The America Frank Lloyd Wright Made

when Frank lyd Wright was just 9 years old his mother purchased him a set of blocks to play with analy Jones hoped that her son would grow up to be a great architect and she thought the creativity unlocked and practice with these blocks could Kickstart his journey Ever After Wright was able to see and arrange geometric patterns in alignment with nature by the time Wright attempted to design his first building years later he spent countless hours stacking and arranging the blocks he had hands-on experience observing the effects of proportion and symmetry balance and other principles of design well before he ever picked up a pencil Frank BL R had developed tools that prepared him to perform well at the next stages of his architectural career in one sense the opportunity to practice something that would benefit him later on those sorts of things are out of his Direct Control it has to do with when and where he was born and other external circumstances sometimes opportunities to call on previously honed skills it's a result of chance and Serendipity attributing right success to his opportunities to repair is a much more complex narrative than just the one that he was born as some innate genius with skills and aptitudes that are inaccessible to the average person like you and me instead he got good at things good at things that proved valuable later on and he made decisions that set him up to encounter future obstacles with practiced skills acknowledging the role of chance and external factors in right success should shouldn't take away from our appreciation for his architecture or his achievements but by understanding the context that Wright was navigating I think that we can learn from the decisions that he made it's much more relatable and even closer to reality than attributing his success to a mysterious and innate Talent alone of course we can't draw a straight line from wooden blocks at the start of his career to the Guggenheim that book ended it there had to be a series of these moments in wri's life where the skills he practiced became unexpected ly valuable and accelerated right ahead of his peers here's where I think they are Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 and he lived for 91 years 70 of those were dedicated to designing buildings let's divide this span of time into three parts each one comes with their own set of contexts the first era contains the events that led up to Wright establishing his own practice in 1893 the second era contains the bulk of his architecture career and the third is his late career and Legacy such a long productive life spanning the turn of the 20th century encompasses enormously significant events like world wars and technological inventions from the candlelit offices of Adler and Sullivan to the sprawling Arizona headquarters at talles and West wri's career evolves as he takes advantage of rapid changes in how we live as well as significant shifts in our culture and the economy it's within this turbulence that Wright was able to find new ways to practice as an architect and to become the preeminent cultural figure that we know today rot was born in Richland Center Wisconsin at the age of 19 he was admitted to the University of Wisconsin in Madison as a special student where he attended for two semesters he studied drafting under Alan Conover a professor of civil engineering Wright wasn't particularly a conscientious student apparently he rarely attended class he was there long enough though to learn how to draft from his civil engineering tutor but not long enough to earn a degree instead Wright got his foot in the door of architecture through family connections back at home Wright's uncle was a prominent Unitarian Minister and he needed a new Chapel for his congregation in Spring Green Wisconson jenin Lloyd Jones commissioned a Chicago architect for the project and he appointed his nephew to oversee matters of the Interior young Wright performed well enough in his advisory role that the Chapel's architect Joseph Lyman Silsby officially hired right after construction Silsby was a fantastic architect of houses and smaller institutional structures he also happened to be a professor that taught architecture at some of the finest schools in the country while rright never officially attended architecture school his first job was ended up being a close corollary and the skills and the techniques that Wright learned while working for Silsby would show up throughout his career take the chapel for instance it's in a style named for its shingled exterior walls shingle style homes have a particular cross-shaped layout that Wright would adapt in his early designs secondly the shingled exterior creates a peculiar relationship between the roof and the facade this building to me at least reads like a stone foundation with a giant roof the middle portion looks like it's designed to visually recede into the background the same is true for the interior with the wood on the bottom and top and the blank band in the middle this style of building later morphed into the prairie style pioneered by people like Silsby Wright and others that worked for ssby the prairie style exaggerates the roof overhang to the degree that the walls seem to dis appear like in the Roby house here for instance so sby provided rights initial architectural education after the blocks and the drawing but there was another benefit that probably did even more to shaper right's career it brought him to Chicago the city rebuilding from the great fire that wiped everything away only 20 years earlier Chicago was emerging as a new modern Metropolis From the Ashes Architects and construction could barely keep Pace Wright's second job took him to the office of Adler and unlike Silsby that firm specialized in the largest and the most avangard buildings there were skyscrapers Adler and Sullivan were Central to the rebuilding of Chicago and true Pioneers as they experimented in every single project with new ways of developing and incorporating new technologies steel frames terra cotta facades these would become the standards for how we would think about tall structures ever since however right's expertise until this point was designing Interiors not soaring vertical Towers but he made it work he was responsible for the office's most ambitious Interiors in big buildings like the auditorium building from 1889 here the Street lobby and the auditorium space flow seamlessly together through arches and stairs the building is so heavy that it sank 3 ft into the ground after construction but somehow Frankl Wright was able to make it feel weightless as soon as you walk in the trick of compressing the space down vertically only to release it later became a staple of wri's work Wright was put in charge of a few houses while he was at the firm as well this is the Charley persy house designed by Lis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 James Charley was a lumber magnate that new Sullivan from parties and other High Society events around town and this house features a number of right signature moves including the central fireplace the low slung connections between the spaces and rooms and the simple geometric motifs that you find in the Woodwork Edler and Sullivan didn't design very many houses like this while their head draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright loved designing them so much so that he took extra commissions after hours that he would keep for himself Louis Sullivan discovered this and asked Wright to choose the office or the sidew work Wright bet on himself and set up shop in nearby Oak Park in 1893 so the most ambitious architects in Chicago were focusing on big commercial buildings downtown but with all of the New Wealth that was generated by the manufacturing a new class of client was emerging and they didn't want the same traditional style homes that Architects were making at the time and Wright in this case offered something almost completely unique the modern forward-thinking attitude of practices like Sullivan coupled with the attention to detail in the Interiors from someone say like Silsby one of wri's early employees was Marian Mahoney Griffin she was the first licensed female architect in the world she was fascinated by woodblock prints from Japan she even developed a unique way of drawing and rendering buildings that borrowed from the style this is the drawing she made for the design of the ward Willets house a beautiful soft perspective of the prairie style design in nearby Highland Park Wright also came to appreciate the aesthetic of these Japanese artifacts and it didn't hurt that his office was becoming pretty well known for that style of drawing that Marian helped develop once the office was strong enough enough to run without him for a bit he decided to go to Japan to see it for himself so along with Ward and Cecilia Willets the clients of the ward willit house Wright traveled to Japan in 1905 he spent 3 months photographing the Landscapes and temples the influence on the work was immediate most academically trained Architects at this time would have chosen to travel to Europe to study classical architecture so the uniqueness of the Japanese elements in the American context are pretty easy to identify the first building that he started working ring on upon his return it was Unity Temple the plan for Unity Temple is almost identical to a Japanese Temple with both sharing a bclear layout of two main areas with a smaller connection between he also chose a truly unique material for Unity Temple it's made almost entirely from reinforced concrete technically reinforced concrete had been invented about 50 years prior but Architects didn't really know what to do with it yet the first concrete house ever just looks like a normal house but made of concrete but the material holds so much more promise than that even at Unity Temple the choice was made largely just to save on costs a single mold could be used to achieve all the repetitive detail work no longer would a Craftsman need to make each instance by hand but again this represents only a fraction of the possibilities of the new kinds of architectural forms that reinforce concrete offers right was in on the ground floor of a technology that could completely transform what buildings could do soaring Cal levers graceful curves some of his most famous buildings like falling water or the Guggenheim would never have been possible without the capabilities of reinforced concrete as an early adopter his explorations serve as a reference for all Explorations since there's also another hugely significant historical development that makes right's work seem almost prophetic as the suburbs began spreading across the United States starting in the 194s and 50s writes work provided a road map for how to think about them his Visionary developments like broad acre City explored Concepts that would become the suburbs that we know today long roads and huge expanses of land devoted primarily to residential construction each home with an acre of land these were wri's dreams this was wri's utopian vision and it reflected his ideals even in his design for single homes his eonian series of homes modeled by the Jacobs house for instance provided a small single level inexpensive house for a small family and many attribute the development of such basic and ubiquitous house styles such as the ranch style or the split level as coming directly from wri's design work and ideas he thought of these early before the United States needed them so fully ranch style homes or split levels from the 1970s which can be found everywhere are said to have evolved from W's initial work from years before the turn to build endless suburbs in the United States after World War I built heavily on rights ideas and almost every single house inside of a post-war suburb 's trace this Broad applicability and usefulness of his ideas came decades after he developed them and they were instituted in ways that he could have never foreseen nonetheless their broad delivery keeps Wright and his work in our minds Wright also made sure that he remained visible through newly developing forms of mass media throughout his lifetime as new kinds of printed media like magazines radio film or television became available wght was there to engage them he was prepared to use what he had learned to take advantage of these new opportunities throughout his 70-year career so I want to say it just to be clear Wright was a fantastic architect and a shrewd thinker to pay special attention to his context like this is no way diminishing his skill these factors to are not the only ones that I would attribute to the broad popularity and appeal for instance Wright also ran his practice like a school training apprentices that lived with him teaching your Concepts and techniques to others it significantly magnifies the reach of their influence this is maybe something that he learned from Silsby conversely Wright had a supremely tumultuous career with very low points marked by tragedies that would have sidelined anyone with less grit than right but this lens of appreciating external opportunities and how significant figures benefited from them I think it's useful overall I'm clearly inspired by Malcolm gladwell's outliers the story of success through this way of looking at things figures like Wright seized opportunities with skills that they had honed over years in one context which serendipitously gives them a huge advantage in another context without a family hiring an architect without moving to Chicago without the tutelage of two important Architects without an employee bringing a taste of Japan to the office and without new materials and new forms of mass media Frank lyd Wright's Works would never have been possible but of course without Frank lyd Wright they wouldn't have been possible either Frank lyd Wright loved being in the spotlight inviting students and clients 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Channel: Stewart Hicks

Views: 224,885

Keywords: architecture, design, architecture student, architecture design, architecture lecture for beginners, architecture 101, architecture documentary, architecture concept, architecture theory, stewart hicks, architecture talk, urban design, chicago

Id: ZXyiK-zVKsE

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024