Frank Lloyd Wright Was Born

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 on a farm in Richland, Wisconsin where he spent most of his youth. He was originally named Frank Lincoln Wright but when his parents divorced and he had designed his first building, he decided to change his middle name to Lloyd. When he as 12 years old he and his parents moved to the larger city of Madison, Wisconsin where he attended high school but never graduated.

Wright's initial interest in architecture developed during his high school years and this interest led to his taking a job with the Dean of the University of Wisconsin's College of Wisconsin. The requirements of the job dictated that he quit high school but he did find time to take several courses in civil engineering.

After working at the University of Wisconsin for several years, Wright moved to the City of Chicago where he began working for local architect, Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Under Silsbee's tutelage Wright had the opportunity to design his first building. This building, known as the Lloyd-Jones family chapel, did not reveal any of the characteristics that ultimately defined Wright's unique style or construction concepts. This development would occur later as Wright took a new job with the Adler and Sullivan architectural firm.

The firm had already adopted the policy that "Form follows function" and Wright altered that policy to state that "Form and Function are one." Like his new mentors Wright was of the strong belief that American architecture needed to develop its own identity and divorce from the architectural styles that were popular in Europe.

It was while Wright was employed with Adler and Sullivan that he began to develop his own design style. Wright's architectural style was not the only change that occurred during his tenure with Adler and Sullivan. During this time he also fell in love and married Catherine Tobin. It was shortly after getting married that Wright and his wife built their house in Oak Park, Illinois which remains a heavily visited tourist attraction. In this house the couple raised their five children.

While his roots were there in the mid-West, his life led him to the biggest cities in America. His work embodied a spirit that was both personal and affirmative. His religious beliefs were informed in his childhood by his parents' Unitarianism: That same sense of and obsession with unity would shape the way Wright constructed -- from the uniformity of line in Robie House to the uniformity of curve and color in the Guggenheim Museum. Wright was keenly aware of all things working and fitting together

While Wright excelled as a draftsman and a designer, he failed to fit in among Sullivan's other workers. He did not form any close friendships, even though Sullivan himself took a liking to him. Sullivan engaged him in a five-year contract. The contract would later become a subject of contention, for it stated that Wright could not participate in outside work. When Sullivan discovered that Wright was taking on extra commissions, he ordered him to stop. The relationship came to an end. Wright left Sullivan and began to work on his own. He founded his own practice at just 25 years of age and with design after design he never looked back. His Unitarian faith -- and the philosophy he had learned from Sullivan -- helped inform each of his designs.

With some new associates, Wright formed the Prairie School -- a distinctly American style of architecture. Wright himself worked on the Winslow House, which emphasized line and horizontal elements and all of Wright's designs emphasized the use of natural materials and were usually not painted. The rooflines of his designs utilized low pitched rooflines with deep overhangs and long lines of uninterrupted windows so that the structure merged into the surrounding environment. Most of the homes that he designed had a large stone or brick fireplace that was used to unify the house and each room in the house was open to all the others.

By his 35th year, Wright had finished over 50 works and yet was just getting started. In a single year (1900-1901), he designed and erected four different houses, all exciting examples of the Prairie Style that united building with landscape through theme, line, and structure. By his 40th year, Wright was a much admired architect recognized as being on the cutting edge of innovation and style.