From Living on the Prairie to Designing Prairie Style Houses Essay

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.

Living on the Great Plains was not an easy task to accomplish for homesteaders who want to settle there. You had to worry about the extreme temperature and weather, the lack of water, and the lack of building materials. For me, the most difficult thing to deal with for homesteaders on the Great Plains was the lack of water.

For many tribes of Plains Indians whose bison-hunting culture flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun dance was the major communal religious ceremony . . . the rite celebrates renewal - the spiritual rebirth of participants and their relatives as well as the regeneration of the living earth with all its components . . . The ritual, involving sacrifice and supplication to insure harmony between all living beings, continues to be practiced by many contemporary native Americans. -Elizabeth Atwood LawrenceAs the most important ritual of the nomadic Plains Indians, the Sun Dance in itself presents many ideas, beliefs, and values of these cultures. Through its rich symbolism and complicated rituals we are able to catch a glimpse

“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

Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Illinois Prairie, a monograph written by John Mack Faragher discusses the life of settlers in Sugar Creek a town of Sagaman county, Illinois. Faragher argues the discoveries of the environment, society, culture, and economy in Sugar Creek throughout the nineteenth century and the changes, development, improvements with it. There are four common themes throughout the monograph: First, the kicking out of the Kickapoo and other Indians in place of Anglo-Americans. Second, the relationship and changes between men and women’s roles throughout the nineteenth century. Third, the community life and the sensibility of bringing the town together. Finally, the transition of agriculture and the innovations that changed the town. Faragher uses many censuses, charts, and records to get an idea of the transition of life in Sugar Creek and the affects it had on the community. Although Faragher presents many arguments he does not entirely discuss the men’s involvement in contrast to women’s roles in the household and town.

Have you ever been in a place of green with forests and animals everywhere? Well, where some of the Native Americans lived, there were such things. Native American tribes such as the Crow lived in the Great Plains. The Crow tribe of the Great Plains were nomadic and followed the buffalo migrations which provided their food. This tribe spent a good part of the year living in camps that could easily be dismantled and moved to follow the buffalo migrations. Other tribes of the plains were more sedentary. These tribes lived in permanent villages year round.

When you first start reading Little House on the Prairie you notice it is told through the eyes of a little girl named Laura. Her point of view is very realistic and captivating. She pays very close attention to the details of the day to day living and the events that are happening around her. She also notices how the prairie looks and what the weather is like each day. With her descriptions you can picture everything in your mind clearly, and you feel like you are right there next to Laura living her life.

Frank Lloyd Wright was born Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8th, 1867. He was the son of William Carey Wright, a local orator and minister, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a school teacher. Wright's parents were both resolute individuals with eccentric interests that they inherently passed on to him. When Wright was about three years old, his family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts; William was given the opportunity to be the minister of a small congregation. However, the Wright family struggled in Weymouth and they returned to Wisconsin. Eventually they settled in Madison, Wisconsin where the Wright family participated as active members of the local Unitarian congregation. When Wright turned 14, his parents divorced; their money problems likely led to the demise of the marriage. William Wright

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

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.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a Nature lover and an architect. He reflected on the natural world and applied existing styles to his architecture. He was born in Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, and died in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 9, 1959, at the age of 91. His architectural career spanned two centuries and lasted for 70 years. During the last year of his life he authored a book and was working on 166 different commissions; when asked about when he would slow down, he replied when the ideas stop coming to him.

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.

One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first periods was his work with Louis Sullivan, from whom he learn a lot as his draftsman and apprentice. He worked under Sullivan supervision until 1893, when he opened his own office in Oak Park. What is interesting is that Wright was

Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, and was a child of Anna Lloyd Jones and William Carey Wright, a preacher and musician. His family lived in Wisconsin, and Frank was inspired by building blocks, a gift from his mother, and music played by his father, in addition to the landscape of the prairie in Wisconsin. Later,

“As soon as Wright had chosen the area on which the house would be built, there was a clear issue building there. The situation was that the northern levee of Bear Run was too narrow to bestow a foundation for a house that would be built to his standards” (Toker, 39, Fallingwater Rising: America's most extraordinary house). Apart from this issue, the Kaufmann’s requirements needed to be achieved due to the fact that they had planned to have large numbers of people over and therefore it was required that the house be larger than the available plot size. In addition, Mr. and Mrs. Kaufmann had asked to have separate bedrooms including another for their oldest son and a supplementary room for guests. Wright's answer to the issue of space was birthed when he had decided to include a cantilevered structure. Smith (320) outlined that “the systemic design for Fallingwater was carried out by Wright in consortium with engineers