Frank Lloyd Wright, Myat Aung

Analysis of Wright's Design Plans

Growing up in the prairies of Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright developed his love of nature. His childhood experience with his distant father and the divorce of his parents were major influences in his architecture during his early years. Wright was raised by a single mother, who encouraged him to engage in design since he was a young boy. He was later influenced by feminist thinking and architectural inventions. His houses had no distinct wall that separates the rooms for the families to commute in the same space. It encouraged community over segregation and promoted equality in the household. In his earlier designs, he usually incorporated a fireplace in the middle of the house to illustrate the idea of the hearth of the family is its center.

Wright’s career in the beginning stage was more traditional, which was most likely due to his apprenticeship under a traditional architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee. In 1888, he began his career as a draftsman for Architect Louis Sullivan, under whom he developed his innovative Prairie Style architecture. Wright’s goal in the creation of this style is for buildings to be in sync with nature. He thus used earthy colored bricks and low ceilings to induce the idea that buildings are born from earth. Prairie homes were also heavily influenced by Wright’s feminist thinking since they contained very few walls to divide the rooms. These homes had many windows around them, which were adorned with stained glass to be able to view nature only from the inside. For the family's privacy. Wright also carefully designed the exterior walls in order that tthe public could not peek into the house. A few examples of this include the Edwin H. Cheney House in Oakpark, Illinois and the Robie House in Chicago, Illinois.

Frank Lloyd Wright also surrounded himself with the exotic art, which reflected in his architectural practice. He was especially influenced by Japanese and Mayan art and architecture. A few of the most famous examples of Wright's Mayan style architecture are the Charles Ennis House and the Holly Hock House in California. The former’s design patterns on the walls, corridors, and columns are inspired by Nunnery quadrangles in Uxamel. Some areas of the latter has visual affinities with the Mayan Temple of the Sun in Mexico. Wright also traveled to Japan and collected Japanese prints and scroll paintings, which he used to decorate his home. During his visit to this country, he designed the now-demolished Imperial Hotel inspired from various styles he had encountered in his life, including Prairie style chimneys, rough-textured walls of Mayan buildings, and the traditional Japanese architecture that contains ambulatories and screens. He also brought in the Japanese aesthetics to many of his buildings drawn and constructed in America. The most distinct example of his Japanese influence is the Research Tower at the SC Johnson headquarters, whose cantilevered floors are inspired by the roof lines of Japanese pagodas. Wright also designed the headquarters of the SC Johnson Company. The architecture of this building encourages flexibility and teamwork since the office spaces are not confined behind any type of walls. This idea can be related back to his early feminist thinking and scientific management.

Later in his career, Frank Lloyd Wright also imagined unique architectural styles, but most of them were never brought to life. A few of them include ramps that can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in New York or the David Wright House in Arizona. Many others still echoed his Prairie Style designs.

Apart from architecture, he also designed furniture, rugs, and windows that would go along with the buildings he created. He designed modular furniture that can be arranged according to each owner’s taste. He also published books on design and decoration, fabrics, and paints for interior decoration, all of which would complement the architectural designs he had executed.

Works Cited:

"Frederick C. Robie House." Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Web.
"Mamah Bothwick and Edwin H. Cheney House." Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Web.
"The Frank Lloyd Wright Building." Guggenheim, Guggenheim Foundation, 2015. Web.
"The Principles of Scientific Management." Fordham University Modern History Sourcebook. Web.
Twombly, Robert. Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and His Architecture. New York: Wiley, 1979. Print.
 

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