Reverence and Function: The designs of Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright belongs to the story of Modern architecture; he is an icon and an American great that among the few defined 20^th century design. Wright believed as the Bauhaus designers did that in so far as architecture form should follow function and furthermore, that it be democratic – accessible to all strata of society. He also aimed to make architecture organic, that it should respond to the environment that surrounds it, and that a designer should find inspiration from nature, the landscape. Wright made use of primary materials but also of manufactured modern materials like cast concrete and Pyrex, as well as new technologies like electric lighting, and in doing so reflected an awareness of the processes of industrial design and what could be called “mass architecture” or “industrialized architecture.”

Early on, Wright designed homes based in 20^th century life, reflective of an American vernacular, as he wanted to create an “American architecture” as he once stated. His Prairie Houses mimicked the landscape of the American Mid-West, ergo the Prairie, with their short proportions and horizontal flow. The Wright aesthetic was ever present: organic adherence, geometric elements, and a reverence to the intended function of a space. In the Prairie Houses, floor plans were open, not segmented. The Robie House in Chicago, built in 1910, is considered the best example of this Wright style. The red-brick veneer exterior stresses the horizontal with its low hipped roof and overhanging eaves, and an open and flowing configuration defines the main floor with living areas on either side of a central fireplace. His designs including the Robie House were discussed in the German published “Wasmuth Portfolio” of 1910, thus exposing Wright to many European architects including students of the Bauhaus and the De Stijl school in Holland, who were subsequently influenced in developing their own aesthetic (that would eventually inform Modernism and International Style).

A lull in Wright’s career roughly between 1910 and 1930 was due personal tragedy (a fire and the murder of his wife) but also to a change in popular taste. Yet, this pause was not fruitless. The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, one that Wright spent six years designing while he lived in Japan, was one of the only structures to survive the 1923 earthquake and this fact won him commercial confidence thus helping him to renew his practice in the US that had floundered. IT was during these years that he was also able to experiment with design and materials, developing a technique called the Textile Block Method in which walls were built using manufactured precast concrete blocks with textured, brocade-like patterns. Wright designed several homes in southern California using this method including Hollyhock House, Ennis House and La Miniatura, all three of which mimic what seems to be Mayan style expressed most boldly through the use of the textile blocks. Obviously, these houses are a remarkable part of Wright’s repertoire yet here we see Wright’s novel use of mass-produced and modern materials – he envisioned a democratic architecture as low production costs using such materials like concrete allowed for affordable housing.

In 1932, The Museum of Modern Art In New York held an exhibit of modern architecture of which Wright was invited to submit work but was rejected; the exhibit would include designs from prestigious Modern architects like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. Wright did not offer his best work, perhaps because he scoffed at the architecture that he thought was made up of “soulless cardboard boxes” as stated in the Ken Burns documentary of his life.Yet staff at MOMA recognized his contribution to Modern architecture, especially in the development in what they called International Style and from hence its philosophy that form follows function and that houses are “machines for living,” a term Le Cobursier created, mirroring Wright’s approach to design as did simplification of form and a rejection of historicism. Indeed, Wright quietly borrowed some elements from International Style and made it his own, albeit he would never admit such a thing. It was after the MOMA event in 1932 that Wright’s career seemed to take a turn into a period in which he would design arguably some of his greatest structures: the Johnson Wax Building, Taliesen West, Fallingwater House and The Guggenheim Museum. He also designed several Usonian houses, a title of his invention referring to some 60 houses similarly styled intended for occupation by middle-income American families. The homes were L-shaped and single storied with flat roofs. Wright’s use of an elongated overhang to create a garage is what he called a “carport,” a word still in use today. The Ranch House, a common type of single story American home, is thought to have originated from the designs of Wright’s Usonian houses.

In building Fallingwater, commissioned in 1935, Wright sought to integrate the beauty as well as native elements of the place into the structure, as the lot was situated in the woods. The home is a mastery of organic design and it presents just as Wright intended, built partially over a waterfall and a rock ledge, a central fireplace made with boulders found from the site. The house does reflect in some ways Wright’s fondness for Japanese design in the way that the house effortlessly merges with the landscape (also in the way the Japanese marry interior and exterior, in their open rooms and stark ornamentation): large windows and penetrating views, terraces that project out over the adjacent stream, interior exterior walls made from quarried local stone. The design of Fallingwater also expresses the bent of International style with its unornamented cantilevers, a plethora of glass with the incorporation of a multitude of windows, with their thin metal frames.

Wright’s place in the history of design was tenuous for much of his career, but so determinedly did he pursue his craft, fueled perhaps by his own arrogance and competitive drive that he was able to reinvent himself like a phoenix from the ashes when he was in his 70s, his career culminating in the building of the Guggenheim Museum that he designed when he was in his late 80s. In the end, he brilliantly merged his early inclination towards romanticism and organic architecture with use of modern materials and an awareness of International Style.