Frank Lloyd Wright: The Architecture Of The 20th Century

In the category of modern art, the field that I’m personally fascinated by is architecture. The reason I say this is that architecture is more than just a piece of art, but a masterpiece of the combination of intelligence, physics, and the work of the imagination. I just happened to be in luck when I visited the MOMA because the museum was currently exhibiting a special collection of archives and the designs of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The show displayed all the drafts of the most iconic buildings the Frank Lloyd Wright had designed in his career, and this made it very difficult for me to decide which piece I want to write about because every one were very intriguing.

Frank Lloyd Wright was perhaps the most influential American architect of the 20th century and one of the greatest to ever live. What was well known about Wright was that he was deeply ambivalent about cities and metropolis centers. His key criticism of large cities was that the advancing technologies had rendered the cities, which were created industry and immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Century, completely obsolete. He famously quoted that, “ The present city…has nothing to give the citizen…because centralization have no forces of regeneration”. Instead, Wright envisioned decentralized settlements (otherwise known as suburban neighborhoods) that would take advantage of the mobility offered by the automobile, telephones, and telegraphic communication. Because of the rise of the suburban complexes in the post WW2 era, this is where Wright first got the reputation has being a prophet for the architecture world.

In a bit of a contradiction, Wright was also viewed as a prophet in the race of height of skyscrapers emerging in the major metropolita...

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...not that dramatic, but almost in the same ballpark).

What has surprised me the most, was just how influential Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs were and that some of the buildings that I adored were actually designed Wright himself. During my research, I found out that not only did Wright design stateside, but had just as many international projects as well. Out of all the international projects I looked up, my personal favorite has to be the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. I never would have imagined someone coming up with a design to give a modern look to fit in with an ancient Asian architecture but Wright has once again blown my mind with this stunning and majestic design. It may just be a hotel but it looks like it is capable of becoming the Emperor’s own personal palace. The way how Frank Lloyd Wright is able to come up with these architectural designs just amazes me.