HoA3 (3.2 Frank Lloyd Wright - Contribution To Architecture)

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THEORY REFERENCE NOTES
COURSE: B.Arch
SEMESTER: SEMESTER – 4
AUTHOR NAME: Ibrahim sir
HISTORY OF
ARCHITECTURE - 3
CONTENT
S.No CHAPTERS PAGE#

1. PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTION PAPERS 01-02
2. CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURE (FRANK 03-11
LLOYD WRIGHT)
CREDITS
Source: Internet, Civil Content contributors:

engineering textbooks,
architectural textbooks,
JNAFAU library
Editor: Ibrahim sir
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IBRAHIM SIBGATULLAH’S ARCHITECTURAL ACADEMY
FOR ADMISSIONS, ENQUIRIES AND COLLABORATIONS CONTACT
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PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTION PAPERS (2013 – 2018)

1. Explain the theory of ‘five point of architecture’ through the
works of Le Corbusier. (Feb – 18)
2. Discuss the contribution of Walter Gropius in the fields of
education and architecture in details. (Feb – 18)
3. Explain the contribution made by Frank L. Wright and Walter
Gropius to architecture (Aug – 2017)
4. Write short notes on Le Corbusier (Aug – 2017, Aug – 15, Mar –
15)
5. Write a detailed note on the philosophy and works of the
Walter Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe. (Mar – 16, Sep – 14)
6. Explain the contribution of Le Corbusier to modern
architecture, bringing out the use of RCC in the buildings.
(Mar – 16)
7. Write about Frank L Wright and his contributions to
architecture. (Sep – 16, Sep – 14)
8. Explain the contributions of Mies Van Der Rohe towards
architecture and urban planning. (Sep – 16, Sep – 14, Aug – 13)
9. Write a detailed note on the theories proposed by Le Corbusier.
(Mar – 15)
10. Write short notes on works of Frank L Wright and
contributions of Walter Gropius. (Mar – 15)
11. What were the important differences of F. L. Wright’s work
in comparison with other architects of the Modern period?
(Aug – 15)
12. With the help of suitable examples, explain the concept of
‘organic architecture’ as followed by Frank L Wright.
(Mar – 15)
13. What are the important features of the organic architecture
as propounded by F. L. Wright (Sep – 14)
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14. Write short notes on the contributions of Walter Gropius.

(Sep – 14)
15. Define Le Corbusier ‘Modular’ and how he approached
architecture through it. Illustrate with examples. (Aug – 13)
16. What were the contributions made by Frank L Wright and Le
Corbusier to the modern architecture? (Aug – 13)
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3.2 CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURE – FRANK LLOYD

WRIGHT
SYLLABUS:
Contributions to Architecture and theory made by pioneers: Le
Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies Van der
Rohe in the periods between the World wars.
INTRODUCTION:
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture
through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends,
and dates.Modern architecture, or modernist architecture was
based upon new and innovative technologies of construction,
particularly the use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete; the
idea that form should follow function; an embrace of minimalism;
and a rejection of ornament.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ARCHITECTURE AND THEORIES MADE
BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT:
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer,
writer and educator, who designed more than 1000 structures
and completed 532 works.His work includes original and
innovative examples of many different building types, including
offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums.
Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his
buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Wright was
recognized by the American Institute of Architects as "the
greatest American architect of all time".
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Organic Architecture:
Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony
with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called
organic architecture.Although the word “organic” usually refers to
something that bears the characteristics of plants or animals, for
Frank Lloyd Wright the term organic architecture was an
interpretation of nature’s principles manifested in buildings that
were in harmony with the world around them. Wright held that a
building should be a product of its place and its time, intimately
connected to a particular moment and site.
Through years of study and experimentation, organic architecture
came to describe Wright’s total design ideology. Some of the
governing principles of this philosophy included:
a. The belief that a building should appear to grow easily from
its site.
b. Choosing one dominant form for a building and integrating
that form throughout.
c. Using natural colours to promote harmony between man-
made structure and the nature.
d. Revealing the nature of materials.
e. Opening up spaces.
f. Providing a place for natural foliage.
Contributions to the architecture:
Initially he worked in the office of the ‘Shingle Style’ architect
J.L.Silsbee in Chicago.Thenhe joined Louis Sullivan, the greatest
American architect where, he was entrusted with the domestic
commissions, notably the Charnley House in Chicago of 1892.
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His personal work started with the construction of his own studio
and home in Oak Park Illinois in 1889 and increased in volume
after he leftLouis Sullivan in 1893.
Some of his important buildings are as follows:
1. The Prarie house
2. The Unity Temple
3. The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
4. Textile block houses
5. The Falling Water Building, Pennsylvania
6. The Johnson Wax Headquarters
7. Broadacre city
8. Usonian houses
9. Guggenheim Museum
The Prarie House: His early major contributions to the modern
architecture were the series of Praries houses.Some broad
characteristics of Prarie Houses are as follows:
a. Plans were articulated in X, L & T shapes.
b. Free spatial flow between the principal living areas.
c. Solid masonry construction.
d. Windows grouped in continuous horizontal bands.
e. Wide spreading eaves of low hipped or gabled roofs.
f. Bold cantilevering of roofs.
g. No external ornamentation.
h. Use of indigenous materials.
i. Integration of the building with landscape.
The most renowned of his Prarie houses is the Robie House in
Chicago, along with Willitts House in Highland Park, Illinois, and
Heurtley House in Oak Park, Illinois
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The Unity Temple:The Unity Temple was a public building in the

Prairie style. It was the home of the Unitarian Universalist
congregation in Oak Park. It is said that Unity Temple was the
edifice in which he ceased to be an architect of structure, and
became an architect of space. Many architects consider it the
world's first modern building, because of its unique construction
of only one material: reinforced concrete. The complex cubic
forms, spatial development in 3 dimensions, materials and
methods appealed strongly to younger architects abroad.
a. Wright felt that this building first captured the new special
concepts which initiated what he called “the destruction of
the box”. The Temple's plan produced a perfect square.
b. The Temple was divided into two rooms, one for worship
and one for social gatherings, connected by a foyer corridor.
c. To reduce noise from the street, street level windows in the
temple were eliminated.
d. Natural light came from stained glass windows in the roof
and clerestories along the upper walls. The stained glass was
designed with green, yellow, and brown tones.
e. The main floor of the temple was given access via a lower
floor (which has seating space), and the room also has two
balconies for the seating of the congregation.
f. Wright also designed the building with very good acoustics.
The Imperial Hotel:Wright was invited to design an earthquake
proof structure on a land that was marshy. Wright provided a
solution which was quite ingenious.
A floating foundation made of innumerable piles resting on the
mud base was first installed. On these Wright erected columns
which branched out at the top to become cantilevers which
carried the floors. The main building materials are poured
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concrete, concrete block, and carved oya stone. The visual effect
of the hotel was stunning and dramatic, though not unique.
However, the structure was damaged by the 1923 earthquake as
the foundation was an inadequate support and did not prevent
the building from sinking into the mud. However, the hotel had
several design features that minimized potential earthquake
damage:
a. The reflecting pool provided a source of water for fire-
fighting, saving the building from the post-earthquake
firestorm.
b. Cantilevered floors and balconies provided extra support for
the floors and a copper roof eliminated the risk of falling
debris created by traditional tile roofs.
c. Tapered walls were thicker on lower floors to increase their
strength.
d. Suspended piping and wiring, instead of being encased in
concrete, as well as smooth curves, making them more
resistant to fracture.
Textile block houses:A new material and a new setting was
introduced and that created a total revolution in his house design.
It had crisper forms, all over patterned surfaces and invisible flat
roofs. a. This style, known as the "textile block system", is
exhibited in the textile block designs.
a. These houses were constructed using precast "textile"
concrete blocks reinforced by an internal system of bars.
b. Such buildings often consisted of a series of terraces that
reach out into and reorder the landscape.
c. The system combined machine-age production techniques
with organic architecture.
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Some of the other important projects of this style include John

Storer House in Hollywood, California (1923), the Samuel
Freeman House (1923), the Ennis House, etc.
His own house, Taliesin in Wisconsin, first built in 1911 and
rebuilt in 1914 and 1925, was more in the line of the earlier
Prarie Houses, but characteristically adapted to a hillside making
expressive use of local limestone.
The Falling Water building:Fallingwater or Kaufmann
Residence is a house that was built partly over a waterfall on Bear
Run River.
Fallingwater stands as one of Wright's greatest masterpieces both
for its dynamism and for its integration with the striking natural
surroundings.
a. This organically designed private residence was intended to
be a nature retreat for its owners.
b. It was made as an RCC structure with extensive use of
cantilevers. The materials of the structure were made to
blend with the colourings of rocks and trees.
c. Natural boulders from the site have been used within the
home as elements.
d. Locally quarried stone walls and cantilevered terraces
resembling the nearby rock formations are meant to be in
harmony.
e. The design incorporates broad expanses of windows and
balconies which reach out into their surroundings. and
minimize the distinction between indoors & outdoors.
f. On the hillside above the main house stands a four-bay
carport, servants' quarters, and a guest house. These
attached outbuildings were built two years later using the
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same quality of materials and attention to detail as the main

house.
The Johnson Wax Headquarters: The Johnson Wax
Headquarters also known as the Johnson Wax Administration
Building, is the world headquarters and administration building
of S. C. Johnson & Son in Wisconsin.
a. The Johnson Wax Headquarters was to be set in an
industrial zone and Wright decided to create a sealed
environment lit from above.
b. The building features many curvilinear forms that required
over 200 different curved "Cherokee red" bricks to create
the sweeping curves of the interior and exterior.
c. The building, in certain areas, features steel-reinforced
dendriform (tree-like) concrete columns that rise to spread
out at the top, forming a celling.
d. The Johnson Wax buildings are on the National Register of
Historic Places.
e. The Administration Building and the Research Tower were
each chosen by the American Institute of Architects as two of
seventeen buildings by the architect to be retained as
examples of his contribution to American culture.
Broadacre City: Wright is responsible for a series of concepts of
suburban development united under the term Broadacre City.
a. It was both a planning statement and a socio-political
scheme by which each U.S. family would be given a one-acre
plot of land from the federal land’s reserves, and a Wright-
conceived community would be built from this.
b. All the important transport is done by automobile and the
pedestrian can exist safely within the confines of the plots.
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c. There is a train station and a few office and apartment

buildings in Broadacre City, but the apartment dwellers are
expected to be a small minority.
Usonian House:Concurrent with the development of Broadacre
City, Wright conceived a new type of dwelling that came to be
known as the Usonian House.
Designed on a gridded concrete slab that integrated the house's
radiant heating system, the house featured new approaches to
construction, including sandwich walls that consisted of layers of
wood siding, plywood cores and building paper, a significant
change from typically framed walls.
a. Usonian houses most commonly featured flat roofs.
b. It was intended to be highly practical houses for middle-
class clients, and designed to be run without servants.
c. These spaces in turn flowed into the main living areas, which
also were characteristically outfitted with built-in seating
and tables. Usonian living areas focused on the fireplace.
d. Bedrooms were typically isolated and relatively small,
encouraging the family to gather in the main living areas.
e. Many features of modern American homes date back to
Wright, including open plans, slab-on-grade foundations,
and simplified construction techniques that allowed more
mechanization and efficiency in building.
Guggenheim Museum: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in
New York City occupied Wright for 16 years (1943–1959) and
was the most significant project of this period of his career. It is
probably his most recognized masterpiece.
a. The building's surface was made out of concrete to reduce
the cost, inferior to the stone finish that Wright had wanted.
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b. The building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site,

c. Its interior is similar to the inside of a spiral seashell.
d. Its unique central geometry was meant to allow visitors to
easily experience Guggenheim's collection of non-objective
geometric paintings by taking an elevator to the top level
and then viewing artworks by walking down the central
spiral ramp.
e. The floor of the central spiral ramp was embedded with
circular shapes and triangular light fixtures to complement
the geometric nature of the structure.
f. The open pavilion afforded viewers the unique possibility of
seeing several bays of work on different levels
simultaneously.
g. The small pavilion (or "Monitor building", as Wright called
it) next to the large pavilion was intended to house
apartments for Rebay and Guggenheim but instead became
offices and storage space.
h. In 1965, the second floor of the Monitor building was
renovated to display the museum's growing permanent
collection, and with the restoration of the museum in 1990–
92, it was turned over entirely to exhibition space and
christened the Thannhauser Building, in honour of one of
the most important bequests to the museum.
i. Wright’s original plan for an adjoining tower, artists’ studios
and the apartments went unrealized, largely for financial
reasons, until the renovation and expansion. Also, in the
original construction, the main gallery skylight had been
covered, which compromised Wright’s carefully articulated
lighting effects. This changed in 1992 when the skylight was
restored to its original design.
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1

THEORY REFERENCE NOTES

S.No CHAPTERS PAGE#

Source: Internet, Civil Content contributors:

PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTION PAPERS (2013 – 2018)

14. Write short notes on the contributions of Walter Gropius.

3.2 CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURE – FRANK LLOYD

The Unity Temple:The Unity Temple was a public building in the

Some of the other important projects of this style include John

same quality of materials and attention to detail as the main

c. There is a train station and a few office and apartment

b. The building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site,

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