| | Frank Lloyd Wright / Louis Kahn : Part 3
Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867 - 1959 : Energy and Independence Wright, whose parents had a farm in Spring Green, Wisconsin, built a number of outstanding private residences that attracted much attention. Carter Wiseman (Shaping a Nation) says on page 148: “By the time Wright left for Europe in 1909, the Prairie houses alone would have constituted a full and brilliant career for most architects.”  And what were these Prairie houses? They were substantial homes that had a strong accent on the horizontal with roofs that reached well over the vertical walls, built for well-to-do persons living in the mid -west. They were immediately recognizable as designed by Wright and were certainly for the times, elegant – even daring. Wright also frequently designed interiors and furniture for his clients. At home, we have a small night light with a small one-pane glass shade which can be turned in two directions. It is a Wright design and was bought in a museum shop. In general his designs were handsome but not delicate.
Some of the Prairie houses such as Winslow (1894), Willits (1903), and Robie (1910) are still admired although they were somewhat controversial when built. For example, Carter Wiseman reports that none of them had basements or attics. But as significant as these dwellings are, they are all  overshadowed by Fallingwater (1937)(see below). This house, built for a Pittsburgh department store owner at Bear Run, Pennsylvania, was cantilevered over a brook at the place where it creates a substantial waterfall. It is a marvelous and daring work, admirable in summer and even in winter when some of the cascading water freezes. Fallingwater survived but apparently was in need of refurbishing. This was done and the house is now open to the public for ten months of the year and boasts a website and a café! Wright was not only an architect but also an excellent self-promoter and an important teacher. He didn’t teach at a university but at schools that he built and ran as a fellowship with the students as apprentices. The first of these schools, Taliesin, at Spring Green (1911), burned to the ground, but a later one, Taliesin West (1938) at Scottsdale, Arizona, was one of his masterpieces. It was built in the desert and used local materials and plants where possible. The buildings were close to the ground and used natural air currents.  Another Wright masterpiece was the Johnson & Son Administration Building (1939) at Racine, Wisconsin. The large main hall had no windows but featured a skylight and fluorescent lighting, and, as Wiseman says: “Supporting the roof was a cluster of concrete columns that swelled gently upward to circular plates, creating the impression of attenuated mushrooms or lily pads. The plates were joined where they met, creating a rigid structure for the entire building.”
The Solomon Guggenheim Museum (1959) on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, had it been his only creation, would have made Wright famous. Although it has been tastefully supplemented by a vertical building, the main exhibition hall is a continuous ramp which widens as the visitor reaches the top, somewhat like an inverted snail shell. It was, and still is, difficult to hang pictures in an environment where the floors are not horizontal. Justified howls of protests went up from curators, administrators and architectural critics. But the Museum has become not only accepted but loved. The reason is simple. When one enters the building, one feels elation, celebration and plain fun. I can think of only two other museums which affect me the same way at the point of entry. These are the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington (I.M. Pei) 1978, and the gentle ramp leading to an interior glassed plaza of the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa (Moishe Safdie). Did Louis I. Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright have anything in common? Neither was part of any “movement.” Neither was a family man, Wright having had three wives and Kahn having sired three children, each with another woman. They both left behind some buildings that are still considered wonderful many years after they were built. They were both energetic and passionate architects. Trips to Europe for Wright in 1909 and for Kahn in 1950 substantially influenced their development as designers. They had very different personalities. Wright was a self-promoter of the first water and swirled a cape around so that everyone noticed him, while Kahn was much more introverted. The contribution of both men to American architecture was not only important but also very interesting. | | |
