Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright.

• Frank Lloyd Wright was a modern architect who developed an organic and distinctly American style. He designed numerous iconic
buildings.
• Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. After college, he became chief assistant to architect Louis
Sullivan. Wright then founded his own firm and developed a style known as the Prairie school, which strove for an "organic
architecture" in designs for homes and commercial buildings. Over his career he created numerous iconic buildings. He died April 9,
1959.
• In 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright founded his architectural practice in Oak Park, a quiet, semi-rural village on the Western edges of Chicago.
It was at his Oak Park Studio during the first decade of the twentieth century that Wright pioneered a bold new approach to domestic
architecture, the Prairie style.
• Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic
architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American
architecture“.
• In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and other
structures. He often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass.
• Wright learned that the Chicago firm of Adler & Sullivan was "looking for someone to make the finished drawings for the interior of
the Auditorium Building". Wright demonstrated that he was a competent impressionist of Louis Sullivan's ornamental designs and two
short interviews later, was an official apprentice in the firm.
Prairie Style.
• Inspired by the broad, flat landscape of America’s Midwest, the Prairie style was the first uniquely American architectural style of what
has been called “the American Century.”
• At the time Wright founded his practice American domestic architecture remained mired in the past. House styles were derived from the
architecture of old Europe. Lavish buildings of Gothic Revival, French Empire, and Italianate form lined the streets of America’s cities.
• For Wright, the houses he witnessed around him, derived as they were from the styles of other countries and other cultures, were
unsuited to the American landscape. “What was the matter with the kind of house I found on the prairie?” he asked, “Just for a
beginning, let’s say that house lied about everything. It had no sense of Unity .
• A masterful architectural designer, Wright developed a unique vocabulary of space, form, and pattern that represented a dramatic shift in
design from the traditional houses of the day. Characterized by dramatic horizontal lines and masses, the Prairie buildings that emerged
in the first decade of the twentieth century evoke the expansive Midwestern landscape.
• The buildings reflect an all-encompassing philosophy that Wright termed “Organic Architecture.” By this Wright meant that architecture
should be suited to its environment and be a product of its place, purpose and time.

• The Prairie style emerged in Chicago around 1900 from the work of a group of young architects, including Frank Lloyd
Wright. These architects melded the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, with its emphasis on nature, craftsmanship
and simplicity, and the work and writings of architect Louis Sullivan. They embraced Sullivan’s architectural theories,
which called for non-derivative, distinctly American architecture rooted in nature, with a sense of place, but also
incorporated modern elements, like flat planes and stylized ornamentation.
• Prairie buildings are, as Wright said, “married to the ground.” They celebrate the long, low landscape of the Midwest.
Their most defining characteristic is their emphasis on the horizontal rather than the vertical. They spread out over their
lots, featuring flat or shallow hipped roof lines, rows of windows, overhanging eaves and bands of stone, wood or brick
across the surface. Thin Roman bricks sometimes enhance the effect and cantilevers often extend the horizontal line
without vertical support. Even the unwelcome verticals of downspouts are either eliminated or carefully placed.
Prairie Style.
Prairie buildings often include:
• Strong geometry and massing, including large central chimneys.
• Brick or stucco exteriors.
• Open, asymmetric floor plans.
• Connected indoor and outdoor spaces.
• Interior wood banding.
• Restrained use of applied ornamentation.
• Exploration of motifs: one shape or plant form explored through furniture, wood carving, plaster, art glass and other
elements within a building.
Prairie Style -Robie house.
• Designed and built between 1908-1910, the Robie House for
client Frederick C. Robie and his family was one of Wright's
earlier projects. Influenced by the flat, expansive prairie
landscape of the American Midwest where he grew up, Wright's
work redefined American housing with the Prairie style home.
• According to Wright, "The prairie has a beauty of its own and
we should recognize and accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet
level. Hence, gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet sky
lines, supressed heavy-set chimneys and sheltering overhangs,
low terraces and out-reaching walls sequestering private
gardens.
• The Robie House creates a clever arrangement of public and
private spaces, slowly distancing itself from the street in a
series of horizontal planes. By creating overlaps of the planes
with this gesture, it allowed for interior space expanded towards
the outdoors while still giving the space a level of enclosure.
• This play on private spaces was requested by the client, where
he insisted on the idea of "seeing his neighbours without being
seen." Wright specifically approached this request with an
enormous cantilever over the porch facing west that stretched
outwards 10' feet from its nearest structural member and 21'
from the closest masonry pier.
Prairie Style -Robie house.
• As is seen in many of Wright's project, the entrance of the
house is not clearly distinguishable at first glance due to the
fact that Wright believed the procession towards the house
should involve a journey.
• Wright also expressed the importance of the hearth in a home
with a fireplace that separated the living and dining room that is
open to the ceiling above the mantelpiece for the billiard room
and playroom.
• The program of the house includes a living room, a dining
room, a kitchen, a billiards room, four bedrooms, and a
servant's wing which are defined while still flowing into one
another.
• The rooms were determined through a modular grid system
which was given order with the 4' window mullions. Wright,
however, did not use the standard window in his design, but
instead used "light screens" which were composed of pieces of
clear and colored glass, usually with representations of nature.
• The purpose for these windows was to allow light into the
house while still giving a sense of privacy. Wright also stated
about the light screens, "Now the outside may come inside, and
the inside may, and does, go outside."
Prairie Style -Robie house.
• There are 174 art glass windows in the Robie House made of
polished plate glass, cathedral glass, and copper-plated zinc
canes, which are metal joints that hold the glass in place.
• The protrusions of these windows on the East and West facade,
along with low ceilings, emphasized the long axis of the house
and directed views towards the outside.
• These windows were also stretched on French doors along the
entire south wall on the main level, opening up to a balcony.
The sun angles were calculated so perfectly with this cantilever
that a midsummer noon's sun hits just the bottom of the entire
facade while still allowing light to flood in to warm the house
during the spring and autumn months.
• The entire house is sheathed in Roman brick with yellow
mortar, and only the overhangs and the floating brick balcony
have steel beams for structural support. Using the horizontality
of the brick, Wright added the finishing touches to the Robie
House to create the ideal modern Prairie style home where he
was able to build with the principles he believed in.
• The sweeping horizontal lines, extensive overhangs, warm
well-lit interiors with furniture designed by Wright himself, and
the balance of public and private spaces made the Robie House,
in the words of Frederick C. Robie, "...the most ideal place in
the world."
Prairie Style -Robie house.
Organic Architecture-Falling Waters.
Organic Architecture.

• WRIGHT - ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE Frank Lloyd Wright first used the term ‘organic architecture’ in an article for Architectural
Record in August 1914. He wrote that “the ideal of an organic architecture… is a sentient, rational building that would owe its ‘style’ to
the integrity with which it was individually fashioned to serve its particular purpose—a ‘thinking’ as well as ’feeling’ process.
• While it is not easy to define organic architecture, there are principles at work in Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings that transcend his
personal expression. It is important to note that Wright was not the first architect to use the term organic architecture, nor was he the
last. The concept of an organic style meant different things to different architects and manifested itself in a variety of ways. Below are
some of the principles of Wright’s organic architecture.
• Building and Site
• Materials.
• Shelter
• Space
• Proportion and Scale
• Nature
• Repose
• Grammar
• Ornament
• Human Values
• Simplicity
• Mechanical Systems and Furnishings
Organic Architecture-Falling Waters.
• Frank Lloyd Wright designed an extraordinary house known as Fallingwater that redefined the relationship between man, architecture,
and nature.
• The house was built as a weekend home for owners Mr. Edgar Kaufmann, his wife, and their son, whom he developed a friendship
with through their son who was studying at Wright's school, the Taliesin Fellowship.
• The waterfall had been the family's retreat for fifteen years and when they commissioned Wright to design the house they envisioned
one across from the waterfall, so that they could have it in their view. Instead, Wright integrated the design of the house with the
waterfall itself, placing it right on top of it to make it a part of the Kaufmanns' lives.
Organic Architecture-Falling Waters.
• Wright's admiration for Japanese architecture was important in his inspiration for this house,
along with most of his work. Just like in Japanese architecture, Wright wanted to create
harmony between man and nature, and his integration of the house with the waterfall was
successful in doing so.
• The house was meant to compliment its site while still competing with the drama of the falls
and their endless sounds of crashing water. The power of the falls is always felt, not visually
but through sound, as the breaking water could constantly be heard throughout the entire
house.
Organic Architecture-Falling Waters.
• Wright revolved the design of the house around the fireplace, the hearth of the home which he considered to be the gathering place for
the family.
• a rock cuts into the fireplace, physically bringing in the waterfall into the house. He also brings notice to this concept by dramatically
extending the chimney upwards to make it the highest point on the exterior of the house.
• Fallingwater consists of two parts: The main house of the clients which was built between 1936-1938, and the guest room which was
completed in 1939. The original house contains simple rooms furnished by Wright himself, with an open living room and compact
kitchen on the first floor, and three small bedrooms located on the second floor.
• The third floor was the location of the study and bedroom of Edgar Jr., the Kaufmann's son.The rooms all relate towards the house's
natural surroundings, and the living room even has steps that lead directly into the water below.
• The circulation through the house consists of dark, narrow passageways, intended this way so that people experience a feeling of
compression when compared to that of expansion the closer they get to the outdoors.
• The ceilings of the rooms are low, reaching only up to 6'4" in some places, in order to direct the eye horizontally to look outside.
• The beauty of these spaces is found in their extensions towards nature, done with long cantilevered terraces. Shooting out at a series of
right angles, the terraces add an element of sculpture to the houses aside from their function.
• The terraces form a complex, overriding horizontal force with their protrusions that liberated space with their risen planes parallel to
the ground. In order to support them, Wright worked with engineers
Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters. Their solution was in the materials.
• The house took on "a definite masonry form" that related to the site, and for the terraces
they decided on a reinforced-concrete structure. It was Wright's first time working with
concrete for residences and though at first he did not have much interest in the material,
it had the flexibility to be cast into any shape, and when reinforced with steel it gained
an extraordinary tensile strength.
• The exterior of Fallingwater enforces a strong horizontal pattern with the bricks and long terraces.
The windows on the facade have also have a special condition where they open up at the corners,
breaking the box of the house and opening it to the vast outdoors.