Frank Lloyd Wright The Great American Architect

Essay, Research Paper

The Great American Architect

Mike Gavin

Architecture can be defined as the art or science of planning and building structures. Architecture is important because it satisfies the basic human need for shelter. Architectural structures serve specific purposes. Examples include: government buildings; other public buildings, such as libraries or museums; commercial buildings, including offices, banks, or shops; buildings for transportation- airline terminals, train stations, etc.; religious buildings; and, of course, residences.

Each structure has a function but also a particular character or style. Style is a characteristic, or a number of characteristics that we can identify as constant, recurring, or coherent. In art, the sum of characteristics associated with a particular artist, group, or culture, or with an artist’s work at a specific time. This, in my mind, is what makes architecture art.

It is impossible to talk about architecture without mentioning the name Frank Lloyd Wright. Many consider him to be the greatest American architect of his time as well as the greatest designer of residential architecture. Wright himself once said, “…having a good start, not only do I fully intend to be the greatest architect who yet lived, but fully intend to be the greatest architect who will ever live. Yes, I intend to be the greatest architect of all time.”

Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin. While growing up, his mother’s side of the family always had a great influence on him. The family was Unitary in faith and lived close together. The family stressed the values of education, religion, and nature. Wright’s family spent many evenings listening to Willliam Lincoln Wright read the works of Emerson, Thoreau, and Blake out loud. Also, his aunts Nell and Jane opened a school of their own in which they stressed the philosophies of the German educator, Froebel. Wright was brought up in a comfortable, but certainly not warm, household. His father, William Carey Wright, worked as a preacher and musician. He moved from job to job and frequently moved his family across the United States. His parents divorced when Wright was still young at a time when divorce was very uncommon.

Even before her son was born, Anna Wright had decided that her son was going to be a great architect. Using Froebel’s geometric blocks to entertain and educate her son, Mrs. Wright must have struck the genius her son possessed. Use of the imagination was encouraged and Wright was given free run of the playroom that was filled with paper, cardboard, and paste. On the doors were the words, “Sanctum Sanctorum” which is Latin for, “Place of Inviolable Privacy”. Wright was seen as a dreamy and sensitive child. Cases of him running away while working on the farmlands with his uncles are documented. Running away became a pattern that continued throughout his life.

In 1887, at the age of twenty, Frank Lloyd Wright moved to Chicago. With a brief education in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Wright was able to find a job as a draftsman in a Chicago architectural firm of J. Lyman Silsbee. During this time, he started on his first project, the “Hillside Home” for his aunts, Nell and Jane. Impatiently moving forward, Wright got a job at one of the most well known firms in Chicago, Adler and Sullivan. Sullivan was to become Wright’s mentor.

Wright Referred to Sullivan as “Lieber Meister” (beloved master). He admired

his talent for ornamentation, and his skill of drawing intricate plans and designs. Wright learned these skills from Sullivan and soon moved ahead of Alder in importance within

the firm. Wright’s relationship between him and his employer caused great amounts of

tension between Wright and his fellow draftsmen, and as well as in-between Sullivan and

Adler. Wright was assigned the residential contracts of the firm. His workload increased as he accepted jobs outside of the firm. When Sullivan found out about this in 1893, he

called Wright on a breach of contract. Rather than drop the “night jobs”, Wright

walked out of the firm. When Wright left the company, Sullivan’s quantity of contracts

declined quickly. Sullivan soon ran into economic troubles and his international

reputation dwindled by 1920. Sullivan was soon regarded as worthless to the architectural world. He resorted to alcoholism and died in 1924 without regaining the

glory of what was held in their early years of Chicago.

Using the Lloyd-Jones’ philosophies of unity, truth, harmony, and simplicity; and Sullivan’s approach of “form follows function”, Wright quickly built up a practice in residential architecture. At one point in his career, Wright would produce 135 buildings in ten years. Patience, concentration, attention to detail, and constant revision marked Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in the studio. Ironically it is these things that would be lacking in his personal relationships. Many people thought that Wright had a great amount of nervous energy. Also, he allowed no interference or suggestions from his clients. Wright took a complete approach to architecture by designing the interior furnishings of the building as well as the structure. He seemed to possess a skill of site memorization, and would visit the grounds sometim

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