Modern Architecture Since 1900

William J R Curtis

The Architectural system of Frank Lloyd Wright

- First to be known for a new style based on spatial conception; interoperation planes and
abstract masses
- Influenced by Dutch developments into international style
- Forward looking- stance (Wrights remarks on the relevance of machinery production)
- Shows his roots through American social idea - regionalist character and Arts and Crafts
allergies- makes him traditionalist- preserves his values of individualism
- Against destructive attacks of mechanisation
- Mythical and ideal view of society was condensed in a architectural based on intuitive
rule- aired on rich expression.
- Born 1876- parents split up which influenced his obsession with expressing the ideal
family- uprooted home life on a sensitive nature.
- Early Influences
- Working at uncles farm(Wisconsin) - he used to fix attention of a tree, hill or flower- lost
in thoughts he created abstract forms and shapes.
- Second influence- Froebel blocks (geometric forms/blocks) - Mother brought from
Philadelphia exhibition 1879
- Used these to create formal patterns - links to architectural experiences (Robie house)
- Got involved with suburban architecture - started working for designer Joseph Lyman
Silsbee
- Louis Sullivan - organic architecture - design of skyscapes- idealist- architecture in
Midwest should form ideas of culture not foreign forms- wright had his own
interpretation- for independent family dwelling.

- Own practice (Oak Park)

- Own house designed at the age of 22 (Winslow House)
- Influenced by Silsbee - Shingle Style
- Porch with over hanging roof- link in with Chicago vernacular
- Deals with climate - position of health
- Traditional to American home
- Which Wright would soon interoperate himself
- Lower floors- open spaced - controlled so their was a feeling of rotation - to the core of
the house
- Client - house devoid of frills with solid elegance
- Main facade- symmetrical front/door into stone panel- which is slightly forward
- Second level- set back, texted in the dark terracotta- contrasted with light bricks contrasted with light bricks of the lower story
- Over hanging roof - deep eaves
- Sharps lines- joints expressed
- Chimney visible at the front of the house
- Fireplace as you enter the house
- Heath at the core of the house - shows people the spaces in the house
- Rear elevation - Wright placed the mater bedroom over dining room (same axis)
- Stable Mr Winslow and Wight published/printed William Channing Gannetts House
Beautiful- talks about Wrights input to the house - moral and religious morals
influences
- But also has more personal influences to Wright
- Norris Kelly Smith - Wrights house design express his vision and freedom to family life

- Winslow House
- Combines classical tradition (silsbee was forgotten) - Shingle Style
- Sullivans abstract work - base, middle and head
- Wright sense of order in nature - sympathy to nature
- Over 100 commissions in fifteen years
- Chicago developed quick - middle class- new money - instincts/ideals
- Wrights clients - value for money
- Logical plans- elaborate trappings- attention to hot and cold water system - focused on
all details - built in furniture - over hanging eaves - quality of space
- Wright - fantasy -sober - scale
- Fireplace - Roman bricks - set with logs on the floor (Praire) stained glass windows abstract plant forms - changing light
- Houses responded to rituals of the new suburban bourgeoise
- Traditional image of American home
- Praire style
- Experiment - extensions - refinements of principles
- Ideas from Arts and Crafts values- simplicity - honest and direct use of materials
- Link between buildings- nature - fixtures - fittings - elevated moral ideas
- 1901 Arts and Crafts paper - simple geometrical shapes can be turned into machine
saws
- New mechanised age
- Industrialisation to provide a decent environment for life
- Japanese Architecture- used to achieve synthesis - however didn't visit until 1905

- Admired proportion and carpentry - humble materials - placement in nature

- Used and changed into spiritual character
- Renaissance - walls - box life rooms - decorate with ornament
- Japanese prints - represent architecture - language of shape and colour - attached to
feelings - lesson to abstraction
- Deeper insight to spiritual values - helped Wright idealise type of dwelling space for any
one case
- Home In Prairie Town (1901-published idea)
- Summing up discoveries
- Same with other buildings - Robie House, Martin House, Conley House, Larkin Building,
Unity Temple.
- Home In Parire Town- long low horizontal parallel to flat land - external roofs asymmetrical unity
- Simple screen windows - space inside links less solid walls
- Fitted in furniture - elegant interiors - similar to previous house
- Heart of house - heath - surrounded by rooms - sliding and overlapping planes
- The Ward Willitts House 1902 - 1st mature phase - low roofed extension
- Hooded windows - dark chinks of glass set under eaves
- 4 wings - path on takes bedroom other to the living room
- Walls plastered - with wooden slates to bring down side and relate to the structure
- Detail - fireplace - windows leaded - abstract shapes - ornamentation in windows geometrical patterns
- House follows Wrights composition principles
- Top and bottom floors are connected by lined roofs

- Spacial tension varies as you walk through the interior spaces

- Life in nature - gave houses rhythm, movement and reputation - variation
- To achieve different moods and emotions
- Willitts House - experimented various pieces of the Prairie house type
- After putting his principles in writing:
- 1st - reduce necessary parts if house, separate rooms to minimum, together as one
enclosed space, sense of unity
- 2nd - Parallel to ground emphasis, floors off the site, connection with life in the house,
extended levels
- 3rd - No box shaped rooms, ceiling and floors enclosing to flow into large space
(subdivisions), less wasted space, structure appropriate to material (liveable),
extended straight lines
- 4th - Foundation visible as low platform
- 5th - Harmony between both inside and outside, human proportions, natural/single
series of whole building, light screens instead of walls, no holes cut in walls, because
not keeping with the ideal of plastic (cutting holes was violent)
- 6th - Eliminate combination of materials, no use of ornament, if not out of nature of
materials, clearer/more expensive, more emphasis (natural character)
- 7th - Heating, lighting, plumbing, part of building to show organic architecture
- 8th - Use organic architecture mostly, as one in connection of building, simple, straight
lines, rectangular shapes (forms)
- 9th - Eliminate decorater
- Wright - rigid and prescribed - early houses - modest - reputation increased with size of
houses
- Extremely wealthy - Martin House (Buffalo New York 1904)

- Dwelling space - garden, conservatory, guest house, stable, this is were he really got
used to the method of organisation of plan, geometrical grid, get axis/direction
- Sophisticated, abstract, pattern, unlike Mondrian painting, interior/exterior, figure/ground,
have equal value and formal principles.
- Coonley House (1908) Riverside
- Wealthy commission - Prairie house palace with control of detail and scale
- Early houses - flat and rectangular - small to medium size
- Glasner House (1904) - North Shore of Chicago - heavy wooded because at the edge of
a ravine, horizontal datum supplied with roofline,
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