The Way Frank Lloyd Wright Changed The Way We Think About Buildings

Early Modernism 1920-1945

The way Frank Lloyd Wright changed the way that we think about buildings.

Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 вЂ" April 9, 1959) is one of the world's most well-known and influential architects. His styles were highly idividual and he had an extremly long carer in architectue fom 1887- 1959. He had a great influence on architecture world-wide. He was born in a town called Richland Center, Wisconsin June 8, two years after the civil war. While his mother was carring him she decided he would grow up to build beautiful buildings. To encourage this ambition she had for him, she decorated his nursery with engravings of english cathedrals. His mother was a teacher, while she was in philadelphia centennial exhibition, she purchased a set of educational blocks created by Fredrich Wilhelm August Froabel. Thiese blocks of various geometriacally shaped blocks can be assembled in various combinations. In Wrights autobiography, he talks about how these were the foundations of his career and the influences of these exercises had on his approach to design, as many of his buildings are famous and well known for the geometrical clearness they show. He never attended high school but was enrolled in he university of wisconsin as a secial student. He was a part time student for two semesters whie also an apprentise for a loal builder and professor of civil engineering. Wright left the University without taking a degree and moved to Chicago, Illinois where he joined the architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Within the year, he had left Silsbee to work for the firm of Adler & Sullivan. In 1889 he married Cathrine Le вЂ?Kitty’ Tobin. Kitty was the daughter of awealthy business man which raised his social status and became more well known. They settled down in Illinois. Wright had been working on private commissions to bring in more income for his family but after three years Louis Sullivan found out and felt betrayed and asked him to leave the firm. This is when Lloyd changed the way we think about buildings as a home.

Wright chose the words “organic architecture” to describe his own architecture. He wanted to build with nature rather than against it. He designs were to complement the surroundings, appropriate and in harmony with it’s time, place and man. His basic belief was to use natural materials to keep that close material with its site. Stone, brick and wood were basic architectural materials which were covered painted and plastered, altered to suit and fit in with any particular fashion and taste. But Wright let the stone become the feature of a building or the rich colour bricks rise in masses. Newer materials such as concrete, steel, sheets of metals and glass were not used in clever ways. Wright realised he was in the twentieth century and decided to make use of the machine “the machine should be a tool in the hand of the artist”. He used the machine as a mould to form the concrete pillar. These blocks were a decorative structural elements rising into the air. He changed the way they used sheets of metal and turned these sheets of steel, aluminium and copper into patterned surfaces. He wrote about Japanese art particularly Japanese prints which had an influence on his designs.

Between 1900 and 1917, his residential designs were “Prairie Houses”. They were designed to compliment the land around Chicago, the mid west prairie around Chicago and its suburbs. He raised the living quarters up above the prairie floor to gain a view of the surrounding prairie. These prairie houses are very level, sloping roofs, tidy clean sky lines, and hidden chimneys, sheltering overhangs, low terraces and private gardens. Although he was an architect the interior space became more and more the significant feature of his prairie houses. The domestic life changed in the twentieth century, servants became less important and almost completely absent, which meant the woman’s вЂ?workplace’ was in the kitchen yet the living room where the children and guests were had to be visible to her. These houses are the first examples of the “open plan”. The rooms were screened off from one another by simple architectural devices rather than partitions and doors. Features instead of walls. It took nearly seven years for these ideas and forms to evolve. A good example of this open space is The Susan Lawrence House, Springfield, Illinois, 1899-1902. It is a large spacious home crammed into a tight, conventional city corner. No generous view but yet Wright still managed to create a spacious and intimate world. It was built with grey roman brick, oak woodwork and stained glass. Everything in the building was designed by Wright, the furnishings, light fixtures and the stained glass. The finest craftsmanship ever to appear in his work. Light fuses in through the design of the stain glass in delicate patterns and colours from nature: butterflies, ferns, stalks of wildflowers and leaves, but a passer by would find it hard to see in. His client Susan Lawrence Dana was from a prestigious political and social family. She wanted a house to entertain in for it to become an important social centre; this gave Wright the chance to design a home that was not just for a single-family dwelling. The entrance leads directly into the entrance hall which is connected to a three story sweep of space. There are no doors or partitions. The living room is on the other side of the reception and is for family only; the second floor is for bedrooms.

The Usonian Houses which Wright built in the later period of his career were built energy conscious, low cost and to meet the needs of his clients. To provide affordable houses for the average American family. This came about because of the depression which brought a dramatic reduction in the number of his commissions. Decentralization