Part 2 Frank Llyoyd Wright Architect Story,Biography, List
Anna was excited by the
program and purchased a set for her family. As a child, Frank spent a great deal
of time playing with the kindergarten educational blocks. These consisted of
various geometrically shaped blocks that could be assembled in various
combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. Wright in his autobiography
talks about the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. Many of
his buildings are notable for the geometrical clarity they exhibit.
Wright's home in Oak Park, IllinoisThe family struggled financially in Weymouth
and the journey east proved unsuccessful. The Reverend Wright could not provide
for his family from the pastorate's small congregation. The Wrights returned to
Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones clan could help
William find employment. They settled in Madison, where William taught music
lessons and served as the secretary to the newly-formed Unitarian society.
Although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially
the works of Bach, with his children. Soon after he turned 14 in 1881 Wright's
parents separated. Anna had been unhappy for sometime with William's inability
to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized in
1885 after William sued Anna for lack of physical affection. William left
Wisconsin after the divorce and never saw the family again. At this time Frank's
middle name was changed from Lincoln to Lloyd. As the only male left in the
family, Frank assumed financial responsibility for his mother and two sisters.
Wright never attended high school and was admitted to the University of
Wisconsin as a special student in 1885. He took classes part-time for two
semesters, while apprenticing under a local builder and professor of civil
engineering. In 1887, Wright left the University without taking a degree
(although he was granted an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University
in 1955) and moved to Chicago, Illinois, still rebuilding from the Great Chicago
Fire of 1871, 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 his first wife, Catherine Lee "Kitty" Tobin, purchased land
in Oak Park, Illinois, and built his first home, and eventually his studio
there. His mother, Anna, soon followed Wright to the city, where he purchased a
home adjacent to his newly built residence for her. His marriage to Kitty Tobin,
the daughter of a wealthy businessman, raised his social status, and he became
more well-known. [1]
Beginning in 1890, he was assigned all residential design work for the firm. In
1893, Louis Sullivan discovered that Wright had been accepting private
commissions. Sullivan felt betrayed that his favored employee had designed
houses "behind his back," and he asked Wright to leave the firm. Constantly in
need of funds to support his growing family, Wright designed the homes to
supplement his meager income. Wright referred to these houses as his "bootleg"
designs and the homes are located near the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio,
on Chicago Avenue in Oak Park. After leaving Sullivan, Wright established his
own practice at his home. By 1901, Wright's completed projects numbered
approximately fifty, including many houses in Oak Park.
Prairie House
Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, New YorkBetween 1900 and 1917, his residential
designs were "Prairie Houses" (extended low buildings with shallow, sloping
roofs, clean sky lines, suppressed chimneys, overhangs and terraces, using
unfinished materials), so-called because the design is considered to complement
the land around Chicago. These houses are credited with being the first examples
of the "open plan."
In fact, the manipulation of interior space in residential and public buildings,
such as Unity Temple, the home of the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Oak
Park, are hallmarks of his style. A lifelong Unitarian and member of Unity
temple, Wright offered his services to the congregation after their church
burned in 1904. The community agreed to hire him and he worked on the building
between 1905 through 1908. He believed that humanity should be central to all
design. Many examples of this work can be found in Buffalo, New York, resulting
from a friendship between Wright and an executive from the Larkin Soap Company,
Darwin D. Martin. In 1902 the Larkin Company decided to build a new
administration building.
Wright came to Buffalo and designed not only the first sketches for the Larkin
Administration Building (completed in 1904, demolished in 1950), but also homes
for three of the company's executives:
George Barton House, Buffalo NY, 1903
Hillside Home School, 1902, Taliesin, Spring Green, WisconsinDarwin D. Martin
House, Buffalo NY, 1904
William Heath House, Buffalo NY, 1905
and later, the Graycliff estate, Derby, NY 1926
The Westcott House [1] was built between (1907 and 1908), in Springfield, Ohio.
It not only embodies Frank Lloyd Wright’s innovative Prairie Style design but
also reflects his passion for Japanese art and culture as the Westcott House
displays unique design traits characteristic of traditional Japanese design. The
Westcott House is the only Prairie house to be built in Ohio, and it represents
an important evolution of Wright’s Prairie concept. The Westcott House includes
an extensive ninety-eight foot pergola, capped with an intricate wooden trellis,
that connects a detached carriage house and garage to the main house -- features
that are included in only a few of Wright’s later Prairie Style houses designs.
It is not known exactly when Wright designed The Westcott House; scholars
speculate that it may have been several months prior to more than a year after
the architect returned from his first trip to Japan in 1905. Wright created two
separate designs for the Westcott House; both are included in Studies and
Executed Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, published by the distinguished Ernst
Wasmuth (Germany, 1910-1911). This two-volume work contains more than one
hundred lithographs of Wrights designs and is commonly known as the Wasmuth
Portfolio.
Other Frank Lloyd Wright houses considered to be masterpieces of the late
Prairie Period (1907–1909) are the Frederick Robie House in Chicago and the
Avery and Queene Coonley House in Riverside. The Robie House, with its soaring,
cantilevered roof lines, supported by a 110-foot (34 m)-long channel of steel,
is the most dramatic. Its living and dining areas form virtually one
uninterrupted space. This building had a profound influence on young European
architects after World War I and is sometimes called the "cornerstone of
modernism." Wright's work, however, was not known to European architects until
the publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio 1910-1911.
Europe and personal troubles
Local gossips noticed Wright's flirtations and he developed a reputation in Oak
Park as a man-about-town. His large family had grown to six children and the
brood required most of Catherine's attention. In 1904, Wright designed a house
for Edwin Cheney, a neighbor in Oak Park, and immediately took a liking to
Cheney's wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney.
Mamah Cheney was a modern woman with
interests outside the home. She was an early feminist and Wright viewed her as
his intellectual equal. The two fell in love, even though Wright had been
married for almost 20 years. Often the two could be seen taking rides in
Wright's automobile through Oak Park, and they became the talk of the town.
Wright's wife, Kitty,sure that this attachment would fade as the others had,
refused to grant him a divorce. Neither would Edwin Cheney grant one to Mamah.
In 1909, even before the Robie House was actually completed, Wright and Mamah
Cheney eloped to Europe; abandoning their own spouses and children. The scandal
that erupted virtually destroyed Wright's ability to practice architecture in
the United States.
Architectural historians have speculated on why Wright decided to turn his life
upside-down. Scholars argue that he felt by 1907-8 that he had done every thing
he could do with the Prairie Style, particularly from the standpoint of the
one-family house. Wright was not getting larger commissions for commercial or
public buildings, which frustrated him as it would any highly skilled architect.
Wright and Mamah Cheney traveled extensively throughout Europe. In 1910, during
a stop in Berlin, Wright, with virtually all of his drawings, visited the
publishing house of Ernst Wasmuth, who had agreed to publish his work there. In
two volumes, the Wasmuth Portfolio was thus published, and created the first
major exposure of Wright's work in Europe. The later Bauhaus movement's founders
claimed to have been inspired by these books.
Wright remained in Europe for one year (though Mamah Cheney returned to the
United States a few times) and set up home in Fiesole, Italy. During this time,
Edwin Cheney granted her a divorce, though Kitty again refused to grant one to
her husband. After Wright's return to the United States in late 1910, Wright
persuaded his mother to purchase land for him in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The
land, purchased on April 10, 1911, was adjacent to land held by his mother's
family, the Lloyd-Joneses. Wright began to build himself a new home, which he
called Taliesin, by May of 1911.
More personal turmoil
On August 15, 1914, while Wright was in Chicago completing a large project,
Midway Gardens, Julian Carlton, a male servant whom he had hired several months
earlier, set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered seven people
with an axe as the fire burned. The dead were: Mamah; her two children, John and
Martha; a gardener; a draftsman; a workman; and the workmans son. Two people
survived the mayhem, one of whom helped to put out the fire that almost
completely consumed the residential wing of the house.
In 1922, Wright's first wife granted him a divorce, and the architect was
required to wait for one year until he married his then-partner, Maude "Miriam"
Noel. In 1923, Wright's mother, Anna (Lloyd Jones) Wright, died. Wright wed
Miriam Noel in November 1923, but her addiction to morphine led to the failure
of the marriage in less than one year. In 1924, after the separation, but while
still married, Wright met Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, at a Petrograd
Ballet performance in Chicago. They moved in together at Taliesin in 1925,
followed soon after by Olgivanna's pregnancy with their daughter, Iovanna (born
December 2, 1925).
On April 22, 1925, another fire destroyed the living quarters of Taliesin. This
appears to have been the result of a faulty electrical system.[1] Wright rebuilt
the living quarters again, naming the home "Taliesin III".
In 1926, Olga's ex-husband, Vlademar Hinzenburg, sought custody of his daughter,
Svetlana. In Minnetonka, Minnesota, Wright and Olgivanna were accused of
violating the Mann Act and arrested in October 1926 (the charges were later
dropped).
Wright and Miriam Noel's divorce was finalized in 1927, and once again, Wright
was required to wait for one year until marrying again. Wright and Olgivanna
married in 1928.

Notable projects after the Prairie Period
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (1923)
Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (1939)During the turbulent 1920s, Wright
designed Graycliff, one of his most innovative residences of the period, and a
precursor to Fallingwater. The Graycliff estate was constructed from 1926 to
1929 for Isabelle and Darwin Martin on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie, just south
of Buffalo, NY. A complex of three buildings and extensive grounds all designed
by Wright, Graycliff incorporates cantilevered balconies and terraces, "ribbons"
of windows, and a transparent "screen" of windows allowing views of the lake
through the Isabelle R. Martin House, Graycliff's largest building. Constructed
of limestone from the beach below, warm ochre-colored stucco and striking
red-stained roofs, Graycliff's light-filled buildings were designed in Wright's
"organic" style. Wright's designs for Graycliff's grounds incorporate water
features that echo the lake beyond...a pond, a fountain, sunken gardens and
stone walls in a "waterfall" pattern that surround the property. On the summer
solstice, Graycliff is aligned with the setting sun on Lake Erie,as Wright
intended.
One of his most famous private residences was constructed from 1935 to 1939 for
Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Kaufmann Sr., at Bear Run, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. It
was designed according to Wright's desire to place the occupants close to the
natural surroundings, with a stream and waterfall running under part of the
building. The construction is a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces,
using limestone for all verticals and concrete for the horizontals. The house
cost $155,000, including the architect's fee of $8,000. Kaufmann's own engineers
argued that the design was not sound. They were overruled by Wright, but the
contractor secretly added extra steel to the horizontal concrete elements. In
1994, Robert Silman and Associates examined the building and developed a plan to
restore the structure. In the late 1990s, steel supports were added under the
lowest cantilever until a detailed structural analysis could be done. In March
2002, post-tensioning of the lowest terrace was completed.
It was also in the 1930s that Wright first designed "Usonian" houses. Intended
to be highly practical houses for middle-class clients, the designs were based
on a simple, yet elegant geometry. He would later use similar elementary forms
in his First Unitarian Meeting House built in Madison, Wisconsin, between 1946
and 1951. [2]
Wright is responsible for a concept or a series of extremely original concepts
of suburban development united under the term Broadacre City. He proposed the
idea in his book The Disappearing City in 1932, and unveiled a very large (12 by
12 ft) model of this community of the future, showing it in several venues in
the following years. He went on developing the idea until his death.
His 'Usonian' homes set a new style for suburban design that was followed by
countless developers. Many features of modern American homes date back to
Wright; open plans, slab-on-grade foundations, and simplified construction
techniques that allowed more mechanization or at least efficiency in building
are amongst his innovations.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York (1959)The Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum in New York City is a building that occupied Wright for 16
years (1943 - 59) [3] and is probably his most recognized masterpiece. The
building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site on Fifth Avenue; its
interior is similar to the inside of a seashell. Its unique central geometry was
meant to allow visitors to experience Guggenheim's collection of nonobjective
geometric paintings with ease by taking an elevator to the top level and then
viewing artworks by walking down the slowly descending, central spiral ramp,
which features a floor embedded with circular shapes and triangular light
fixtures, in order to complement the geometric nature of the structure.
Unfortunately, when the museum was completed, a number of important details of
Wright's design were ignored, including his desire for the interior to be
painted off-white. Furthermore, the Museum currently designs exhibits to be
viewed by walking up the curved walkway rather than walking down from the top
level.
[edit] Other projects
Wright built 363 houses. About 300 survive as of 2005. Three have been lost to
forces of nature: the waterfront house for W. L. Fuller in Pass Christian,
Mississippi, which was destroyed by Hurricane Camille in August 1969, the Louis
Sullivan Bungalow and the James Charnley Bungalow of Ocean Springs, Mississippi
were both destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Ennis House in California
has also been damaged by earthquake and rain-induced ground movement. In
January, 2006, the Wynant House in Gary, Indiana was destroyed by fire. [4]
One of his projects, Monona Terrace, originally designed in 1937 as City and
County Offices for Madison, Wisconsin, was completed in 1997 on the original
site, using a variation of Wright's final design for the exterior with the
interior design altered by its new purpose as a convention center. The
"as-built" design was carried out by Wright's apprentice Tony Puttnam. Monona
Terrace was accompanied by controversy throughout the sixty years between the
original design and the completion of the structure.
A lesser known project that never came to fruition was Wright's plan for Emerald
Bay, Lake Tahoe [5]. Few Tahoe locals are even aware of the iconic American
architect's plan for their natural treasure.
Wright also built several houses in the Los Angeles area, currently open to the
public are the Hollyhock House (Aline Barnsdall Residence) in Hollywood and the
shops at Anderton Court in Beverly Hills.
Following the Hollyhock House, Wright used an innovative building process in
1923 and 1924, which he called "textile block system" where buildings were
constructed with precast concrete blocks with a patterned, squarish exterior
surface: The Alice Millard House (Pasadena), the John Storer House (West
Hollywood), the Samuel Freeman House (Hollywood) and the Ennis House in the
Griffith Park area of Los Angeles. During the past two decades the Ennis House
has become popular as an exotic, nearby shooting location to Hollywood TV and
movie makers. He also designed a fifth textile block house for Aline Barnsdall,
the Community Playhouse ("Little Dipper"), which was never constructed. Frank
Lloyd Wright's son, Lloyd Wright, supervised construction for the Storer,
Freeman and Ennis House.
Most of these houses are private residences and/or are closed to the public
because of renovation, including the Sturgis House (Brentwood) and the Arch
Oboler Gatehouse & Studio (Malibu).
Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, has the largest collection of Wright
houses, as well as Wright's home and studio, which are open for public tours.
Tours of certain homes occur during the year. The Unity Temple is located on
Lake Street in Oak Park. The Cheney House, Edwin and Mamah Cheney's residence,
has been a bed and breakfast for many years. Beside the home's beauty, it
contains a stunning in-law suite on the lower level.
Florida Southern College, located in Lakeland, Florida constructed 12 (out of 18
planned) Frank Lloyd Wright buildings between 1941 and 1958.
[edit] Community Planning
Frank Lloyd Wright was interested in site and community planning throughout his
career. His commissions and theories on urban design began as early as 1900 and
continued until his death. He has 41 commissions that are of a scale that can be
considered community planning or urban design.[2] His thoughts on suburban
design started in 1901 with an article in Ladies Home Journal.
The article was
designed to showcase New Series of Model Suburban Houses Which Can Be Built as
Moderate Not only did Wright submit a home design he went further and
proposed the Quadruple Block Plan as a proposed subdivision layout..[3] This
design strayed from traditional suburban lot layouts and set houses on small
square blocks of four equal sized lots surrounded on all sides by roads. The
houses were set toward the center of the block so that each maximized the yard
space and included private space in the center. This also allowed for far more
interesting views from each house.
This design would have eliminated the
straight rows of houses on parallel streets with boring views of the front of
each house. His first commission using the Quadruple Block Plan was for Charles
E. Roberts in 1903, and he continued to push his concept in many of his large
scale designs through the end of his career..[4] The more ambitious designs of
entire communities were exemplified by his entry into the City Club of Chicago
Land Development Competition in 1913. The contest was for the development of a
suburban quarter section.
This design expanded on the Quadruple Block Plan and
included several social levels. The design shows the placement of the upscale
homes in the most desirable areas and the blue collar homes and apartments
separated by parks and common spaces. The design also included all the amenities
of a small city: schools, museums, markets, etc.[5] This view of
decentralization was later reinforced by theoretical Broadacre City design. The
philosophy behind his community planning was decentralization. The new
development must be away from the cities. In this decentralized America, all
services and facilities could coexist - factories side by side with farm and
home.¬ Notable Community Planning Designs
1901 Quadruple Block Plan ¬Ladies Home Journal¬ February 1901, April 1901
1903 – Charles R. Roberts " 24 homes ¬ Oak Park, IL
1909 – Bitter Root Town Plan " Town site development for new town in Bitterroot
Valley, MT
1913 " Chicago Land Development competition " Suburban Chicago quarter section
1934 - 1959 “ Broadacre City exhibits of
large scale model
1938 – Suntop Homes – low cost housing alternative to suburban development
1941 – Cloverleaf Housing Project – commission from Federal Works Agency
Division of Defense Housing multifamily layout
Death and legacy
Turmoil followed Wright even many years after his death on April 9, 1959. His
third wife Olgivanna continued to run the Fellowship after Wright's death, until
her own death in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1985. In 1985, following the death of
Olgivanna, it was learned that her dying wish had been that Wright, her daughter
by a first marriage and herself all be cremated and relocated to Scottsdale,
Arizona. During the nearly 30-year period prior to Olgivanna's death, Wright's
body had lain interred in the Lloyd-Jones cemetery, next to the Unity Chapel,
near Taliesin, Wright's later-life home in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
(The Unity
Chapel, designed by Joseph Silsbee, should not be confused with the much larger
and vastly more famous Unity Temple, designed by Wright and located in Oak Park,
IL. Wright was the draughtsman for the design of the Unity Chapel.) Olgivanna's
plan to exhume her late-husband and cremate him, her daughter and herself called
for a memorial garden, already in the works, to be finished and prepared for
their remains. Despite the fact that the garden had yet to be finished, his
remains were prepared and sent to Scottsdale where they waited in storage for an
unidentified amount of time before being interred in the memorial area. Today,
anyone who visits the small cemetery south of Spring Green, Wisconsin and a long
stone's throw from Taliesin to look upon a gravestone marked with Wright's name
will be visiting an empty grave.[7]
[edit] Personal style and concepts
Wright practiced what is known as organic architecture, an architecture that
evolves naturally out of the context, most importantly for him the relationship
between the site and the building and the needs of the client. Houses in wooded
regions, for instance, made heavy use of wood, desert houses had rambling floor
plans and heavy use of stone, and houses in rocky areas such as Los Angeles were
built mainly of cinder block. Wright's creations took his concern with organic
architecture down to the smallest details. From his largest commercial
commissions to the relatively modest Usonian houses, Wright conceived virtually
every detail of both the external design and the internal fixtures, including
furniture, carpets, windows, doors, tables and chairs, light fittings and
decorative elements.
He was one of the first architects to design and supply
custom-made, purpose-built furniture and fittings that functioned as integrated
parts of the whole design, and he often returned to earlier commissions to
redesign internal fittings. His Prairie houses use themed, coordinated design
elements (often based on plant forms) that are repeated in windows, carpets and
other fittings. He made innovative use of new building materials such as precast
concrete blocks, glass bricks and zinc cames (instead of the traditional lead)
for his leadlight windows, and he famously used Pyrex glass tubing as a major
element in the Johnson Wax Headquarters. Wright was also one of the first
architects to design and install custom-made electric light fittings, including
some of the very first electric floor lamps, and his very early use of the
then-novel spherical glass lampshade (a design previously not possible due to
the physical restrictions of gas lighting).
Wright-designed window in Robie House, Chicago (1906)As Wright's career
progressed, so as well did the mechanization of the glass industry. Wright fully
embraced glass in his designs and found that it fit well into his philosophy of
organic architecture. Glass allowed for interaction and viewing of the outdoors
while still protecting from the elements. In 1928, Wright wrote an essay on
glass in which he compared it to the mirrors of nature: lakes, rivers and ponds.
One of Wright's earliest uses of glass in his works was to string panes of glass
along whole walls in an attempt to create light screens to join together solid
walls.
By utilizing this large amount of glass, Wright sought to achieve a
balance between the lightness and airiness of the glass and the solid, hard
walls. Arguably, Wright's most well-known art glass is that of the Prairie
style. The simple geometric shapes that yield to very ornate and intricate
windows represent some of the most integral ornamentation of his career.[8]
Often, Wright designed not only the buildings, but the furniture as well. Some
of the built-in furniture remains, while other restorations have included
replacement pieces created using his plans.
Wright responded to the transformation of domestic life that occurred at the
turn of the twentieth century, when servants became a less prominent or
completely absent feature of most American households, by developing homes with
progressively more open plans. This allowed the woman of the house to work in
her 'workplace', as he often called the kitchen, yet keep track of and be
available for the children and/or guests in the dining room. Much of modern
architecture, including the early work of Mies van der Rohe, can be traced back
to Wright's innovative work.
Wright also designed his own clothing. His fashion sense was unique and he
usually wore expensive suits, flowing neckties, and capes as well as driving a
custom yellow raceabout in the Prairie years, a red Cord convertible in the
1930s, a famous customized 1940 Lincoln for many years, each of which earned him
many speeding tickets.
Colleagues and Influences
Wright would rarely credit any influences on his designs, but most architects,
historians and scholars agree he had five major influences:
1. Louis Sullivan,
whom he considered to be his 'Lieber Meister' (dear master),
2. Nature,
particularly shapes/forms and colors/patterns of plant life,
3. Music (his
favorite composer was Ludwig van Beethoven),
4. Japan (as in art, prints,
buildings),
5. Froebel Gifts [citation needed]
He also routinely claimed his employees' work as his own design [citation
needed], but as with any architect, Wright worked in a collaborative process and
drew his ideas from the work of others. In his earlier days, Wright worked with
some of the top architects of the Chicago School, including Sullivan. In his
Prairie School days, Wright's office was populated by many talented architects
including Marion Mahony Griffin and Walter Burley Griffin.
Rudolf Schindler worked for Wright on the Imperial hotel. His own work is often
credited as influencing Wrights Usonian houses. Schindler's friend Richard
Neutra also worked briefly for Wright and became an internationally successful
architect.
Later in the Taliesin days, Wright employed many architects and artists who
would later become notable, such as John Lautner, E. Fay Jones, Paolo Soleri in
architecture and Santiago Martinez Delgado in the arts. Actor Anthony Quinn
studied at Taliesin before embarking on an acting career with Wright's
assistance.
Bruce Goff never worked for Wright, but maintained correspondence with him and
their works can be seen to parallel each other.
Recognition
1966 U.S. postage stamp honoring Frank Lloyd WrightLater in his life and
well-after his death in 1959, Wright received much honorary recognition for his
lifetime achievements. He received Gold Medal awards from The Royal Institute of
British Architects (RIBA) in 1941 and the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.)
in 1949. He also received honorary degrees from several universities (including
his "alma mater", the University of Wisconsin) and several nations named him as
an honorary board member to their national academies of art and/or architecture.
In 2000, Fallingwater was named "The Building of the 20th century" in an
unscientific "Top-Ten" poll taken by members attending the A.I.A. annual
convention in Philadelphia. On that list, Wright was listed along with many of
the U.S.A.'s other greatest architects including Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Louis
I. Khan, Phillip Johnson and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and he was the only
architect who had more than one building on the list. The other three buildings
were the Guggenheim Museum, the Frederick C. Robie House and the Johnson Wax
Building.
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
events early in Wright's life. The work has since received numerous revivals. In
2000, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright, a play based on the
relationship between the personal and working aspects of Wright's life, debuted
at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.
[edit] Family
Frank Lloyd Wright was married three times and fathered seven children: four
sons and three daughters. He also adopted Svetlana Wright Peters, the daughter
of his third wife, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright.
One of Wright's sons, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr., known as Lloyd Wright, was also a
notable architect in Los Angeles. Lloyd Wright's son (and Wright's grandson),
Eric Lloyd Wright, is currently an architect in Malibu, California where he has
a practice of mostly residences, but also civic and commercial buildings.
Another son and architect, John Lloyd Wright, invented Lincoln Logs in 1918, and
practiced extensively in the San Diego area. John's daughter, Elizabeth Ingraham,
is an architect in Colorado.
The Oscar-winning actress Anne Baxter was another granddaughter. Anne was the
daughter of Catherine Baxter, from Wright's first marriage.
[edit] Selected works
Main article: List of Frank Lloyd Wright works
The Burton J. Westcott House, Springfield, OhioFrank Lloyd Wright Home and
Studio, Oak Park, Illinois, 1889-1909
William Herman Winslow Residence, River Forest, Illinois, 1894
Ward Winfield Willits Residence, and Gardener’s Cottage and Stables, Highland
Park, Illinois, 1901
Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site, Springfield, Illinois, 1902
Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, New York, 1903
Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, New York, 1903-1905
Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois, 1904
Burton J. Westcott Residence, Springfield, Ohio, 1908
The Robie House on the University of Chicago campusFrederick C. Robie Residence,
Chicago, Illinois, 1909
Taliesin I, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911
Midway Gardens, Chicago, Illinois, 1913
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, 1923. Demolished, 1968; Entrance hall
reconstructed in 1976 at Meiji Mura, near Nagoya, Japan
Hollyhock House (Aline Barnsdall Residence), Los Angeles, California, 1919-21
Ennis Residence, Los Angeles, California, 1923
Taliesin West Panorama from the "bow" looking at the "ship"Graycliff (Darwin and
Isabelle Martin summer estate, Buffalo, NY,1928
Fallingwater (Kaufmann Countryhome) Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1935
Johnson Wax Headquarters, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936
Herbert F. Johnson Residence ("Wingspread"), Wind Point, WI, 1937
Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1937
Usonian homes - Various locations, 1930's-1940's
Frank Lloyd Wright's Florida Southern College Works, 1940s
First Unitarian Society of Madison, Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin, 1947
Herman T. Mossberg Residence, South Bend, Indiana, 1948
Thomas Keys Residence, Rochester, Minnesota, 1950
Louis Penfield House, Willoughby Hills, Ohio, 1955
Price Tower, Bartlesville, OklahomaPrice Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1956
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, designed in 1956,
completed in 1961
Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, CA, 1957–66 (featured in the movies
Gattaca & THX 1138)
SAMARA (John E. Christian House), 1954, West Lafayette, Indiana
Kentuck Knob, 1956, Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania
The Illinois, mile-high tower in Chicago, 1956 (unbuilt)
Whipsuppenicke Silver House in Northborough, MA (in need of restoration)
Duncan House, 1957 Acme, Pennsylvania
References
[edit] Works Cited in Article
^ Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, Meryle Secrest, University of Chicago Press,
1992, p. 315-317
^ Wrightscapes:Frank Lloyd Wright's Landscape Designs, Charles E. and Berdeana
Aguar, McGraw-Hill, 2002, p.344
^ Wrightscapes:Frank Lloyd Wright's Landscape Designs, Charles E. and Berdeana
Aguar, McGraw-Hill, 2002, p.51-54
^ Wrightscapes:Frank Lloyd Wright's Landscape Designs, Charles E. and Berdeana
Aguar, McGraw-Hill, 2002, p.56
^ "Undoing the City: Frank Llyod Wright's Planned Communities," American
Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), p. 544
^ "Undoing the City: Frank Llyod Wright's Planned Communities," American
Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), p. 542
^ Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, Meryle Secrest, University of Chicago Press,
1992.
^ Frank Lloyd Wright's Glass Designs, Carla Lind, Pomegranate Artbooks/Archetype
Press, 1995.
[edit] Selected books and articles on Wright’s philosophy
An Autobiography, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1943, Duell, Sloan and Pearce / 2005,
Pomegranate; ISBN 0-7649-3243-8)
Frank Lloyd Wright, by Robert McCarter (1991, Princeton Architectural Press;
ISBN 1878271261)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Homes: Designs for Moderate Cost One-Family Homes,
by John Sergeant (1984, Watson-Guptill; ISBN 0823071782)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Homes (Wright at a Glance Series), by Carla Lind
(1994, Pomegranate Communications; ISBN 1566409985)
"In the Cause of Architecture," Architectural Record, March, 1908, by Frank
Lloyd Wright. Published in Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, vol. 1 (1992,
Rizzoli; ISBN 0-8478-1546-3)
Natural House, The, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1954, Horizon Press; ISBN 0517020785)
Taliesin Reflections: My Years Before, During, and After Living with Frank Lloyd
Wright, by Earl Nisbet (2006, Meridian Press; ISBN 0-9778951-0-6)
Truth Against the World: Frank Lloyd Wright Speaks for an Organic Architecture,
ed. by Patrick Meehan (1987, Wiley; ISBN 0471845094)
Understanding Frank Lloyd Wright's Architecture, by Donald Hoffman (1995, Dover
Publications; ISBN 048628364X)
Usonia : Frank Lloyd Wright's Design for America, Alvin Rosenbaum (1993,
Preservation Press; ISBN 0891332014)
[edit] Biographies of Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright: Architecture, man in possession of his earth, by Iovanna
Lloyd Wright (1962, Doubleday; OCLC 31514669)
Many Masks, by Brendan Gill (1987, Putnam; ISBN 0399132325)
Frank Lloyd Wright, by Ada Louise Huxtable (2004, Lipper/Viking; ISBN
0670033421)
Frank Lloyd Wright: a Biography, by Meryle Secrest (1992, Knopf; ISBN
0394564367)
Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and Architecture, by Robert Twombly (1979, Wiley;
ISBN 0471034002)
The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin
Fellowship, by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman (2006, Regan Books; ISBN
0060393882)
[edit] Selected survey books on Wright’s work
Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, The, by Neil Levine (1996, Princeton
University Press; ISBN 0691033714)
Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog, The, by William Allin
Storrer (2007 updated 3rd. ed., University of Chicago Press; ISBN 0-226-77620-4)
Frank Lloyd Wright: America’s Master Architect, by Kathryn Smith (1998,
Abbeville Press; ISBN 0789202875)
Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect, by the Museum of Modern Art (1994, ISBN
087070642X)
Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, The, by William Allin Storrer (2006 Rev. Ed.,
University of Chicago Press; ISBN 0-226-77621-2)
Frank Lloyd Wright: Masterworks, by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (1993, Rizzoli; ISBN
0847817156)
Frank Lloyd Wright: Building for Democracy, by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (2004,
Taschen; ISBN 3-8228-2757-6)
Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs, by Charles and Berdeana
Aguar (2003, McGraw-Hill; ISBN 007140953X)
Wright Space: Pattern and Meaning in Frank Lloyd Wright's Houses by Grant
Hildebrand (1991, University of Washington Press; ISBN 0295970057)
Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide, by Thomas A. Heinz (1999, Academy Editions; ISBN
0-8101-2244-8)
Frank Lloyd Wright's Glass Designs, by Carla Lind (1995, Pomegranate; ISBN
0876544685)
[edit] Selected books about specific Wright projects
Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most
Extraordinary House, by Franklin Toker (2003, Knopf; ISBN 1400040264)
[edit] See also
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
Wasmuth Portfolio
Richard Bock
Roman brick
Jaroslav Joseph Polivka
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District
List of Frank Lloyd Wright works
List of Frank Lloyd Wright works by location
[edit] Cultural References
The architect hero Howard Roark of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead is generally thought
to be based on Wright, although both Rand and Wright denied this.
Simon and Garfunkel honored the architect in their song So Long, Frank Lloyd
Wright on their album Bridge over Troubled Water.
In The Venture Bros cartoon series, the home of Phantom Limb was inspired by a
house designed by Wright.
In The Rise of Endymion, the conclusion of Dan Simmons's much acclaimed Hyperion
Cantos, the character of Aenea spends several years as an architect apprentice
of a cybrid Mr Wright in Taliesin West on Old Earth.
Links reffer
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Frank Lloyd WrightWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright Foundation Official Website
author William Allin Storrer's Wright Website
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Frank Lloyd Wright YouTube
Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust - FLW Home and Studio, Robie House
Taliesin Preservation Commission
Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program
Frank Lloyd Wright - PBS documentary by Ken Burns and resources
Frank Lloyd Wright. Designs for an American Landscape 1922-1932
Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey
Complete list of Wright buildings
Yesterday's News blog 1926 newspaper account of Wright's arrest in Minnesota
Frank Lloyd Wright and Teco Pottery
HollywoodlandWright Frank Lloyd Wright's Los Angeles area textile block
buildings
Frank Lloyd Wright presentation
Frank Lloyd Wright chronology of life and works in photographs
Frank Lloyd Wright's Westcott House Official Website of The Westcott House
Foundation
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