Introduction:Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior

r designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity

and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. Wright

conceived virtually every detail of both the external design and the internal fixtures, including furniture, carpets, windows, doors, tables and chairs, light fittings and decorative elements. He was one of the first architects to design and supply custom-made, purpose-built furniture and fittings that functioned as integrated parts of the whole design. Believing that the space within that building is the reality of that building, Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States.

His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices,
churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass.

Personal style and concepts

His Prairie houses use themed, coordinated design elements (often based on plant forms) that are repeated in windows, carpets and other fittings. He made innovative use of new building materials such as precast concrete blocks, glass bricks and zinc cames (instead of the traditional lead) for his leadlight windows, and he famously used Pyrex glass tubing as a major element in the Johnson Wax Headquarters. As ever Wright was concerned with creating an interior living space that was practical and comfortable. Gravity heat was installed by placing coils of pipes under the concrete slab floor Wright was also one of the first architects to design and install custom-made electric light fittings, including some

of the very first electric floor lamps, and his very early use of the then-novel spherical glass lampshade (a design
previously not possible due to the physical restrictions of gas lighting). As Wright's career progressed, so did the mechanization of the glass industry. Wright fully embraced glass in his designs and found that it fit well into his philosophy of organic architecture. Glass allowed for interaction and viewing of the outdoors while still protecting from the elements. Wright responded to the transformation of domestic life that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, when servants became a less prominent or completely absent from most American households, by developing homes with progressively more open plans.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Important Ideas: Usonian Prairie Style Organic Architecture Hemicycle Designs Famous Quotes by Frank Lloyd Wright: "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

Colleagues and influences Wright rarely credited any influences on his designs, but most architects, historians and scholars agree he had five major influences: 1. Louis Sullivan, whom he considered to be his 'Lieber Meister' (dear master), 2. Nature, particularly shapes/forms and colors/patterns of plant life, 3. Music (his favorite composer was Ludwig van Beethoven, 4. Japanese art, prints and buildings, 5. Froebel Gifts

Prairie style houses usually have these features: I. Low-pitched roof II. Overhanging eaves III. Horizontal lines IV. Central chimney V. Open floor plan VI. Clerestory window About the Prairie Style: Frank Lloyd Wright believed that rooms in Victorian era homes were boxed-in and confining. Began designing houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces. Rooms often divided by leaded glass panels. Furniture was either built-in or specially designed. Homes were called prairie style after Wright's 1901 Ladies Home Journal plan titled, "A Home in a Prairie Town." Prairie houses were designed to blend in with the flat, prairie landscape. The first Prairie houses were usually plaster with wood trim or sided with horizontal board and batten. Later Prairie homes used concrete block. Prairie homes can have many shapes: Square, L-shaped, T-shaped, Y-shaped, and even pinwheel-shaped. In 1936, during the USA depression, Frank Lloyd Wright developed a simplified version of Prairie architecture called Usonian. Wright believed these stripped-down houses represented the democratic ideals of the United States. Wright's best-known art glass is that of the Prairie style. The simple geometric shapes that yield to very ornate and intricate windows represent some of the most integral ornamentation of his career. Famous Prairie Houses by Frank Lloyd Wright 1893: William Winslow Residence River Forest, Illinois. Although this house uses ornamentation in the fashion of Louis Sullivan, it also shows elements of the new Prairie style. The house is a symmetrical rectangle. 1901: Frank W. Thomas House Oak Park, Illinois. Widely considered Wright's first Prairie Style house in Oak Park, and one of his earliest uses of stucco. 1902: Arthur Heurtley House Oak Park, Illinois. This low, compact house has variegated brickwork with vibrant color and rough texture. 1909: Robie Residence This Frank Lloyd house in Chicago is widely considered Wright's finest example of the Prairie style.

Organic Architecture This school of thought holds that architecture should reflect nature and exhibit the same amount of unity as prevails in nature. F. L. Wright and Louis Sullivan were the pioneers of organic architecture. Wright defined organic architecture as that in which all the parts are related to the whole and the whole is related to the parts. To explain the concept of unity in nature, the architect used a living organism as an example: Harmony of the part in relation to the whole. The parts are made according to the function of the organism. The form of the organism decides the character of the organism. Applying these concepts , his building designs emphasize the following principles: Integration of parts to the whole. Design of parts controls the design of the whole. Use of materials in organic architecture Wright had a deep knowledge of and a lot of respect for natural materials such as wood and stone. These materials had hitherto been used in different ways covered, painted, plastered, and altered to suit any particular fashion or taste. But in his works, these materials were always used in the natural form, by allowing for instance, the use of masses of stone as the natural feature of the building.

This philosophy was best exemplified by his design for Falling water (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture". . When organic architecture is properly carried out no landscape is ever outraged by it but is always developed by it, said Wright. The good building makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built. This was Wrights achievement at Fallingwater.

Side Chair, Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, 1895. Oak with leather seat. Dimensions: 57 x 17 x 19 Built in 1895 for the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, these side chairs have high backs that extend above the heads of the sitters. When positioned around a dining table, the chairs created a temporary, intimate enclosure of space, a room within a room. Miniature Wright Imperial Hotel Chair Miniature Wright Robie House 1 chair

The "Barrel Chair" by Frank Lloyd Wright was designed in 1937 for Herbert Johnson's house, Wingspread. Made of natural cheerywood with an upholstered leather seat, the chair was a reworking of a design Wright created in 1904. Miniature Frank Lloyd Wright Johnson Wax Chair

Origami Chair"

Frank Lloyd Wright Lewis Tables

Low square tables in natural cherrywood, stained walnut or stained black. Frank Lloyd Wright's 1949 Taliesin "Origami Chair" is one of the most coveted of his furniture designs. Designed as if it was folded from a sheet of plywood, the chair has had many incarnations associated with different Wright house projects. Dimensions: 90 x 90 x H 41 cm 115 x 115 x H 41 cm Design: Frank Lloyd Wright Manufacturer: Cassina

Print table

Made by Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 18671959) Manufactured by William E. Nemmers White oak

This print table with folding stand was designed for Francis W. Little's summer house on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. Frank Lloyd Wright arranged the furniture and fixtures as part of the overall architectural composition of the living room

Falling Water: interior spaces

A house built over a waterfall way back in 1934, it has had the honor of being designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. Having ranked 29th on Americas Favorite Architecture of all times, this house was the former residence of Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr.

View from lookout, downstream. Frank Lloyd Wright planned the house with this particular view in mind.

Building form:Dramatic cantilevered terraces reflect the similar structure of the rock ledges below. Roomy terraces on either side of the living room on the main level, as well as the large terrace above it, create strong horizontal lines balanced by the almost unbroken vertical lines in the tower on the left (which in addition to stone columns over 10 meters tall, has 3 stories of floor-toceiling windows). These and many other clear horizontal and vertical lines in the house may be compared with the formation of the rock, with the horizontal and vertical of ground and trees, and with the water moving horizontally in the stream (Bear run) and vertically as "falling water" in the form of waterfalls .The falls visible in the photo break at an angle, creating an illusion of water flowing out from beneath the middle of the house. The sound of the flowing water fills the house continuously.

There is no grand front entrance, if that means big double doors flanked by decorations and symbolizing the barrier between outside and inside. Rather, the continuity of inside and outside is emphasized, in keeping with the theme of a harmonious and natural relationship to the setting. Other examples of this, besides everything mentioned above, include windows wrapping all the way around 3 sides of the huge living room, and at the corners where two window panes meet here and at other places in the house such as the west tower - there are no bulky vertical support beams. Most prominent in the photo is the sitting area, which includes a long built-in upholstered bench accompanied by cushioned modular seating. A similar, longer bench extends practically the full width of the living room, under the "front" windows at a right angle to the window in this picture. Cushions on the benches and in the modular seating are stone white or autumn colors. In front of the fireplace, lighter stone is visible; this is actually the top of an original boulder on the site, left in place, and which protrudes slightly above the level of the rest of the floor, becoming the hearth.

Living room, west (downstream) side, from southeast

The dining table at the north end of the living room.

There is no separate dining room at Fallingwater. Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered "open plan" house design, favoring large, open and connected spaces rather than small, enclosed rooms. Fallingwater's great room (usually called the living room on this site) has this dining area, a fireplace nearby, seating areas one might expect to find in a living room, a built-in desk, lots of space, and lots of windows (as well as glass doors opening onto balconies) on the south end.

Dining area showing portrait of Edgar Kaufmann, Sr.

The kitchen is small, with a stove on the left wall, a table and chairs, and cabinets and sink on the right wall. Built-in shelves follow the contour of the space, conveying a feeling of being sturdy and protected, like the inner portions of the house itself. The windows in the photo reach from floor to ceiling, and make up the lower third of a three-story wall of glass in the west tower. So the kitchen is at the foundation of the most dramatic vertical statement in the architectural design of the house. Above the kitchen is the dressing room.

These stairs descend from the third floor gallery to the second floor landing next to the bridge across the driveway to the covered walk leading up to the guest house. Books on the left wall are on shelves made of the same wood as that used elsewhere in the house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright upon request. They are not fully cantilevered, having vertical support boards as well. Light pours in from the third floor terrace to the gallery area, spilling over the low wall just visible on the right, but much better seen on the left in the gallery photo.

Third floor stair with bookshelves.

Most exposed shelves throughout the house are cantilevered, echoing the construction of the house itself. The chair in the photo is the one that Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed for the dining table.

Desk, chair, and shelf, southwest corner, guest bedroom, second floor.

The low rounded wall in the foreground surrounds the opening above the stairway down to the stream from the hatchway in the living room. The ceiling above is glass, the only glass ceiling in the house. Open to the stream below and to the sky above, the two are connected by a vertical "column of air." This "column" of openness is on the southeast corner of the living room (and of the house), while the massive fireplace and chimney on the northwest corner of the living room (or, more dramaticaly, the west tower on the northwest corner of the house) represent a vertical column of stone (and in the case of the west tower, open from top to bottom - 3 stories - by a wall of glass). These vertical lines have their counterpart in bold horizontal lines, such as the massive cantilevered levels and large terraces that reach out from them.

Southeast terrace, looking into living room through glass doors and windows.

The driveway trellis (reverse angle) being built with a semi-circular cutaway around a tree symbolizes the theme in the design of the Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater house to work with nature and harmonize with it rather than setting itself apart and dominating it. Even in the famous view from downstream, the house participates in the dramatic presentation of the rock formations, instead of lording above them in an isolated spot as a man-made imposition. This is just past the "front" door, but before passing under the passageway over the driveway to the covered walk which climbs the hill to the guest house. Visible above, looking up through an open ing the trellis are windows with a characteristic Wright feature: no vertical corner post. In the photo several windows are open but the screens are closed, so the full effect is not apparent here.

Unity Temple: Interior spaces

Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, and the home of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1908. With its consolidation of aesthetic intent and structure through use of a single material, reinforced concrete, Unity Temple is considered by many architects to be the first modern building in the world.

Design And Construction

To accommodate the needs of the congregation, Wright divided the community space from the temple space through a low, middle loggia that could be approached from either side. This was an efficient use of space and kept down on noise between the two main gathering areas: those coming for religious services would be separated via the loggia from those coming for community events. This design was one of Wright's first uses of a bipartite design: with two portions of the building similar in composition and separated by a lower passageway, and one section being larger than the other. The Guggenheim Museum in New York City is another bipartite design.

 To reduce noise from the street, Wright eliminated street level windows in the temple. Instead, natural light comes from stained glass windows in the roof and clerestories along the upper walls. Because the members of the parish would not be able to look outside, Unity Temple's stained glass was designed with green, yellow, and brown tones in order to evoke the colors of nature. The main floor of the temple is accessed via a lower floor (which has seating space), and the room also has two balconies for the seating of the congregation. These varying seating levels allowed the architect to design a building to fit the size of the congregation, but efficiently: no one person in the congregation is more than 40 feet from the pulpit. Wright also designed the building with very good acoustics.

The lighting so provided creates an ambience of peace and helps unify one with his inner self.

The altar

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

On October 21, 1959, ten years after the death of Solomon Guggenheim and six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Museum first opened its doors to the general public The building was "the first permanent museum to be built (rather than converted from a private house) in the United States. The distinctive building, Wright's last major work, instantly polarized architecture critics upon completion, though today it is widely praised From the street, the building looks like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, wider at the top than the bottom. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to typically rectangular Manhattan buildings that surround it, a fact relished by Wright, who claimed that his museum would make the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art "look like a Protestant barn.

Internally, the viewing gallery forms a helical spiral from the main level up to the top of the building. Paintings are displayed along the walls of the spiral and also in exhibition space found at annex levels along the way.

Most of the criticism of the building has focused on the idea that it overshadows the artworks displayed within, and that it is difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless exhibition niches that surround the central spiral. The walls of the niches are neither vertical nor flat (most are gently concave), meaning that canvasses must be mounted raised from the wall's surface. Paintings hung slanted back would appear "as on the artist's easel". The limited space within the niches means that sculptures are generally relegated to plinths amid the main spiral walkway itself. Prior to its opening, twenty-one artists, signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space.

http://www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd-wright/fallingwater-pictures/pictures-offallingwater.html http://egotvonline.com/2011/10/21/guggenheim-museum-photos/ http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Guggenheim_Museum.html http://designmuseum.org/design/frank-lloyd-wright http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Unity_Temple