those buildings were being developed in his mind while he was growing up and spending summers on his uncle’s farm. It was during this time that he developed his love for Nature, to be a part of it. His love for Nature is dominant in his earlier works dubbed the “Prairie Houses”, but can also been seen in his later works such as Johnson Wax and the Guggenheim Museum. When Frank Lloyd Wright was just sixty-eight years old, he was commissioned to design a house for Edgar Kaufmann. Wright and Kaufmann went to the property to survey the location for the house. Kaufmann liked to spend time at the water falls on his land so that is where Wright decided to build it. Wright figured if Nature could place the boulders over a waterfall, than he could build a house over one. It took Wright only three hours to draw the plans for the house. The house consists basically of concrete slabs balanced on the boulders above the stream, and the walls are slabs of the natural rock surrounding the house. The house includes a pool that is built under the house and is fed by the passing stream. Every aspect of the house embraces the Nature that it co-exists with, and the house appears to fade into its surroundings.

The speech was given in 1901 in the “Hull House” in Chicago to the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, it was aimed into convincing the people who were involved with construction to create a community to sustain the sacred idea that the architects of the time called art (Patenting, 1). The speech was shown and given by Frank Lloyd Wright in the building, he was a major visionary and architect at the time so many looked up to him. He made the speech to explain his philosophy on the creation of his works and how he obtains the motivation and will to do so, he also wanted the community to understand the machine and how it was different from art.

He completed over 500 architectural works which were considered “masterpieces”. Wright's was very driven by nature, he also referred to his architecture as “organic” as a result of them blending in with the aesthetic nature around. His famous “fallingwater

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most important architects of the twentieth century; with his buildings and his ideals of an organic architecture, he got to be known by everyone. Who does not know about the Fallingwater? This building is considered his masterpiece and represents all his principles. For him, organic architecture was designing by integrating a building to its site and context, and he was able to achieve it with most of his projects. However, Wright’s career did not started like this; he went through a lot of complex periods that ended consolidating his ideals as an architect. Moreover, each of these phases had different kind of influences that Wright took and learned from. Therefore, it’s important to acknowledge how outside architecture and social factors influenced his “Organic” idea.

In 1887, Wright worked with Louis Sullivan in Chicago, a well-known architect of the time who also wanted to separate from European style, until 1893. After Wright had stopped working with Sullivan’s firm, he made what is considered his first masterpiece, his home in Oak Park, Illinois known as the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio. This structure was also his first work designed with his “Prairie” style. This style involved single-story homes with many horizontal lines, spacious living areas, and many casement windows. They were built with nearby materials and the wood used was not painted, expressing natural beauty. Wright later designed many more of his works in this styles, such as the Robie House and Unity Temple. In later years, he designed more well-known buildings, such as Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin, and Fallingwater, a building built on a waterfall in Pennsylvania. Later, he built public buildings, for instance, the Monona Terrace Civic Center, the SC Johnson Wax Administration, and the Guggenheim Museum. Wright also designed Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel in 1915, which he stated was “earthquake-proof” and, later, ended up being the only building involved in the 1923 Japanese earthquake to remain unscathed. Wright had also designed Usonian houses, which were the predecessors of today’s ranch-style homes. These homes had natural heating and cooling, and included carports, which were invented by Wright. All in all, Wright designed more than 1,100 structures. Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 9th, 1959, at age 91.

A non- arbitrary architecture is an architecture incorporate nature and culture to define the life of a human being. Karsten Harries mention that the needs of human comfort in a building does not meet the tenants comfort since they are illogically made instead of emphasising the design to standout to meet the requirements of people, places and landscape in a real world. The implantation of building design by Frank Lloyd Wright's and Aalto's Villa Mairea has shown the world that design is not only to enhance but compliment God's creation. Frank Lloyd and Aalto's Villa design manifest mainly on the non-arbitrary of architecture, emphasising qualities of direction, of weight, of materiality, of light and so forth. Thus, understanding non-arbitrary architecture, design will be seen in different perspective as the two architecture, Frank Lloyd and Aalto's Villa

The prominent and imaginative Wisconsin born American architect, interior designer and author, Frank Lloyd Wright hit his architectural milestone in the mid-1930s when he designed his world-renowned master piece in Bear Run, Western Pennsylvania, “Fallingwater” also referred to as Kaufmann Residence. Owing to his unique perspective in architecture which he refers to as “organic”, the structure looks as though it sprung naturally amidst Bear Run's trees and water. Frank Lloyd Wright’s complete body of work was so broad that till date he still remains highly recognized as the greatest architect of all time. His career which lasted for approximately seventy two years was apostrophized with global fame, artistic conquests as