Frank Lloyd Wright

So today I thought it would be necessary to talk about a very famous Architect/Interior Designer who is also my all time favorite designer..... FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.  

Frank Lloyd Wright is to be considered one of the greatest Architects ever lived.  Frank Lloyd Wright has designed over 1,000 different structures and completed about 500 of them. Not only was he an amazing architect, but Frank was a writer, teacher, and an Interior designer as well.  Frank was very influenced by the beauty of Nature and beauty. He believed that buildings in Nature should look like as if it belonged or grew there in the environment. His designing methods were based on the philosophy of "Organic Architecture", which is the philosophy promoting harmony between the natural world and human habitation through design. His number one design that portrays this idea of Organic Architecture is one of his most famous designs called "Fallingwater".  This piece has been labeled as "The best all-time work of American Architecture". 

Quote: “So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but—instead—exalting the simple laws of common sense—or of super-sense if you prefer—determining form by way of the nature of materials...”

—    Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, 1939

Fallingwater was completed with a guest and service wing in 1939.  Local craftsmen, constructed of sandstone quarried on the property, built the extravagant building. Dramatically placed over the stream, the stone acts to separate reinforced concrete “trays”, forming the living, formal, and bedroom floors. Fallingwater was built strictly for the Kaufmann family as a weekend home from 1937 until 1963.  Edgar Kaufmann claims Fallingwater to be the only remaining astonishing Wright house still containing its original artwork and finishes intact.  In the New York Times architecture in 1986 a critic Paul Goldberger said: “This is a house that summed up the 20th century and then thrust it forward still further. Within this remarkable building Frank Lloyd Wright recapitulated themes that had preoccupied him since his career began a half-century earlier, but he did not reproduce them literally. Instead, he cast his net wider, integrating European modernism and his own love of nature and of structural daring, and pulled it all together into a brilliantly resolved totality. Fallingwater is Wright's greatest essay in horizontal space; it is his most powerful piece of structural drama; it is his most sublime integration of man and nature."

Frank Lloyd Wright has been seen to have lived a very controversial life. Outside of Wrights very successful architectural life, his personal life was looked upon very differently.  People had said that he had lived a very scandalized life. 

When he was first married to his first of three wives, Catherine, who he had six children with, he ruined the marriage when he scandalized his family by going to Berlin with a woman named Margaret Cheney. Margaret was the wife of Franks client/neighbor.  They had spent almost two years together in Europe.  Frank was also very famous for barrowing money and never paying family and friends back.  Short after their return, Wright closed his Oak Park studio and began to build a house for himself and Margaret Cheney on 200 acres of his mothers inherited land in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  

Wright named the house Taliesin, meaning “shining brow” in Welsh.  This arrangement between the two went on until August of 1914.  When a chef of Wrights named Julian Carleton, unexpectedly locked the house up and lit the house on fire.  He then axed murdered Margaret and her two children as they tried to get out of the house.  Wright was devastated, in order to get away from the mess he began to bury himself into his work to try and forget. He then set out to rebuild Teliesin. After the incident, Wright was receiving many different letters about the incident.  One from a woman named Mariam Noel. She had claimed to be a sculptor who also had claimed she understood of what Wright was going through.  After they had met, Wright then asked her to move in with him into the newly constructed Taliesin, all while Wright was still technically married to Catherine, his first wife.  As Noel and Wright were married, years later while still married to Miriam, Wright had met a woman named Olga Milanoff Hinzenberg. A native from Yugoslavia, she was the wife of a Russian architect name VLademar Hinzenberg.  In Febuary of 192 Wright invited Olga to move in with him after the divorce of Mariam.  Three years later the two were finally married after their daughter Lovanna was born.  Still in great debt Frank was very eager to take on the design of Fallingwater.  Years later after not even being able to see the finish product of his design of the Guggenheim Museum; on April 4, 1959 after a surgery of intestinal blockage Frank Lloyd Wright past away ware he was buried next to his murdered wife and children. 

Since it is said for Frank to have lived a very scandalous life, it doesn’t take anything away from his designs.  His organic art of architcture will never be forgotten in the world of architecture. He is still considered to be one of the greatest architects of all time. 

Fallingwater…..

This Frank Lloyd Wright piece of design is by far my all time favorite design.  Since I am also very inspired by nature as a designer, I feel that I relate tremendously to his designs.  Fallingwater itself is labeled to be the most unique home in the world.  The house itself was designed in 1935 and constructed in 1936-38.  Whats to interesting about the overall foundation of the house, is that it is built out over a 30' waterfall.  THe overall square footage of the house is 5,330. The final overall cost of Fallingwater came out to be a total of $155,000. 
What I love about this house is the thought and built process within in the design.  I love how he wanted this building to look like as if it had grown into the river... I love the fact that its a very luxurious design giving you the ultimate engagement with nature.  The building now, lets you take tours around the house... and It is one of my goals in this lifetime to make sure that I GO. I feel that it would be one of the greatest designer experience. 

I want to include two videos that I found on the House on Youtube.... 

• The First video shows the virtual building of the house over the waterfall.. I think its really cool to watch.
• The second video Shows more of the Interior of the building, as well as the outside. It also includes some great information on the house and some great interviews as well. Enjoy!!!!!