The Life and Works of Frank Lloyd Wright - Term Paper Example

?The Life and Works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Section # of The Life and Works of Frank Lloyd Wright Biography Credited with over 1100 designs, and born in 1867 to William Cary Wright and Anna Lloyd-Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright started his life in a small town called Richland Center in Wisconsin, where he lived for twelve years, before moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 1879. He attended high school here, and spent summers with his uncle in Spring Green, where he first got interested in becoming an architect. In 1885, at the age of eighteen, despite not having finished high school yet, Wright began to work for the Dean of the University of Wisconsin’s engineering department, as well as studying civil engineering for two semesters, since they offered no architecture courses. But Wright was not interested in staying at the university and left in 1887 to work for J.L Silsbee in Chicago. Wright worked under Silsbee learning architectural detail. It was here that he drafted the construction of his first building, the Unity Chapel. Wright then moved on to work in the firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, where he not only progressed to become chief assistant to Sullivan but also met and then married his first wife Catherine Tobin. Wright was He worked here until 1893 and then opened his own architectural practice where he worked for the next five years. In 1909 Wright moved to Germany but returned in 1911. He then moved to Spring Green with Mamah Borthwick Cheney to work on a piece of ancestral land his mother had given him. It was here that Wright constructed one of his famous works, Taliesin. However in 1914, one of their servants went insane and tragically murdered Cheney and six others, thereby destroying what Wright had so lovingly built, but he refused to allow it to stop him and to the surprise of many, ended up rebuilding Taliesin. Wright eventually began spreading his influence and in 1914 he was asked to build the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. In 1932, Wright converted Taliesin into an architectural fellowship where 30 young students paid to become his apprentices and learn from him. It was also during this particular period that Wright married his third wife Olivanna Milanoff. Eventually however as Wright began getting older, he desired living in a warmer more comfortable climate and therefore, in 1937, moved from Wisconsin to Phoenix Arizona. Here, Wright built Taliesin West which served the same purpose as Taliesin, i.e. an architectural fellowship where students could pay to learn from him. Wright spent a happy 20 years here but in 1959, at the age of 92, Wright died. Fallingwater Fallingwater or Kaufman residence is considered one of the most famous works of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was constructed in 1935 as the residence of the wealthy Pittsburg businessman, Edward Kaufmann, with construction taking a little more than two years, and the house being complete by October 1937. It is one of the most recognizable images of modern architecture, marked by the waterfall running beneath the house and strongly characterized by distinctive horizontal and vertical lines. The house is breathtakingly admired not only for its general beauty and picturesque location but rather by the seamless integration between these two things, i.e. man-made architecture and the natural surroundings it is located it. Stone and reinforced concrete were the two materials used to make most of the house. The floors and ceilings were all made from reinforced concrete but there were raised stone slabs on the floor and the walls too were made of rough, untreated stone. This gave the house a very natural yet modern look, with a mixture of natural wood, concrete and stone, complemented by glass enhancing its natural appeal. Wright understood the balance between wanting to be with nature as well as wanting to be sheltered from it and so he made big, broad windows of glass on the exterior so that the water and the nature around the house would be clearly visible but he then made sure the inside of the house resembled a cave to some extent, with the wood and stone walls and flooring (Hoffman, 1993). With only three primary materials, concrete for strength, stone for beauty and glass for ventilation, Fallingwater relied on art and construction to make its mark. Nonetheless, even though the same basic theme was followed throughout, there were variations in different portions of the house. The house reflects slightly on the interest Wright had in Japanese architecture, with its sharp, clear minimal exterior and by the balance he sought between man and nature, a profound focus of Japanese architecture. Wright also struck the right balance between how secluded and how open the house was, with multiple entrances throughout the house, and no one direct main entrance, but also clear paths within the house, including the staircases. Even in the interior of the house, Wright kept this balance sound in mind, as well as bearing in mind the personal angle of the house. One of the striking features of the house is the fireplace in the living room. The location of the house was a favorite summer spot for the Kaufmann family and so when they came across a certain large stone that Wright originally intended on leveling, he decided to keep it as it was and allowed it to form the base of the boulders in the fireplace. Furthermore, the stone floors of the house were all waxed and therefore shiny, but the fireplace was left rough, as it was, so that the look it gave was that of stones emerging from a water body or by a river bank. Another example of integrating the house with its surroundings is the staircase that leads from the living into a stream directly below the house. Throughout the house, Wright paid attention to such detail, doing his best not to eliminate any part of nature that the house might conflict with. Streams that were running were allowed to remain running through the house, with necessary steps taken to accommodate the stream, not the inverse, where one would be expected to accommodate original construction. Fallingwater truly is a work of art and such a treat to the eyes and a marvel of the mind that it’s enough to just imagine how actually living it would feel. As said in the St. Louis Dispatch (1937), ‘Though it’s probably true that no house very like this has ever been built anywhere, this one didn’t spring full-blown from the architect’s imagination. When finished (probably in June) it will seem to have grown by a natural process of geology out of the boulders of Bear Run.’ The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum One of the other most famous works of Frank Lloyd Wright is the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The museum is home to countless pieces of art and opened up to the public in 1959. When the building was first built it was met with controversy and criticism, mainly due to its extremely non-conventional design. Over time however that is exactly what it is most admired for. The building is a truly remarkable one with the entire building basically being consisted of one single floor in a giant logarithmic spiral, constructed as one continuous floor rather than separate floors on top of each other (Wright, 1946). It is an amazing work of art as not one, two, three or four, but seven entire floors are constructed in this spiral manner. Shaped like an upside down ziggurat, with a large interior court and a spiral ramp ringing throughout, the unconventional shape confused many people. Perhaps the reason for this extraordinary shape was best explained by Levine (1997) when he said, ‘because anything that forms a pyramidal shape is sad...and pessimistic, and of course the Egyptian pyramid, the image of death. And in his view, the turning of it upside down was to make, as he said, an optimistic ziggurat... the kind of mythic ziggurat which is the tower of Babel....’ The museum starts from top to bottom, with visitors first being taken to the top in an elevator and then making their way down the rest of the building. There are windows on the exterior of the building which allow light to enter but also serve as partitions between the ramps that create the different levels. Construction on the museum started in 1943 and ended in 1959, months after the death of Wright who unfortunately did not live to see it completed in its full glory. Conclusion I chose Frank Lloyd Wright as my artist of focus because I find him, as well as his works of art and architecture a great source of inspiration. Wright was not afraid to take risks and construct structures unheard of in both design and construction, not only for the time that he was living in, but also some that would show remarkable innovation even if they had been originally proposed in the times of today. Wright did not succumb to the cynicism, discouragement or criticism conventional architectures that followed the rules of the book would pore on him and his designs but rather he followed his heart with whatever creative inspiration his intuition revealed. I also appreciated Wright’s work because he worked towards uniting nature and manmade creations, illustrated beautifully by one of his most famous works, and one of my chosen pieces of art, fallingwater. He understood the importance of staying in touch with nature and allowing its influence on our daily lives, while also understanding the need for clear, minimal space to enjoy it from. He seamlessly integrated unconventional design with conventional comfort, and he beautifully included nature in all his modern designs, so that futuristic as they may have been, they were still familiar to the inner sense, where one did not feel out of zone in the constructions. Furthermore, Wright has had more influence on American architecture than perhaps any other single person could have had. He changed the way construction was seen and turned it into an area of art and expression, creating landmarks that even to this day serve as tourist sites with hundreds of thousands of visitors pouring in each year to marvel at and admire his amazing works of art, and he served as inspiration for countless others to follow after him, and continues to be a pioneer and leading inspiration in American architecture even today. References Dual, Sloane & Pierce (2005) An Autobiography, by Frank Lloyd Wright, Pomegranate. Hoffmann, D. (1993) Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater: The House and Its History. New York: Dover Books. Kaufmann, E. (1983) Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House. New York: Abbeville Press. Levine, N. (1997) The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright Robert McCarter, R. (1994) Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright. London: Phaidon Press. Bock, G. (2002) Repairing: An Insider’s View of Reparing Steel Windows at Fallingwater.’ Old-house journal. Pg.44 Read More