Frank Lloyd Wright Essay

Savana Showalter

Frank Lloyd Wright

In Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright was born to William Carey Wright and Anna Lloyd Jones. Most of his early childhood was spent traveling with his father from one ministry position to another in Rhode Island, Iowa, and Massachusetts but then in 1878, settled in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1885, Wright’s parents divorced, putting even more strain on their already difficult financial situation. In order to help support his family, an eighteen year old Wright worked for the dean of the University of Wisconsin’s department of engineering while also studying there. However, his passion was in architecture so in 1887, at the age of 20, he left Madison and headed to Chicago. In Chicago, he began working with two different firms, before he was hired by the partnership of Adler and Sullivan where he worked directly under Sullivan for six years.

Two years after his move to Chicago, Wright married Catherine Lee Tobin. Wright was anxious to build his own home so he negotiated a five-year contract with Sullivan in return for a loan for the necessary money to build his home. Purchasing a wooded corner lot in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, he built his home which was comparable to the East Coast shingle style but had Wrights own flair added to it as he liked to experiment with geometric shapes. After a while, accelerating expenses tempted him to take on independent residential commissions. He did these in his own time, but Sullivan became aware of them in 1893 and decided Wright has breached their contract. The split between the two men was not mended for almost twenty years. However, this split opened up the door to Wright finally going out on his own and open an office to design ho...

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...ptly stricken by an illness which landed him in the hospital. He died on April 9, only two months before his 92nd birthday.

All throughout his 70 year career, Wright designed over 1100 designs which barely half were realized. He created what he called an “architecture for democracy,” which redefined our concept of space that offered everyone the opportunity to live and grow in healthful environments that connected physically and spiritually to the natural world. The American Institute of Architects named Wright the greatest American architect of all time in 1991, and Architectural Record circulated a list of the one hundred most important buildings of the previous century. Twelve of Wrights buildings appeared on this list. Frank Lloyd Wright left a great legacy and very large shoes to fill.

Information found:

http://www.franklloydwright.org/about/FLLWBio.html