Frank Lloyd Wright was the greatest architect of all time. Period. At least that’s what they told me in design school. He was a modernist prior to the movement transferred to Europe and started wearing all white. His job was warm and organic, yet thoroughly contemporary.
Once I was in school, the Europeans held my attention. I was enamored with Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus movement in Germany. In all honesty, I never truly understood Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. It seemed obsolete to me. He seemed overly fussy in their own particulars, and the ornamentation didn’t suit my youthful minimalist tendencies. The stark modernism of the Bauhaus movement sounded easier to comprehend.
But since I have developed, Frank Lloyd Wright’s work has resonated with me more and more. There is a tactile quality to his layouts. It has an individual scale, which seems simple, but it is among the toughest thing to accomplish. His buildings fit in perfectly, softly tucked into the landscape. His job is intimate and expansive at the same moment.
It ends up that the modernism I loved in my youth has lost its influence on me. But Frank Lloyd Wright? He continues to inspire me. I find myself coming back to his job over and over, endlessly fascinated. I think I could spend a lifetime trying to understand his job.
And I have some questions.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
He usually wore a fedora and a cape. That’s correct, I mentioned a cape.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Frank worked for Louis Sullivan as a draftsman early in his career. But he took commissions to design homes for some of Sullivan’s clients in the evenings. When Sullivan found out, he fired Frank Lloyd Wright. Whenever I think about the last job I was fired from, I try to picture Frank Lloyd Wright walking out of Sullivan’s office on his last day. I wager he tossed his cape on his shoulder and then slammed the door on his way out.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
I talked about this earlier, right? All his entrance doors are so hard to discover. What’s?
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Wright had a way of using really low ceilings to create intimate spaces; places where you could rest and feel secure. Which come in handy since you recover from hitting your mind once standing up too fast.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Fallingwater has many meanings.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Frank Lloyd Wright was ahead of the time in terms of structural engineering. He regularly experimented and pushed the boundaries of the construction practices of the time. The story goes that the contractor on the Johnson Wax Building didn’t feel that the mushroom-shaped columns were structurally sound. So Frank Lloyd Wright climbed on top of one to show the employees that they were hardy. I’m sure he seemed majestic up there, white hair and tweed cape flapping in the wind. I’m also convinced the workers moved the ladder away while he was up there.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
Frank was the Harrison Ford of structure, or at the Rutger Hauer.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
All artwork is best seen by bike.
Jody Brown Architecture, pllc
I just found this house today. It was among the last projects Frank Lloyd Wright designed, and construction was just finished a few short years ago. See what I mean? Endlessly fascinating …
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