Frank Lloyd Wright: Influential Modern Day Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright has often been revered as America's most creative and innovative architect, and rightfully so. His career spanned some seventy years and within his lengthy run he created some of the most unique and forward thinking building designs in the United States. Beginning his education at the University of Wisconsin, Wright studied engineering before embarking on another endeavor, an apprenticeship in the architectural studio of Joseph Lyman Silsbee in 1887. Silsbee worked in five prevalent stylistic trends in America at that time: Gothic Revival, Richardsonian, Romanesque, Queen Anne, Shingle, and Colonial Revival. His concentration being residential design, many believe Silsbee was a huge influence in Wright's own stylistic development of residential design, which is known as the Prairie School. For the next five years Wright (1888-93) worked in the office of Chicago School Architects, Denkmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, as a draftsman on the Auditorium Building. During his tenure with Adler and Sullivan, Wright absorbed much of Sullivan's influence, working in both commercial and residential designs. His real passion was that of residential design; and commissions he worked on aside from his work with Adler and Sul
Art Nouveau, with three main centers (Brussels, Paris and Nancy, and Barcelona) was the name of this short-lived movement. Art Nouveau designers used organic design in a much more romanticized and fantastic manner reminiscent of the extravagant forms and lines of the Baroque and Rococo periods. Wright's use of organic forms was much more reserved and structured, as were Sullivan's abstracted organic architectural details. In conclusion, the movements in the United States and Europe seemed to be in sync with the invention of the machine and industrialization, with an effort to revert back to nature rather than historical precedent in order to move forward in architectural design. Many practicing architects were also returning to nature as inspiration, as well as the abstract scope of geometry, incorporating fantasy and exaggeration. Evolving from the Arts and Crafts movement and Classicism, and in reaction to the more unstructured Expressionist style of the Art Nouveau, European Modernists sought to create a more functionalist, abstract, modern style infused with restrained Art Nouveau elements. Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois, built in 1893. Frank Lloyd Wright put it best when saying, "The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built. He often designed custom stained glass, fabrics, furniture, carpet, light fixtures, and accessories for each house. During the same time overseas, there was no real comparable movement to the Chicago School, but there was plenty experimenting in the search of new forms in architecture and design. Low, horizontal lines, meant to harmonize with the flat surrounding landscapes, characterized the prairie houses that developed in the following years. The buildings Mackintosh created are noted for their elegance and the clarity of their spatial concepts, much like those of Frank Lloyd Wright. The evolution of Wright's distinctive personal style at the turn of the century hinted at what would be "prairie style". The first commissions of his new solo practice were primarily for the design of private homes in affluent Chicago suburbs.
Common topics in this essay:
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Acceptance Essays
