by Mrs. Hokanson

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by Mrs. Hokanson
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• Born June 8, 1867 in Richland County Wisconsin.
  
  
• His mother was a teacher and his father was a
  musician and preacher with strong Unitarian
  beliefs.
  
• His mother gave him Froebel gifts, a set of
  childrens wood blocks and paper for
  construction.
  
• Studied engineering at the University of
  Wisconsin, but left after only 2 semesters
  
• Soon went to work in an architectural office

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Designed over 1100 projects of which nearly half
were built. He received many honors and awards
and honorary doctoral degrees in fine arts form
Princeton and Yale.
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Frank Lloyd Wright introduced the word organic
into his philosophy of architecture as early as
1908 based on the teachings of his mentor Louis
Sullivan whose slogan form follows function
became the mantra of modern architecture.
Wright changed this phrase to form and
function are one, using nature as the best
example of this integration.
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Frank Lloyd Wrights organic architecture is not
a style of imitation, but a reinterpretation of
natures principles as they had been filtered
through the intelligent minds of men and women --
more natural than nature itself -- a marriage
between the site and the structure .
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Oak Park 1889-1890 Wrights first independently-b
uilt project was his own house, which he began in
1889 while he was working for his mentor, Louis
Sullivan.. Wright combined his home and studio.
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• Wrights idea about designing houses
• is that the house should be shelter that holds
  the family within its calm heart, and
  
• the hearth is the central metaphor of the
  building for him..
  

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• Some elements of Wrights radical new style were
  borrowed from designers overseas
  
• the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain,
• the secessionist school in Vienna, and
• the architecture of Japan

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• Wrights houses
• horizontal, rather than vertical
• sheltering overhangs
• low terraces
• private gardens
• set back from the street to insure greater
  privacy.
  
• the whole lower floor was one room

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Frederick C. Robie House considered one of the mo
st important buildings in the history of American
architecture. completed in 1910, the building in
spired an architectural revolution.
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• sweeping horizontal lines,
• dramatic overhangs,
• stretches of art glass windows and
• open floor plan make it a quintessential Prairie
  style house.

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ALLEN-LAMBE HOUSEDesigned in 1915 Wichita, Ks.
Frank Lloyd Wright considered "among my best," is
considered the last of the Prairie Houses.

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• horizontal carthage marble "water table" as a
  transition
  
• design element between the prairie floor and the
  house raked horizonal brick joints and flush head
  joints
  
• expansive clay tile roof with emphasis on
  horizonal lines
  
• a Japanese flavor

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One of the worlds most famous houses is the
weekend retreat called Fallingwater. Begun in
1936 and, Wright designed the house for
Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar J.
Kaufmann, whose son, Edgar Jr., was a Taliesin
fellow.
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Fallingwaters floors and roofs are dramatically
cantilevered over the waterfall of Bear Run, a
creek in western Pennsylvania.
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• made of reinforced concrete
• vertical elements such as stairs and chimneys
  faced in rough stone and from a nearby quarry.
  
• vision of the exploded box
• windows meet at the corners of rooms

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Taliesin West 1937-1938 From 1937 until his deat
h, Wright spent six months a year at his home
near Phoenix, Arizona. The desert setting
captivated Wright and he felt that its topography
and climate demanded new modes of building.
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Taliesin West partially embedded in the ground
stretched canvas roof, allows the sun's light and
heat to penetrate interior spaces.
Walls and structural piers are large chunks of
local stone set randomly into concrete mixed from
the desert sands
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What he admired in the Arts and Crafts movement
was its commitment to crafting all objects in
such a way as to make them beautiful.
What he loved about Japan was the idea of a
culture in which every human action and every
human object were integrated so as to make the
entire civilization a work of art.
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Wright traveled to Japan and was fascinated by
the Japanese woodblock print - He said in his
1943 autobiography, The print is more autobiogr
aphical than you may imagine. If Japanese prints
were to be deducted from my education, I dont
know what direction the whole would have taken.
The gospel of elimination of the insignificant,
preached by the print came home to me in
architecture.
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Wright spent most of 1915 to 1919 in Tokyo
working on his Imperial Hotel.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed 12 buildings for
Japan - 6 were built, 2 remain
I remember when I first met the Japanese prints.
That art had a great influence on my feeling and
thinking..I began to see nature in a totally
different way.
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Wright Looked to Japan While most American
architects in the early 1900s looked to Europe
and European architects for ideas, Frank Lloyd
Wright found Japanese design and art more
inspiring. He collected and mounted exhibits of
Japanese art. wood -the simplicity and possible
refinements of that material.
open plan - open one space into another by
sliding screens and panels. roof lines sweep low
to the ground concern with nature as an integral
part of their building.
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• You must be consistently grammatical, Wright
  said, for a building, to be understood as a work
  of Art.
  
• Wright felt that geometry
• was the key to grammatical consistency,which
• was in turn the key to aesthetic unity, which
  
  
• was in turn the key to beauty, which
• was in turn the key of God.

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• The Guggenheim
• design mimics an upside-down ziggurat
• consists of a large, top-lit interior court
• ringed by a continuous spiral ramp.
• It was completed in 1959, six months after
  Wrights death.
  
• On 5th Avenue in NYC.

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MY OPINION I admire the work of Frank Lloyd Wrig
ht. There is a sense of harmony and comfort that
comes from his work. The horizontal emphasis and
use of natural materials enhance the buildings
surroundings. It is form and function at its
best.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY PBS special on FLW http//www.pbs.
org/flw/index.html Fallingwater http//www.pacon
serve.org/index-fw1.asp The Guggenheim Museum in
NYC http//www.guggenheim.org/the_building.html
slide show of Japanese influences on Wrights
designs http//www.wrightplus.org/travel/travel.h
tml Interesting biography http//www.wrightplus.o
rg/flw/flw.html
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BIBLIOGRAPHYcontd. Extensive list of images of W
rights biuldings http//www.bluffton.edu/sulli
vanm/index/wright/wrightindex.html