Frank Lloyd Wright's Organic Design: Fallingwater & Taliesin West

Introduction: Wright's Background and Design Philosophy

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most well-known architects in United States history. The buildings he created have a distinctive flow, both inside and out, which either captivates or distracts the viewer. His most famous project is probably Fallingwater, a house he built for Edgar Kaufmann and his wife just outside of Pittsburgh. This home incorporates a waterfall intended to bring the occupants closer to nature, and showcases a design element that was a hallmark of Wright's work. This essay examines two Frank Lloyd Wright houses and the design concepts that made him the country's most celebrated architect.

It is important to understand, briefly, who Frank Lloyd Wright was and how he developed his distinctive style. He was born in Wisconsin in a small town to unassuming parents. At 15, he went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study engineering because "they had no school of architecture" (Hurder, 2001). When he left the university at 20, he apprenticed at several small architectural firms in Chicago as a drafter before landing a job with Louis Sullivan, who was at the time the most prominent architect in the Midwest. Wright quickly became Sullivan's chief assistant, but he was too much of a free spirit to remain another man's apprentice for long, so he left and started his own firm (Hurder, 2001).

His style developed as he worked through his architectural growing pains, forging an approach that would become world famous. Wright lived in a suburb of Chicago with his wife, his rapidly expanding family, and his growing architectural firm — all housed in the same building. From 1889, when he started his firm, until 1900, he designed more than 60 homes in and around Chicago that were taking on the shapes that would become known as the Prairie style (Hurder, 2001). "Houses with low-pitched roofs and extended lines that blend into the landscape" typified his style of "organic architecture" (Hurder, 2001) — buildings that became a part of the landscape they inhabited.

Fallingwater: Blending Structure with Nature

From the very first glance, it is easy to see Wright's design scheme at work in Fallingwater. It is a work of art that not only avoids detracting from the surrounding area but seems to enhance it. "Perhaps the most striking single feature of Fallingwater is the cantilevered reinforced concrete balconies that extend out over the falls" (Aikens, 2009). The cantilever technique allows the concrete slabs to project further than they otherwise could. The reason Wright employed this feature is clear: he was trying to match the line of the stone and make the building blend, in abstract form, into its surroundings.

The interior of the structure has received almost as much scholarly attention as the exterior, owing to Wright's attempt to bring the outside in. Peponis and Bellal (2010), in an article describing the principles of spatial design, observed that

"the flexible, open plan [of the main living room] is loosely organized around a central atrium-like space, illuminated from above by a large, nearly square, recessed ceiling panel, which is supported at its four corners by stone piers… The various functions are zoned into pockets of space that pinwheel around its open core, sometimes overlapping and sometimes projecting from it."

The entire structure, both inside and out, has been studied by engineers, architectural students, and enthusiasts of interesting architecture since it was completed in 1939.

Conclusion: Wright's Lasting Legacy

Frank Lloyd Wright was a brilliant architect who took the design conventions available at the end of the nineteenth century and expanded them dramatically. His influences may have been a mixture of the Queen Anne style and the work of Joseph Lyman Silsbee (Hurder, 2001), but he developed something that was many years ahead of its time. He was among the first designers to be genuinely concerned with the natural aesthetics of his projects, seeking the perfect blend between what was natural and what was functional. He achieved his goals by pushing beyond what people believed could be accomplished with the construction materials of his era — and his critics were sometimes correct about the risks — while incorporating as many natural elements as possible. The legacy of his organic architecture continues to influence architects worldwide.

References

Aikens, J. (2009). Fallingwater: The story of a country house. AIArchitect, 16.

Hurder, S. (2001). Brief biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Retrieved from http://www.oprf.com/flw/bio/

Kroll, A. (2011). AD classics: Taliesin West / Frank Lloyd Wright. Arch Daily. Retrieved from http://www.archdaily.com/123117/ad-classics-taliesin-west-frank-lloyd-wright/

Peponis, J., & Bellal, T. (2010). Fallingwater: Spatial structure at the scale of quasi-synchronic perception. Georgia Institute of Technology. Retrieved from