When Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 at the venerable age of 91 he was the most famous architect in the United States. During his long career―over 70 years―he designed over a thousand buildings, almost all of them for clients in North America. Of these around half―532―were completed and most of these, 409 in total, still exist, 17 of them recognized by the American Institute of Architects to be primary examples of his architectural contribution to American culture. Of the 17, Fallingwater is frequently viewed as the greatest piece of architecture in American history.
His prodigious output is all the more surprising when one considers how few of his projects reached completion in the first quarter of the 20th century. Much of the reason for this paucity of commissions was his lifestyle. Frank Lloyd Wright led a colorful life full of conflict and controversy, particularly in his personal affairs. He left his first wife and children for the wife of one of his clients. After she and her children had been hacked to death by their deranged cook, his next wife was a morphine addict. He would end his days with a Bosnian Serb aristocrat 33 years his younger.
Frank Lloyd Wright thoroughly enjoyed being a celebrity, he loved making special appearances and giving interviews. At the time his self-promotion―and, during World War II his pacificism―made him as many enemies as admirers. But he was untroubled by self doubt, and today his character is irrelevant: his work speaks for itself. In spite of his very human weaknesses, his work helped give American architecture an identity of its own, free from the constraints of the Old World. No longer an imitation of European style, U.S. architecture evolved its unique style in the 20th century, and Wright played a key role in this.
The Atlas of Frank Lloyd Wright examines a hundred of his finest buildings, state-by-state. From his earliest work in Chicago, most of the key buildings are covered including: Fallingwater, the Californian textile-block houses―Storer, Ennis, Barsndall and his Oak Park Home and Studio; both Jacobs houses, the Robie House and the Taliesin complex.
by: Alex Hook
