by Albert Aunchman

Created on: May 20, 2008

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867. His parents, William Cary Wright and Anna Lloyd-Jones, had originally named him Frank Lincoln Wright, which he changed after their divorce. At age 12, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin. He spent summers at his uncle's farm in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where he first became interested in becoming an architect. In 1885, he left Madison High School, without finishing, to work for Allan Conover, the Dean of the University of Wisconsin's Engineering Department. He studied civil engineering for two semesters before moving to Chicago in 1887.

While working for architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee, Wright drafted his first building, the Lloyd-Jones family chapel, also known as the Unity Chapel.
Not satisfied with his $8.00 per week salary, Wright left Silsbee after a few months and was accepted as a draftsman for Louis Sullivan, one of the finest architects in the Chicago area. It was here that Frank learned the saying "Form Follows Function", which he later changed to "Form and Function are One". Frank believed, like Sullivan, that American Architecture should be based on American function, not European traditions. Frank Lloyd Wright credits Sullivan as one of the primary influences on his career. While working for Sullivan, he met and fell in love with Catherine Tobin. They married in 1889. Catherine and Frank had six children.

Frank left Adler and Sullivan Company in 1893 to begin his own business in Chicago. Five years later, he moved his business to a studio in his Oak Park home.

Frank's early houses had a style all their own. They had no basements or attics, and resembled a horizontal plane. Frank designed with natural materials and never used paint. The low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs, and walls of windows married these homes with their environments. There were often large stone, or brick fireplaces that were at the center, areas were wide open, rooms flowed into one another.

Wright saw his architecture as "organic", emphasizing a principle of order, structure, and form found in nature. He believed that every building should relate harmoniously to its natural surroundings, being dynamic rather than a static boxlike enclosure. He was a great influence to the Midwestern Prairie School of Architecture, with its emphasis on the indigenous midwestern style. He later became one of its chief practitioners.

In 1909, Wright left for Germany with a woman named Mamah Borthwick Cheney. They returned to

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