Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright, was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed.
Background
Frank Wright was born on June 8, 1867, at Richland Center, Wisconsin, the first of three children to William Russell Cary Wright, a musician and minister, and Anna Lloyd-Jones, a schoolteacher. When he was twelve years old his family settled in Madison, Wisconsin, and Wright worked on his uncle's farm at Spring Green during the summers. After the couple divorced in 1885, Frank lived with his mother, and the two shared a lasting relationship. It was from her that he developed an early love for pure geometric forms and designs, which later influenced his architecture.
Education
The young Wright attended Madison High School and left in 1885, apparently without graduating. He attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a few terms in 1885 - 1886 as a special student, but as there was no instruction in architecture, he took engineering courses.
Career
In order to supplement the family income, Wright worked for the dean of engineering. He was dreamed of Chicago, where great buildings of unprecedented structural ingenuity were rising.
In 1887, Wright moved to Chicago, Illinois, worked briefly for an architect, and then joined the firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Sullivan's influence and, although their relationship ended, when Sullivan was found out that Wright was designing houses on his own, he always acknowledged his indebtedness to Sullivan and referred to him as "lieber Meister." In 1893 Wright opened his own office.
The first work from the new office, a house for W.H. Winslow, was sensational and skillful enough to attract the attention of the most influential architects in Chicago, Daniel Burnham, who was offered to subsidize Wright for several years if Burnham's firm. It was a solid compliment, but Wright refused, and this difficult decision strengthened his determination to search for a new and appropriate Midwestern architecture.
Other young architects were searching in the same way; this trend became known as the "Prairie school" of architecture. By 1900 Prairie architecture was mature, and Frank Lloyd Wright, 33 years old and mostly self-taught, was his chief practitioner. The Prairie school was soon recognized for its radical approach to building modern homes. Utilizing mass-produced materials and equipment, mostly developed for commercial buildings, the Prairie architects, discarded elaborate compartmentalization and detailing for bold, plain walls, roomy family living areas, and perimeter heating. Comfort, convenience, and spaciousness were economically achieved. Wright alone built about 50 Prairie houses from 1900 to 1910. The typical Wright-designed residence from this period is displayed in a wide, low roof over the continuous window, that turned corners, defying the conventional boxlike structure, together in an uninterrupted space.
During this period Wright lectured repeatedly; his most famous talk, The Art and Craft of the Machine, was first printed in 1901. His works were featured in local exhibitions from 1894 through 1902. In that year he built the home of the W.W. Willitses, the first masterwork of the Prairie school. In 1905 he traveled to Japan.
By now Wright’s practice encompassed apartment houses, group dwellings, and recreation centers. Most remarkable were his works for business and church. The administrative block for the Larkin Company, a mail-order firm in Buffalo, New York, was erected in 1904 (demolished in 1950). Abutting the railways, it was sealed and fireproof, with filtered, conditioned, mechanical ventilation; metal desks, chairs, and files; ample sound-absorbent surfaces; and excellently balanced light, both natural and artificial. Two years later the Unitarian church of Oak Park, Illinois, Unity Temple, was under way. Built on a minimal budget, the small house of worship and attached social centre achieved timeless monumentality. The Unity Temple improved on the Larkin Building in the consistency of its structure (it was built of concrete, with massive walls and reinforced roof) and in the ingenious interior ornament, that emphasized space while subordinating mass. Unlike many contemporary architects, Wright took advantage of ornament to define scale and accentuation.
In 1909, Wright began work on his own house near Spring Green, Wisconsin, which he named Taliesin before he left for Europe that September. Abroad, Wright set to work on two books, both first published in Germany, which became famous; a grand double portfolio of his drawings (Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, 1910) and a smaller but full photographic record of his buildings (Ausgeführte Bauten, 1911). With a draftsman, Taylor Willey, and his eldest son, Lloyd Wright, the architect produced the numerous beautiful drawings published in these portfolios by reworking renderings brought from Chicago, Oak Park, and Wisconsin.
Then he found a few loyal clients like the Avery Coonleys, whose suburban estate, west of Chicago, the grand masterwork of the Prairie style, he had designed in 1908. In 1912 Wright designed his first skyscraper, a slender concrete slab, prophetic but unbuilt.
At this time the Japanese began to consider Wright as architect for a new Tokyo hotel where visitors could be officially entertained and housed in Western style. Thus, early in 1913 he spent some months in Japan. The following year Wright was occupied in Chicago with the rushed construction of Midway Gardens, a complex planned to include open-air dining, other restaurants, and clubs. Symmetrical in plan, this building was sparklingly decorated with abstract and near-abstract art and ornament. Its initial success was cut short by Prohibition, however, and it was later demolished. Just before Midway Gardens opened, Wright was dealt a crushing blow; the living quarters of his house, Taliesin, were set on fire by a male servant from Barbados.
Stunned by the tragedy, Wright began to rebuild his home and in 1916 he went to Japan, which was to be his home for five years. He was commissioned by the Japanese Emperor to design the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. The Imperial Hotel was one of Wright’s most significant works in its lavish comfort, splendid spaces, and unprecedented construction. Because of its revolutionary, floating cantilever construction, it was one of the only large buildings that safely withstood the devastating earthquake that struck Tokyo in 1923. No one still doubted Wright’s complete mastery of his art, but he continued to experience difficulty in acquiring major commissions because of his egocentric and unconventional behavior and the scandals that surrounded his private life.
Wright’s transpacific journeys took him to California, where he met a wealthy, demanding client, Aline Barnsdall, who about 1920 built to Wright’s designs a complex of houses and studios amid gardens on an estate called Olive Hill; these now serve as the Municipal Art Gallery in Hollywood. In 1923 and 1924 Wright built four houses in California, using textured concrete blocks with a fresh sense of form.
In 1925 Taliesin again burned, struck by lightning, and again Wright rebuilt it. That same year a Dutch publication, Wendingen, presented Wright’s newer work fully and handsomely, with praise from Europeans. Meanwhile, Wright’s finances had fallen into a catastrophic state; in 1926 - 1927 he sold a great collection of Japanese prints but could not rescue his house, Taliesin, from the bank that seized it. Amid these debacles, Wright began to write An Autobiography, as well as a series of articles on architecture, which appeared in 1927 and 1928. Finally, some of Wright’s admirers set up Wright, Incorporated - a firm that owned his talents, his properties, and his debts - that effectively shielded him. In 1929 Wright designed a tower of studios cantilevered from a concrete core, to be built in New York City; in various permutations, it appeared as one of his best concepts. (In 1956 the St. Mark’s Tower project was finally realized as the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.)
The stock market crash of 1929 ended all architectural activity in the United States, and Wright spent the next years lecturing at Chicago, New York City, and Princeton, New Jersey. Meanwhile, an exhibition of his architecture toured Europe and the United States. In 1932 An Autobiography and the first of Wright’s books on urban problems, The Disappearing City, was published. In the same year the Wrights opened the Taliesin Fellowship, a training program for architects and related artists who lived in and operated Taliesin, its buildings, and further school structures as they built or remodeled them. From 20 to 60 apprentices worked with Wright each year; a few remained for decades, constituting his main office staff. In the winter Wright and his entourage packed up and drove to Arizona, where Taliesin West was soon to be built. At this time Wright developed an effective system for constructing low-cost homes and, over the years, many were built. Unlike the Prairie houses these "Usonians" were flat-roofed, usually of one floor placed on a heated concrete foundation mat; among them were some of Wright’s best works - e.g., the Jacobs house (1937) in Westmorland, Wisconsin, near Madison, and the Winckler-Goetsch house (1939) at Okemos, Michigan.
Wright gradually reemerged as a leading architect; when the national economy improved, two commissions came to him that he utilized magnificently. The first was for a weekend retreat near Pittsburgh in the Allegheny Mountains. This residence, Fallingwater, was cantilevered over a waterfall with a simple daring that evoked wide publicity from 1936 to the present. Probably Wright’s most-admired work, it was later given to the state and was opened to visitors. The second important commission was the administrative center for S.C. Johnson, wax manufacturers, at Racine, Wisconsin. Here Wright combined a closed, top-lit space with recurving forms and novel, tubular mushroom columns. The resulting airy enclosure is one of the most humane workrooms in modern architecture. Each of these buildings showed Wright to be as innovative as younger designers and a master of unique expressive forms.
Thereafter commissions flowed to Wright for every kind of building and from many parts of the world. His designs for the campus and buildings of Florida Southern College at Lakeland (1940 - 1949) were begun, and the V.C. Morris Shop (1948) in San Francisco was executed. Among Wright’s many late designs, executed and unexecuted, two major works stand out: the Guggenheim Museum in New York City (construction began in 1956, and the museum opened in 1959) and the Marin County government center near San Francisco.
On April 4, 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright was hospitalized for abdominal pains and was operated on April 6. He seemed to be recovering, but he died quietly on April 9, at the age of 91.
Frank L. Wright believed in designing structures, that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture.
Quotations:
"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you."
"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."
"The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization."
"An architect's most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board, and a wrecking bar at the site."
Membership
From 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright was a member of the Taliesin Fellowship. The Fellowship has evolved into what is now the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, an accredited school.
Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
,
Taliesin West
1932
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"He's the greatest architect of the nineteenth century." (Philip Johnson)
"His place in history is secure. His continuing influence is assured. This country's architectural achievements would be unthinkable without him. He has been a teacher to us all." (Tribute following his death in the The Journal of the American Institute of Architects (April 1959))
Interests
Though most famous as an architect, Frank Wright was an active dealer in Japanese art, primarily ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Wright was also an avid collector of Japanese prints and used them as teaching aids with his apprentices in what were called "print parties".
Music & Bands
His favorite composer was Ludwig van Beethoven.
Connections
On June 1, 1889, Frank Lloyd Wright married Catherine Lee "Kitty" Tobin. The couple had six children. After several years of marriage he abandoned his wife and family to be with a married woman – Martha "Mamah" Borthwick, who was murdered later on by a mentally unstable servant. His first wife divorced him in 1922.
On November 19, 1923, he married Maude Noel, but her addiction to morphine led to the failure of the marriage in less than one year. They finally divorced in 1927.
On August 25, 1928, he married Olga Ivanovna "Olgivanna" Lazovich. They had a daughter, Iovanna. Frank Wright also adopted Olgivanna's only other daughter, Svetlana Hinzenberg (adopted the surname Wright).