Frank Lloyd Wright was a world renowned architect, interior decorator, writer, and art collector. The name Frank Lloyd Wright has become synonymous with American Architecture, as he is the greatest known and most influential American architect to date.
Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8th, 1867, the son of musician and pastor, William Cary Wright and Anna Lloyd Jones. Early on, his mother had high hopes for Wright, it is reported that she even proclaimed that "he would grow up to build buildings" and she hung engravings of famous European cathedrals all round his nursery as to cultivate in him a love of architecture. And Wright, in his autobiography, cites a set of building blocks that his mother gave him as being "deeply influential to his architectural work" he also said that the summers he spent at his uncle's farm brought out in him a love of nature which later became a dominant theme in his designs.
At the age of 12 Wright moved with his family to Madison, Wisconsin where he attended high school, however, at the age of 15 he left without graduating and began working for Allan Conover, a local builder. Conover was also a professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Wisconsin where he helped the young Wright to get admitted as a special student. Wright attended Draftmanship classes there for two years but again left before he graduated.
In 1887 Wright moved to Chicago, Illinois which, at that time, was a Mecca for builders and architects as the city was undergoing a massive reconstruction due to the devastation of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Wright's uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, helped him get a job as a draftsman with Joseph Lyman Silsbee, a Chicago architect who was commissioned to design the Unity chapel for his uncle, which Wright did some work on.
Wright soon left his job with Silsbee to work with the firm of Adler and Sullivan, who's designs were bolder and more suited to Wrights style and talents. Louis Sullivan was considered one of the greatest architects of his time and was one of Wright's primary influences. Wright adopted Sullivan's philosophy of form follows function as well as his belief that American architecture should be based on American function rather than European tradition.
In 1889 Wright met Catherine Tobin whom he later married and with five thousand dollars loaned to him by his boss Louis Sullivan, the two built a home in Oak Park, Illinois where they had five children together. Wright's family was not the only thing growing during this time, his reputation as a top notch designer quickly spread throughout the Chicago area. Clients began approaching Wright privately wanting him to design their homes, and due to financial problems associated with his large family, Wright accepted, he called these his bootleg houses. Sullivan eventually found out that Wright was designing houses behind his back and asked him to leave the firm.
Wright opened his own practice in Chicago in 1893 where he remained for five years before moving the practice to his Home in Oak Park. By this time Wright had no problem building a successful business as he was well established as one of the brightest designers in the area. Wright liked to incorporate natural materials into his houses and his early designs had a distinct mid-western feel, with low roof pitches, deep eaves, and large open living spaces that flowed onto one another, his designs later helped start a style known as prairie school architecture.
Wright's reputation began to spread beyond Chicago around the turn of the century when a magazine article gave him national recognition. In 1904 Wright completed the exhaustive Larkin Soap Company Administration Building in Buffalo, New York. And in 1905 Wright, needing a break from the Larkin project, took a trip to Japan where he developed a love for Japanese art, Wright later met Frederick Gookin, an expert on Japanese art. It was Gookin who brokered the deal to have Wright design the Imperial hotel in Tokyo, Japan although it almost never happened.
Wright's life took a wrong turn, when in 1909 he fell in love with Mamah Brothwick Cheney, the wife of one of his clients. Wright abandoned his wife and children, closed his practice, and he and Cheney moved to Germany until 1911 when they returned to America. Not wanting to return to Chicago, Wright and Cheney moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin where Wright's mother had given him some land, there they built a home which Wright famously dubbed Taliesin.
Wright, in debt from the construction of Taliesin, began working again and had no problem finding clients, he eventually opened another office in Chicago to accommodate all of the projects he had there. In 1914, while Wright was in Chicago working, tragedy struck at Taliesin, a crazed servant set fire to the house and killed Cheney and six others with an ax as they tried to escape the flames. To spite his grief, Wright almost immediately began re-building Taliesin which again bankrupted him.
Soon after the tragedy at Taliesin, Wright fell in love with Miriam Noel and they lived together at the newly re-constructed Taliesin, they could not be married as Wright's first wife, Tobin, would not grant him a divorce. Wright's reputation began to blossom worldwide and in 1916 he and Noel left for Tokyo, Japan where he began working on the Imperial Hotel. Wright designed the hotel to tolerate earthquakes, and his ideas helped revolutionize the design of buildings in earthquake zones. The Hotel proved worthy as it survived the 1923 quake that destroyed several buildings around the Hotel.
In 1922 Wright and Noel returned to America and to spite a turbulent relationship, were married as Wright's first wife gave in and consented to a divorce. Ironically, however, they separated six months later. With Wright alone at Taliesin he began working harder then ever opening a new chapter in his life.
From 1922 to 1928 Wright spent a lot of time out west, during this time he designed several now famous homes in California. His work had evolved, taking on Mayan and Japanese influences and as always, he still incorporated natural materials, and tried to design buildings that not only were harmonious with nature but mimicked nature.
In 1924 Wright met Olgivanna Lazovich Hinzenberg who eventually became his third and final wife, It seemed Wright had finally found his ideal woman. Then in April of 1925, while the two of them were living at Taliesin, fire destroyed the house yet again, and yet again Wright set about to re-build it. Good news arrived later that year when, in December, Olgivanna gave birth to their daughter Iovanna.
Wright developed a passion for the desert region of Arizona while working on the San Marcos Resort Project in the Phoenix area in 1928, however the project was abandon in October of 1929 when the Stock market crash brought on the Great Depression. During the Depression work was almost non existent so Wright turned to writing and teaching to make ends meet.
After the depression in 1936 Wright built Fallingwater for Edger Kaufmann in Pennsylvania, perhaps his most famous house. The house personifies the name Frank Lloyd Wright, with it's horizontal design, multi-level flat roofs, and floating balconies. The house is an engineering feat, built directly on top of a waterfall in the Appalachian Mountains.
Wright built Taliesin West in 1937 in Scottsdale, Arizona where he and his family lived when not at Taliesin north in Wisconsin. He opened a foundation at Taliesin West where young apprentice Architects would pay to be taught and work with a true master. Taliesin West still serves as a school for architects today. Many Masterpieces were produced from within the walls of Taliesin West, like the Guggenhiem Museum in New York City, the Unitarian Meeting House in Wisconsin, Price Tower in Oklahoma, or the Marin County Civic Center in California which was not completed until after Wright's death. Throughout Wright's career he created an astonishing 1,141 designs of which 532 were completed.
At age 92 at his home in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 9, 1959 Wright died from complications from intestinal surgery. He was buried next to his mother and Mamah Cheney in Spring Green, Wisconsin and in 1985, when his wife Olgivanna died, his body was brought to Arizona where they were both cremated and the ashes were buried together.