Frank Lloyd Wright

1.1. Childhood and Family Background

Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. His father, William Cary Wright (1825-1904), was a gifted musician, orator, and occasional preacher and lawyer, originally from Massachusetts. He was a published composer and, though initially a Baptist minister, later converted to Unitarianism to join his wife's family. Wright's mother, Anna Lloyd Jones (1838/39-1923), was a teacher from the prominent Lloyd Jones clan, who had emigrated from Wales to Wisconsin. Her brother, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, was instrumental in spreading the Unitarian faith across the Midwest.

According to Wright's autobiography, his mother declared during her pregnancy that her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings. She decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals, cut from periodicals, to foster this ambition. The family faced financial struggles, moving from McGregor, Iowa (1869) to Pawtucket, Rhode Island (1871), and Weymouth, Massachusetts (1874), before returning to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones family could assist. In 1877, they settled in Madison, where William gave music lessons and served as secretary for a new Unitarian society. Despite being a distant parent, William shared his love for music, particularly the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children.

In 1876, Anna encountered an exhibit of educational blocks called the Froebel Gifts at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. These blocks, forming the basis of an innovative kindergarten curriculum developed by Friedrich Fröbel, excited Anna, a trained teacher. She purchased a set, and the 9-year-old Wright spent countless hours playing with them. The geometrically shaped blocks could be assembled into various two- and three-dimensional compositions. Wright later reflected on their profound influence on his design approach, stating that the cube, sphere, and triangle from these smooth wooden maple blocks remained in his fingers to that day. This early exposure to geometric clarity became a hallmark of his architectural style.

When Wright was 14, his parents separated. Anna, dissatisfied with William's financial instability, asked him to leave. William filed for divorce in 1884, citing "emotional cruelty and physical violence and spousal abandonment," and the divorce was granted in 1885. William then left Wisconsin, and Wright claimed he never saw his father again. Around this time, in homage to his mother's family, Wright changed his middle name from Lincoln to Lloyd. As the only male in the household, he assumed financial responsibility for his mother and two sisters.

1.2. Education and Early Influences

Wright attended Madison High School, though there is no record of his graduation. In 1886, at age 19, he was admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a special student and joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He took part-time courses for two semesters and worked under Allan D. Conover, a professor of civil engineering. He left the university without a degree, but in 1955, at 88 years old, the university awarded him an honorary doctorate of fine arts.

Wright's uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, commissioned the Chicago architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee to design the All Souls Church in Chicago in 1885. In 1886, Silsbee's firm was again commissioned by Jones to design the Unity Chapel as his private family chapel in Wyoming, Wisconsin. Although not officially employed by Silsbee, Wright, as an accomplished draftsman, "looked after the interior [drawings and construction]" in Wisconsin, making this chapel his earliest known work.

2.1. Work with Adler & Sullivan

In 1887, Wright moved to Chicago, Illinois, a city bustling with new development following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and a population boom. Despite his initial impression of Chicago as an "ugly and chaotic city," he was determined to find work. Within days, after interviewing with several prominent firms, he was hired as a draftsman by Joseph Lyman Silsbee, with whom he had previously collaborated on the Unity Chapel. While with Silsbee's firm, Wright also contributed to two other family projects: All Souls Church for his uncle Jenkin Lloyd Jones in Chicago, and the Hillside Home School I in Spring Green for his aunts. Other notable draftsmen in Silsbee's office at the time included Cecil S. Corwin, George W. Maher, and George Grant Elmslie, with Corwin becoming a close friend and mentor to Wright.

Feeling underpaid at 8 USD per week, Wright briefly left Silsbee to work for architect William W. Clay. However, he soon felt overwhelmed by the increased responsibility and returned to Silsbee, securing a raise. Although Silsbee's work primarily adhered to Victorian architecture and Revivalist styles, Wright found it more "gracefully picturesque" than the "brutalities" of the period. He remained with Silsbee for less than a year, departing around November 1887 to join Adler & Sullivan.

Wright learned that the Chicago firm of Adler & Sullivan was seeking someone to complete the finished drawings for the interior of the Auditorium Building. He demonstrated his competence in rendering Louis Sullivan's ornamental designs, and after two brief interviews, he became an official apprentice at the firm. Despite initial conflicts with other draftsmen and Sullivan's demanding nature, Sullivan took Wright "under his wing and gave him great design responsibility." Wright, in turn, affectionately referred to Sullivan as lieber Meister^German ("dear master"). He also forged a strong bond with office foreman Paul Mueller, who would later supervise the construction of several of Wright's public and commercial buildings between 1903 and 1923.

By 1890, Wright had an office adjacent to Sullivan's, which he shared with his friend and fellow draftsman, George Elmslie, hired at Wright's recommendation. Wright rose to head draftsman, handling all residential design work for the firm. While Adler & Sullivan generally did not undertake house designs, they would oblige requests from clients of their major commercial projects. As Wright was occupied with the firm's significant commissions during office hours, house designs were relegated to evenings and weekends at his home studio. Although he later claimed full responsibility for these designs, historical accounts suggest Sullivan often dictated the overall form and motifs, with Wright detailing them from Sullivan's sketches. During this period, Wright contributed to projects such as Sullivan's bungalow (1890) and the James A. Charnley bungalow (1890) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, the Berry-MacHarg House (1891), the James A. Charnley House (1891), and the Albert Sullivan House (1892), all in Chicago. Only the two Charnley family commissions survive today.

2.2. Establishment of Independent Practice

Despite Sullivan's loan and his overtime salary, Wright was perpetually short on funds, attributing his financial difficulties to his expensive tastes in wardrobe, vehicles, and the luxurious elements he incorporated into his own home. To supplement his income and manage debts, Wright secretly accepted independent commissions for at least nine houses. These "bootlegged" houses, as he later called them, were conservatively designed in variations of the fashionable Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles. However, they already hinted at his developing aesthetic, emphasizing simple geometric massing and incorporating features such as horizontal window bands, occasional cantilevers, and open floor plans-elements that would become hallmarks of his later work. Eight of these early houses, including the Thomas Gale, Robert Parker, George Blossom, and Walter Gale houses, still stand.

Sullivan remained unaware of these independent ventures until 1893, when he recognized one of the houses, built for Allison Harlan in Kenwood, Chicago, as unmistakably a Frank Lloyd Wright design. The house's geometric purity and balcony tracery, similar to the Charnley House, likely revealed Wright's involvement. As Wright's five-year contract explicitly forbade outside work, this discovery led to his departure from Adler & Sullivan. Accounts of the break vary; Wright's autobiography claims he was unaware of the contract breach and left after Sullivan's angry confrontation, while he reportedly told his Taliesin apprentices that Sullivan fired him on the spot. Regardless of the exact circumstances, Wright and Sullivan did not meet or speak for 12 years.

After leaving Adler & Sullivan, Wright established his independent practice on the top floor of the Sullivan-designed Schiller Building on Randolph Street in Chicago, choosing the location for its resemblance to his former office. Cecil Corwin joined him, setting up his own practice in the same office, though they worked independently. In 1896, Wright moved his practice to the newly completed Steinway Hall building, sharing the loft space with Robert C. Spencer Jr., Myron Hunt, and Dwight H. Perkins. These young architects, drawing inspiration from the Arts and Crafts Movement and Sullivan's philosophies, formed what became known as the Prairie School. They were joined by Perkins' apprentice Marion Mahony Griffin, who in 1895 transferred to Wright's team, producing presentation drawings and watercolor renderings. Mahony, one of the first licensed female architects in the U.S., also designed furniture, leaded glass windows, and light fixtures for Wright's houses. Many future leading Prairie School architects and Wright's employees began their careers in the Steinway Hall offices during this period.

Wright's projects during this time followed two models: his first independent commission, the Winslow House, blended Sullivanesque ornamentation with simple geometry and horizontal lines. Other designs in this mode included the Francis Apartments (1895, demolished 1971), Heller House (1896), Rollin Furbeck House (1897), and Husser House (1899, demolished 1926). For more conservative clients, he designed traditional dwellings like the Dutch Colonial Revival style Bagley House (1894), Tudor Revival style Moore House I (1895), and Queen Anne style Charles E. Roberts House (1896). Even his conservative designs maintained simplified massing and Sullivan-inspired details.

In 1894, after the Winslow House's completion, Edward Waller, a friend and former client, introduced Wright to Chicago architect and planner Daniel Burnham. Impressed by Wright's work, Burnham offered to fund a four-year education at the École des Beaux-Arts^French in Paris, followed by two years in Rome, with a guaranteed position in Burnham's firm upon his return. Despite the promise of success, Wright declined, viewing the classical education of the École^French as lacking creativity and fundamentally at odds with his vision for modern American architecture.

In 1898, Wright moved his practice to his home in Oak Park, Illinois, to integrate his work and family life, a logical decision given that most of his projects were in Oak Park or nearby River Forest. The birth of three more children necessitated sacrificing his original home studio for additional bedrooms, prompting him to design and construct an expansive studio addition north of the main house. This space, featuring a hanging balcony within a two-story drafting room, was an early experiment in innovative structure and served as a laboratory for his architectural creations over the next decade.

2.3. Development of the Prairie Style

By 1901, Wright had completed approximately 50 projects, many of them houses in Oak Park. His studio was a vibrant hub, with draftsmen like William Eugene Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert Chase McArthur, Marion Mahony Griffin, Isabel Roberts, and George Willis, all contributing to the pioneering of modern American architecture.

Between 1900 and 1901, Wright completed four houses that marked the definitive emergence of his "Prairie Style": the Hickox and Bradley Houses served as transitional steps, while the Thomas House and Willits House are recognized as the first mature examples of the new style. Wright further popularized his ideas through two articles in the Ladies' Home Journal in 1901-"A Home in a Prairie Town" and "A Small House with Lots of Room in it"-which, though never built, led to increased demand for similar designs. He designed homes for three executives of the Curtis Publishing Company in Buffalo, New York: the Darwin D. Martin House (1904), the William R. Heath House (1905), and the Walter V. Davidson House (1908). He also designed Graycliff (1931), a summer home for the Martin family. Other masterpieces of the Prairie Style include the Robie House in Chicago and the Avery and Queene Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois. The Robie House, with its dramatic extended cantilevered roof lines supported by a 110 ft steel channel, is particularly notable for its virtually uninterrupted living and dining spaces.

Wright's residential designs of this era became known as "prairie houses" because their low, horizontal forms complemented the flat landscapes around Chicago. Prairie Style houses typically feature one or two stories with one-story projections, an open floor plan, low-pitched roofs with broad, overhanging eaves, strong horizontal lines, ribbons of windows (often casements), a prominent central chimney, built-in stylized cabinetry, and extensive use of natural materials like stone and wood. The inspiration for the Prairie Style, particularly its emphasis on horizontal lines and open spaces, is often attributed to Wright's observation of the World's Columbian Exposition's Ho-O-Den Pavilion from Japan in 1893, where the sliding-screen dividers had been removed, creating an expansive interior.

By 1909, Wright began to shift his focus from the upper-middle-class Prairie Style single-family house model towards a more democratic architecture. In 1909, he traveled to Europe with a portfolio of his work, presenting it to Berlin publisher Ernst Wasmuth. The resulting publication, Studies and Executed Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, released in 1911 and commonly known as the Wasmuth Portfolio, served as the first major exposure of Wright's work in Europe, profoundly influencing European architects after World War I.

3.1. Notable Public Works and International Projects

Wright designed the Alpha Delta Phi literary society chapter house at Cornell University (1900), the Hillside Home School II (for his aunts) in Spring Green, Wisconsin (1901), and the Unity Temple (1905) in Oak Park, Illinois. As a lifelong Unitarian and member of Unity Temple, Wright offered his services to the congregation after their church burned down, working on the building from 1905 to 1909. He later stated that Unity Temple was the edifice where he transitioned from an architect of structure to an architect of space.

Other notable early public buildings and projects from this era include the Larkin Administration Building (1905) in Buffalo, New York, the Geneva Inn (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 1911), the Midway Gardens (Chicago, Illinois, 1913), and the Banff National Park Pavilion (Alberta, Canada, 1914).

Wright's work in Japan during this period left an impressive architectural legacy. The Imperial Hotel, completed in 1923, stands as his most significant Japanese commission. Its robust foundations and steel construction allowed it to withstand the devastating 1923 Great Kantō earthquake almost unscathed. Although the hotel suffered damage during the bombing of Tokyo and subsequent US military occupation in World War II, and was later deemed obsolete and demolished in 1968 due to increasing land value in central Tokyo, its lobby was meticulously preserved and reconstructed at the Meiji Mura architecture museum in Nagoya in 1976.

The Jiyu Gakuen was founded in 1921. Construction of its main building began in 1921 under Wright's direction and was continued by his apprentice Arata Endo after Wright's departure. Like the Imperial Hotel, the school building is clad with Ōya stone. The Yodoko Guesthouse, designed in 1918 and completed in 1924, served as the summer villa for Tadzaemon Yamamura. Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture profoundly influenced young Japanese architects, including those he commissioned to execute his designs: Arata Endo, Takehiko Okami, Taue Sasaki, and Kameshiro Tsuchiura. Endo supervised the completion of the Imperial Hotel and the construction of the Jiyu Gakuen Girls' School and the Yodokō Guest House. Tsuchiura went on to create "light" buildings that shared similarities with Wright's later work.

3.2. Textile Block System

In the early 1920s, Wright developed a unique "textile" concrete block system. This method utilized precast blocks, reinforced by an internal bar system, allowing for "fabrication as infinite in color, texture, and variety as in that rug." Wright first applied this system to the Millard House in Pasadena, California, in 1923. A characteristic Wrightian element is the seamless integration of the structure with its site through a series of terraces that extend into and reshape the landscape, making it an integral part of his architectural vision. He further explored the capabilities of the textile block system with the Ennis House and the Samuel Freeman House (both 1923), and used it to a limited extent in the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in 1927. The Ennis House, in particular, is frequently featured in films and media to represent futuristic settings. Wright's son, Lloyd Wright, supervised the construction of the Storer, Freeman, and Ennis Houses, though his contributions are often overlooked by historians.

After World War II, Wright refined this system, calling it the Usonian Automatic system, which led to the construction of several notable homes. As he explained in The Natural House (1954), the original blocks were made on-site by ramming concrete into wood or metal forms, featuring one patterned exterior face and a generally coffered interior face for lightness.

3.3. Personal Life and Tragedy

Wright's mid-career was marked by significant personal turmoil. In 1903, while designing a house for Edwin Cheney, a neighbor in Oak Park, Wright became romantically involved with Cheney's wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Mamah was an early feminist and a modern woman with intellectual interests beyond the home, qualities Wright admired. Their relationship became a public scandal in Oak Park. In 1909, Wright and Mamah Cheney left their respective spouses and children and traveled to Europe, first living in Florence, Italy, with Wright's eldest son Lloyd, and later in Fiesole, Italy, where Wright resided with Mamah. During this period, Edwin Cheney granted Mamah a divorce, but Wright's wife, Catherine, refused to grant him one.

Upon his return to the United States in October 1910, Wright persuaded his mother to purchase land for him in Spring Green, Wisconsin, adjacent to his maternal family's property. By May 1911, he began constructing his new home, which he named Taliesin Taliesin^Welsh. The name "Taliesin" and the family motto, "Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd" ("The Truth Against the World"), originated from his mother's Welsh heritage, referencing the Welsh poet, magician, and priest Taliesin and the poet Iolo Morganwg Iolo Morganwg^Welsh. The motto remains a traditional cry of druids and chief bards in the Welsh Eisteddfod Eisteddfod^Welsh.

Tragedy struck Taliesin on August 15, 1914. While Wright was working in Chicago, Julian Carlton, a servant, set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and then murdered seven people with an axe as the fire raged. The victims included Mamah Borthwick Cheney; her two children, John and Martha Cheney; a gardener (David Lindblom); a draftsman (Emil Brodelle); a workman (Thomas Brunker); and another workman's son (Ernest Weston). Two individuals survived, one of whom, William Weston, helped extinguish the fire that almost completely destroyed the residential wing of the house. Carlton attempted suicide by swallowing hydrochloric acid and was nearly lynched but was taken to the Dodgeville jail, where he died of starvation seven weeks later. The massacre and fire plunged Wright into further public scandal and profound emotional distress.

In 1922, Catherine Wright finally granted Wright a divorce, with the condition that he wait one year before remarrying. In 1923, his mother, Anna Lloyd Jones Wright, passed away. Wright married his then-mistress, Maude "Miriam" Noel, in November 1923, but their marriage quickly deteriorated due to her morphine addiction, leading to its failure within a year. In 1924, while still legally married to Miriam, Wright met Olga (Olgivanna) Lazović Hinzenburg. They moved into Taliesin together in 1925, and their daughter, Iovanna, was born on December 3, 1925.

On April 20, 1925, another fire, attributed to crossed wires from a newly installed telephone system, destroyed the bungalow at Taliesin. The blaze consumed a collection of Japanese prints that Wright valued at 250.00 K USD to 500.00 K USD in 1925. Wright rebuilt the living quarters, naming the reconstructed home "Taliesin III".

In 1926, Olga's ex-husband, Vlademar Hinzenburg, sought custody of their daughter, Svetlana. In October 1926, Wright and Olgivanna were arrested in Tonka Bay, Minnesota, accused of violating the Mann Act, though the charges were later dropped. Wright's divorce from Miriam Noel was finalized in 1927, again with a one-year waiting period before remarriage. Wright and Olgivanna married in 1928.

3.4. Architectural Innovations and Transitions

Wright's architectural journey during this period was significantly shaped by his engagement with Japanese art and architecture, which he deeply admired and collected. He was a passionate Japanophile, once proclaiming Japan to be "the most romantic, artistic, nature-inspired country on earth." He was particularly captivated by Ukiyo-e ukiyo-e^Japanese woodblock prints, to which he claimed he was "enslaved," spending much of his free time collecting, selling, and appreciating them. He hosted "print parties" to educate guests and apprentices on their pedagogical value, and his initial impressions of Japan were almost entirely based on these prints.

Wright found particular inspiration in the formal aspects of Japanese art, describing Ukiyo-e ukiyo-e^Japanese prints as "organic" due to their understated qualities, harmony, and purely aesthetic appeal. He cherished their free-form compositions, where elements often overlapped, and their "gospel of elimination"-a lack of extraneous detail. His interpretation of chashitsu chashitsu^Japanese (tea ceremony venues]), influenced by Okakura Kakuzō's ideas, emphasized openness and the "vacant space between the roof and walls." Wright applied these principles on a grand scale, making them hallmarks of his practice.

His floor plans often exhibited strong similarities to Japanese precedents. The open living spaces of his early homes were likely inspired by the World's Columbian Exposition's Ho-O-Den Pavilion, whose sliding-screen dividers were removed for the event. Similarly, Unity Temple follows a gongen-zukuri gongen-zukuri^Japanese layout, characteristic of Shinto shrines, possibly inspired by his 1905 visit to the Rinnō-ji temple complex. The form of many of his cantilevered towers, including the Johnson Research Tower, may have been influenced by Japanese pagodas. Wright's ornamental flourishes, seen in his leaded glass windows and lively architectural drawings, demonstrate a technical debt to Ukiyo-e ukiyo-e^Japanese. Some commentators suggest that elements in works like the Robie House embody iki iki^Japanese, a Japanese aesthetic valuing subdued stylishness.

Wright's ideas about Japanese art were significantly influenced by Ernest Fenollosa, whose work he likely encountered between 1890 and 1893. Many of Fenollosa's concepts-such as architecture as a "mother art," condemnation of the West's "separation of construction and decoration," and the "organic wholeness" in Ukiyo-e ukiyo-e^Japanese prints-mirrored Wright's own. Both men perceived a "degeneracy" in Western architecture, particularly Renaissance architecture, with Wright admitting that Japanese prints helped "vulgarize" the Renaissance for him. Wright's art criticism treatise, The Japanese Print: An Interpretation, can be seen as an extension of Fenollosa's ideas.

While Wright consistently acknowledged his debt to Japanese art and architecture, he resisted claims that he copied or adapted it, asserting that Japanese art merely validated his existing principles rather than serving as a direct source of inspiration. He once stated that such borrowing was "against [his] very religion." Nonetheless, observers throughout his life continued to note the strong parallels.

Beyond his artistic appreciation, Wright was an active dealer in Japanese art, primarily Ukiyo-e ukiyo-e^Japanese. He often served as both architect and art dealer for the same clients, designing their homes and then supplying the art to fill them. For a period, he earned more from selling art than from his architectural practice. He maintained a personal collection, using it as a teaching tool during "print parties" with his apprentices, and sometimes even modified his personal prints with colored pencils and crayons to suit his taste. His collection included works by masters like Okumura Masanobu, Torii Kiyomasu I, Katsukawa Shunshō, Utagawa Toyoharu, Utagawa Kunisada, Katsushika Hokusai, and Utagawa Hiroshige, with Hiroshige being his favorite, whom he considered "the greatest artist in the world."

Wright first visited Japan in 1905, acquiring hundreds of prints. The following year, he helped organize the world's first retrospective exhibition on Hiroshige at the Art Institute of Chicago, solidifying his reputation as an expert in Japanese art. He continued to buy prints during subsequent trips to Japan and was a major presence in the art world for many years, selling numerous works to prominent private collectors and institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Between 1905 and 1923, Wright spent over 500.00 K USD on prints. He also authored a book on Japanese art, The Japanese Print: An Interpretation, in 1912.

In 1920, many of the prints Wright sold were found to have been retouched, with signs of pinholes and unoriginal pigments. These retouched prints were likely a form of retribution from disgruntled Japanese dealers upset by Wright's under-the-table sales. To clear his name, Wright sued one of his dealers, Kyūgo Hayashi, who was subsequently sentenced to a year in prison and barred from selling prints for an extended period. Although Wright maintained his innocence and provided genuine replacements to clients, this incident marked the decline of his career as an art dealer. He was forced to sell much of his collection to pay off debts; in 1928, the Bank of Wisconsin claimed Taliesin and sold thousands of his prints for only one dollar apiece to collector Edward Burr Van Vleck. Nevertheless, Wright continued to collect and deal in prints until his death in 1959, often relying on his art business for financial solvency. He once claimed that Taliesin I and II were "practically built" by his prints. The full extent of his Japanese art dealings remained largely unknown to art historians for decades until Julia Meech's research in the 1980s shed new light on this aspect of his career.

4.1. Taliesin Fellowship and Educational Philosophy

In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna established the Taliesin Fellowship, inviting students to live and work under Wright's guidance while studying architecture and spiritual development. Olgivanna Wright, a former student of G. I. Gurdjieff, drew inspiration from Gurdjieff's similar school. That year, 23 individuals joined, including John (Jack) H. Howe, who would become Wright's chief draftsman. In total, 625 people joined the Fellowship during Wright's lifetime. The Fellowship served as a vital source of labor for Wright's major later projects, including Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Headquarters, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

The living conditions and education within the Fellowship generated considerable controversy. Wright was known to be a challenging individual to work with, with one apprentice noting his lack of consideration for others' qualities, yet concluding that "a year in his studio would be worth any sacrifice." The Fellowship later evolved into The School of Architecture at Taliesin, which was an accredited school until its contentious closure in 2020. In June 2020, the school, renamed "The School of Architecture," relocated to the Cosanti Foundation, with whom it had previously collaborated.

4.2. Usonian Houses and Broadacre City

Wright conceived a series of suburban development concepts under the umbrella term Broadacre City. He first proposed this idea in his 1932 book, The Disappearing City, and later unveiled a 12 ft² model of this future community, exhibiting it at various venues. Concurrent with Broadacre City's development, also known as Usonia, Wright devised a new type of dwelling called the Usonian House. While an early iteration appeared in the Malcolm Willey House (1934) in Minneapolis, the Usonian ideal fully materialized in the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House (1937) in Madison, Wisconsin. This house, built on a gridded concrete slab that integrated the radiant heating system, introduced innovative construction methods, including walls composed of a "sandwich" of wood siding, plywood cores, and building paper-a significant departure from traditional framed walls. Usonian houses commonly featured flat roofs and were typically constructed without basements or attics, elements Wright had advocated since the early 20th century.

Usonian houses were Wright's response to the evolving domestic life of the early 20th century, as servants became less common in American households. By designing homes with increasingly open floor plans, Wright provided the woman of the house with a "workspace" (his term for the kitchen) that allowed her to monitor and interact with children or guests in the dining room. Similar to the Prairie Houses, Usonian living areas featured a fireplace as a central focal point. Bedrooms, usually isolated and relatively small, encouraged family gatherings in the main living spaces. This conception of spaces rather than distinct rooms was an evolution of the Prairie ideal. The built-in furnishings reflected the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement that influenced Wright's early work. Spatially and structurally, Usonian houses offered a new model for independent living, enabling many clients to afford a Wright-designed home at a relatively low cost. His Usonian homes established a new style for suburban design that influenced countless postwar developers, with many features of modern American homes-such as open plans, slab-on-grade foundations, and simplified construction techniques allowing for greater mechanization and efficiency-tracing back to Wright's innovations.

4.3. Significant Later Works

Fallingwater, one of Wright's most celebrated private residences, was completed in 1937 for Mr. and Mrs. Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Designed to be built over a 20 ft waterfall, it embodied Wright's desire to immerse occupants in their natural surroundings, serving more as a family retreat than a primary residence. The structure features a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces, utilizing sandstone for vertical elements and concrete for horizontals. The house cost 155.00 K USD in 1937, including Wright's fee of 8.00 K USD, making it one of his most expensive projects. Kaufmann's own engineers initially questioned the design's structural integrity, but Wright overruled them. The contractor, however, secretly added extra steel to the horizontal concrete elements. In 1994, Robert Silman and Associates assessed the building and developed a restoration plan. In the late 1990s, temporary steel supports were installed under the lowest cantilever until a detailed structural analysis could be completed. In March 2002, post-tensioning of the lowest terrace was finalized.

Taliesin West, Wright's winter home and studio complex in Scottsdale, Arizona, served as his architectural laboratory from 1937 until his death in 1959. It is now the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

The design and construction of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City occupied Wright from 1943 until its completion in 1959, becoming arguably his most recognized masterpiece. The building's distinctive central geometry allows visitors to experience Guggenheim's collection of non-objective geometric paintings by taking an elevator to the top level and then descending a slowly spiraling central ramp.

The only realized skyscraper designed by Wright is the Price Tower, a 19-story structure in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It is also one of only two existing vertically oriented Wright buildings, the other being the S.C. Johnson Wax Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin. The Price Tower was commissioned by Harold C. Price of the H. C. Price Company, a local oil pipeline and chemical firm. On March 29, 2007, the Price Tower was designated a National Historic Landmark, one of only 20 such properties in Oklahoma.

Monona Terrace, originally designed in 1937 as municipal offices for Madison, Wisconsin, was completed in 1997 on its original site. It utilized a variation of Wright's final exterior design, with the interior adapted for its new purpose as a convention center. The "as-built" design was overseen by Wright's apprentice, Tony Puttnam. Monona Terrace faced controversy throughout its development until its completion.

Florida Southern College, located in Lakeland, Florida, constructed 12 of Wright's planned 18 buildings between 1941 and 1958 as part of the Child of the Sun project. This campus holds the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

4.4. Community Planning Concepts

Frank Lloyd Wright's theories and commissions on urban design began as early as 1900 and continued throughout his life, encompassing 41 projects on the scale of community planning or urban design.

His ideas on suburban design first appeared in 1900 with a proposed subdivision layout for Charles E. Roberts, titled the "Quadruple Block Plan." This design deviated from traditional suburban lot layouts, arranging houses on small square blocks of four equal-sized lots surrounded by roads on all sides, rather than in straight rows on parallel streets. The houses, based on the design published in "A Home in a Prairie Town" from the Ladies' Home Journal, were positioned towards the center of the block to maximize yard space and include private central areas, also providing more interesting views from each home. Although this plan was never realized, Wright published the design in the Wasmuth Portfolio in 1910.

More ambitious community designs were showcased in his entry for the City Club of Chicago Land Development Competition in 1913, which called for the development of a suburban quarter section. This design expanded on the Quadruple Block Plan, incorporating multiple social levels. It proposed placing upscale homes in desirable areas, with blue collar homes and apartments separated by parks and common spaces. The design also included all the amenities of a small city, such as schools, museums, and markets. This vision of decentralization was later reinforced by his theoretical Broadacre City design. The core philosophy behind his community planning was decentralization, advocating for new developments to be located away from traditional cities, where all services and facilities could coexist, with "factories side by side with farm and home."

Notable community planning designs include:

• 1900-03 - Quadruple Block Plan, 24 homes in Oak Park, Illinois (unbuilt).
• 1909 - Como Orchard Summer Colony, a town site development for a new town in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana.
• 1913 - Chicago Land Development competition, a suburban Chicago quarter section design.
• 1934-59 - Broadacre City, a theoretical decentralized city plan, showcased through large-scale model exhibits.
• 1938 - Suntop Homes, also known as the Cloverleaf Quadruple Housing Project, a commission from the Federal Works Agency, Division of Defense Housing, offering a low-cost multifamily housing alternative to suburban development.
• 1942 - Cooperative Homesteads, commissioned by a group of auto workers, teachers, and other professionals, a 160 acre ^{(160 acre)} farm co-op intended to pioneer rammed earth and earth berm construction (unbuilt).
• 1945 - Usonia Homes, 47 homes (three designed by Wright) in Pleasantville, New York.
• 1949 - Parkwyn Village, a plat in Kalamazoo, Michigan, developed by Wright, featuring mostly Usonian houses by other architects, with four by Wright. The community was originally planned with circular lots but was later re-platted and squared off.
• 1949 - The Acres, also known as Galesburg Country Homes, with five houses (four designed by Wright) in Charleston Township, Michigan. The Acres remains the sole example of a planned community that has not had its circular lots squared off or been subdivided.

5.1. Organic Architecture

Wright's core philosophy was "organic architecture," which he defined as the harmonious integration of buildings with humanity, nature, and their surroundings. This approach emphasized that all components of a building should appear unified, as though they belong together, with nothing added without considering its effect on the whole. To achieve this unity between a house and its site, Wright frequently employed large expanses of glass, blurring the boundary between the indoors and outdoors. He believed that glass allowed for interaction with and viewing of the exterior while still providing protection from the elements. In a 1928 essay on glass, he likened it to nature's mirrors: lakes, rivers, and ponds. One of his earliest uses of glass involved stringing panes along entire walls to create "light screens" that joined solid walls, aiming for a balance between the lightness and airiness of glass and the solidity of hard walls.

Wright's religious beliefs, particularly his Unitarian faith, significantly influenced his architectural thinking. He viewed religion as an integral part of architecture, believing it should contribute to society through human values and be dynamic, rational, and easily understood by the public. This rational and systematic approach to faith underpinned his design principles.

5.2. Key Design Elements and Materials

Wright's Prairie houses are characterized by themed, coordinated design elements, often based on plant forms, which are repeated in windows, carpets, and other fittings. He was an innovator in the use of new building materials, including precast concrete blocks, glass bricks, and zinc cames (replacing traditional lead) for his leadlight windows. Notably, he famously incorporated Pyrex glass tubing as a major element in the Johnson Wax Headquarters.

He was also among the first architects to design and install custom-made electric light fittings, including some of the earliest electric floor lamps, and made very early use of the then-novel spherical glass lampshade, a design previously impractical due to the physical restrictions of gas lighting. In 1897, Wright received a patent for "Prism Glass Tiles," which were used in storefronts to direct light toward the interior. He fully embraced glass in his designs, finding it aligned perfectly with his philosophy of organic architecture. Arguably, Wright's most renowned art glass is found in his Prairie style works, where simple geometric shapes evolve into ornate and intricate windows, representing some of the most integral ornamentation of his career. Wright also designed some of his own clothing, reflecting his holistic approach to design.

5.3. Influences and Collaborations

Wright, a strong individualist, famously did not affiliate with the American Institute of Architects during his career, calling the organization "a harbor of refuge for the incompetent" and "a form of refined gangsterism." When an associate referred to him as "an old amateur," Wright confirmed, "I am the oldest." He rarely credited direct influences on his designs, but most architects, historians, and scholars agree on five major influences:

• Louis Sullivan, whom he regarded as his lieber Meister^German ("dear master").
• Nature, particularly the shapes, forms, colors, and patterns of plant life.
• Music, with Ludwig van Beethoven being his favorite composer.
• Japanese art, especially prints and buildings.
• Froebel Gifts.

Wright received a set of Froebel Gifts around age nine. In his autobiography, he indirectly cited them, explaining that he learned the geometry of architecture through kindergarten play: "For several years I sat at the little kindergarten table-top ruled by lines about four inches apart each way making four-inch squares; and, among other things, played upon these 'unit-lines' with the square (cube), the circle (sphere) and the triangle (tetrahedron or tripod)-these were smooth maple-wood blocks. All are in my fingers to this day." He later wrote, "The virtue of all this lay in the awakening of the child-mind to rhythmic structures in Nature... I soon became susceptible to constructive pattern evolving in everything I saw."

Wright frequently claimed the work of his employees as his own designs and believed that other Prairie School architects were merely his followers and imitators. However, like any architect, Wright engaged in a collaborative process, drawing ideas from others' work. In his early career, he collaborated with leading architects of the Chicago School, including Sullivan. During his Prairie School period, Wright's office housed many talented architects, such as William Eugene Drummond, John Van Bergen, Isabel Roberts, Francis Barry Byrne, Albert McArthur, Marion Mahony Griffin, and Walter Burley Griffin. The Czech-born architect Antonin Raymond worked for Wright at Taliesin and supervised the construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, later establishing his own practice in Japan. Rudolf Schindler also worked for Wright on the Imperial Hotel, and his work is often credited with influencing Wright's Usonian houses. Schindler's friend Richard Neutra also briefly worked for Wright. In the Taliesin era, Wright employed many architects and artists who later became notable, including Aaron Green, John Lautner, E. Fay Jones, Henry Klumb, William Bernoudy, and Paolo Soleri.

6.1. Death and Memorialization

On April 4, 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright was hospitalized for abdominal pains and underwent surgery. Although he initially appeared to be recovering, he died peacefully on April 9, at the age of 91. The New York Times reported his age as 89.

After his death, Wright's legacy was embroiled in controversy for years. His third wife, Olgivanna, had expressed a dying wish that she, Wright, and her daughter from her first marriage be cremated and interred together in a memorial garden at Taliesin West. According to his own wishes, Wright's body had been laid in the Lloyd-Jones cemetery, adjacent to Unity Chapel and within view of Taliesin in Wisconsin. Despite Olgivanna taking no legal steps to move his remains and against the wishes of other family members and the Wisconsin legislature, members of the Taliesin Fellowship removed his remains from his grave in 1985. They were cremated and sent to Scottsdale, Arizona, where they were later interred as per Olgivanna's instructions. The original grave site in Wisconsin is now empty but remains marked with Wright's name.

6.2. Archives and Preservation Efforts

After Wright's death, the majority of his archives were stored at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Taliesin (Wisconsin) and Taliesin West (Arizona). These extensive collections encompass over 23,000 architectural drawings, approximately 44,000 photographs, 600 manuscripts, and more than 300,000 pieces of office and personal correspondence. The archives also contained about 40 large-scale architectural models, most of which were constructed for the Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) retrospective of Wright in 1940.

In 2012, to ensure a high level of conservation and accessibility, and to alleviate the substantial financial burden of maintaining the archive, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation partnered with the Museum of Modern Art and the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University. The archive's content was subsequently moved to New York. Wright's furniture and art collection remain with the foundation, which also plays a role in monitoring the archive. These three parties established an advisory group to oversee exhibitions, symposiums, events, and publications related to Wright's work.

Additional photographs and archival materials are held by the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. The architect's personal archives are located at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Frank Lloyd Wright archives include photographs of his drawings, indexed correspondence dating back to the 1880s, and other ephemeral items. The Getty Research Center in Los Angeles also holds copies of Wright's correspondence and photographs of his drawings in their Frank Lloyd Wright Special Collection. Wright's correspondence is indexed in An Index to the Taliesin Correspondence, edited by Professor Anthony Alofsin, available at larger libraries.

6.3. Destroyed and Posthumously Built Works

Wright designed more than 400 built structures, of which approximately 300 survived as of 2023. At least five of his buildings have been lost to natural forces: the waterfront house for W. L. Fuller in Pass Christian, Mississippi, destroyed by Hurricane Camille in August 1969; the Louis Sullivan Bungalow of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005; and the Arinobu Fukuhara House (1918) in Hakone, Japan, destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. In January 2006, the Wilbur Wynant House in Gary, Indiana, was destroyed by fire. In 2018, the Arch Oboler complex in Malibu, California, was gutted by the Woolsey Fire.

Many other notable Wright buildings were intentionally demolished: Midway Gardens (built 1913, demolished 1929), the Larkin Administration Building (built 1903, demolished 1950), the Francis Apartments and Francisco Terrace Apartments (Chicago, built 1895, demolished 1971 and 1974, respectively), the Geneva Inn (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, built 1911, demolished 1970), and the Banff National Park Pavilion (built 1914, demolished 1934). The Imperial Hotel (built 1923) famously survived the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, but was demolished in 1968 due to urban development pressures. The Hoffman Auto Showroom in New York City (built 1954) was demolished in 2013.

Several of Wright's projects were either built after his death or remain unbuilt. These include:

• Crystal Heights, a large mixed-use development in Washington, D.C., 1940 (unbuilt).
• The Illinois, a mile-high tower in Chicago, 1956 (unbuilt).
• Marin County Civic Center, a municipal complex in San Rafael, California; groundbreaking occurred just one year after Wright's death.
• Monona Terrace, a convention center in Madison, Wisconsin; designed 1938-1959, built in 1997.
• Clubhouse at the Nakoma Golf Resort, Plumas County, California; designed in 1923, opened in 2000.
• Passive Solar Hemi-Cycle Home in Hawaii; designed in 1954, built in 1995.

6.4. Awards, Honors, and Cultural Impact

Later in his life and posthumously, Wright received significant honorary recognition for his lifetime achievements. He was awarded a Gold Medal from The Royal Institute of British Architects in 1941. The American Institute of Architects presented him with the AIA Gold Medal in 1949, a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, as Wright had never joined the organization, calling it "a harbor of refuge for the incompetent." He received the Franklin Institute's Frank P. Brown Medal in 1953 and honorary degrees from several universities, including his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. Several nations also named him an honorary board member to their national academies of art and/or architecture. In a 2000 "Top-Ten" poll at the AIA annual convention, Fallingwater was named "The Building of the 20th century." Wright was the only architect with more than one building on this list, with the Guggenheim Museum, the Robie House, and the Johnson Wax Headquarters also included.

In 1992, the Madison Opera in Madison, Wisconsin, commissioned and premiered the opera Shining Brow, by composer Daron Hagen and librettist Paul Muldoon, based on early events in Wright's life. The work has seen numerous revivals, including a June 2013 performance at Fallingwater by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. In 2000, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright, a play exploring the interplay between Wright's personal and professional life, debuted at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

In 1966, the United States Postal Service honored Wright with a 2¢ postage stamp as part of its Prominent Americans series. The song "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" was written by Paul Simon, reportedly at the request of Art Garfunkel, despite Simon's stated lack of knowledge about the architect.

In 1957, when Arizona planned a new capitol building, Wright, believing the submitted designs were "tombs to the past," offered his alternative proposal, Oasis, to the people of Arizona. In 2004, one of the spires from his design was erected in Scottsdale. The city of Scottsdale, Arizona, later renamed a portion of Bell Road, a major east-west thoroughfare in the Phoenix metropolitan area, in honor of Frank Lloyd Wright.

On July 7, 2019, at the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee in Baku, Azerbaijan, eight of Wright's buildings were inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites under the title The 20th-century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. These buildings-Unity Temple, the Robie House, Taliesin, the Hollyhock House, Fallingwater, the Jacobs House, Taliesin West, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum-were recognized by UNESCO for their "innovative solutions to the needs for housing, worship, work or leisure" and for having "a strong impact on the development of modern architecture in Europe."

6.5. Societal and Architectural Impact

Frank Lloyd Wright's influence on architecture and society is profound and multifaceted. He played a pivotal role in shaping modern architecture, particularly in the United States, by breaking away from European classical traditions and developing a distinctly American style. His concept of "organic architecture" promoted harmony between human habitation and the natural environment, advocating for designs that were integrated with their surroundings rather than imposed upon them. This philosophy encouraged a deeper connection to nature and a more holistic approach to living.

Wright's development of the Prairie Style revolutionized residential design, introducing open floor plans, horizontal lines, and integrated furnishings that transformed the American home. His Usonian houses further democratized design by offering affordable, well-designed housing solutions for the middle class, impacting countless postwar suburban developments. He was also credited with coining the term "carport" in the 1930s when incorporating them into his Usonian homes, though the first house with a carport was designed by his employee, Walter Burley Griffin.

Beyond residential architecture, Wright's public and commercial buildings, such as the Larkin Administration Building and the Guggenheim Museum, pushed the boundaries of structural and spatial innovation. His work in Japan, notably the Imperial Hotel, demonstrated his ability to adapt his principles to different cultural and environmental contexts while leaving a lasting impression on local architects.

Through the Taliesin Fellowship, Wright fostered a unique educational model that combined architectural training with a holistic approach to life and art, influencing generations of architects. His extensive writings and lectures disseminated his ideas widely, contributing to architectural discourse and shaping public understanding of modern design. Despite the controversies of his personal life, Wright's relentless pursuit of an architecture that served humanity and respected nature cemented his legacy as one of the most significant and influential architects in history.

7.1. Books

• [https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=204451 Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright] (Wasmuth Portfolio) (1910)
• The Japanese Print: An Interpretation (1912)
• An Organic Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy (1939)
• Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography (1943)
• The Natural House (1954)
• In the Cause of Architecture: Essays by Frank Lloyd Wright for Architectural Record 1908-1952 (1987)
• Visions of Wright: Photographs by Farrell Grehan, Introduction by Terence Riley (1997)

7.2. Notable Buildings