Frank Lloyd Wright’s Design Philosophy

• He believed in using native materials; brick, stone and textured concrete.

• Insisted that buildings grow naturally from their surroundings; eg. a branch of a tree as a natural cantilever.

• This is apparent from his works such as ‘Prarie house’, to the cascading cantilevers of Falling Water etc.

• His career was divided into 3 periods:• 1. 1893 – world war 1 – Prarie House – new

american style• 2. world war 1 to mid 1930’s – period of

experimentation with new building technologies and new designs based on geometric forms .

Most notable example is Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.

• 3. Usonian Era 1932-1959: Usonian house, designed for families on modest incomes, generally single storey house with simple plans, based on a grid system, with radiant heat, a small central kitchen space and usually flat roofs.

Prarie Houses

• Robie House Elongated plan emphasises horizontality.

• His work with space and construction possibilities in these houses had an effect on the design of his subsequent buildings. The typical characteristics of these free-standing houses were a broad, overhanging roof and horizontal window bands. A free plan was developed around a central chimney. The building had low proportions (not very high), which was related to the ground. It had a gently sloping roof. All these formed the characteristic features of domestic architecture.

• The introduction of all these exterior features helped to form a new language in architecture.

• The first step was the development of the plan of the house which had a plenty of open spaces separated from one another by simple architectural devices instead of partitions, walls or doors. This was called the open plan.

• The integration of building with nature was another innovation.• This helped Frank Lloyd Wright to develop the concept of organic architecture.

• His spatial geometry reflects his structural invention, lighting reinforced space, furnishings reiterated his linear schemes.

• Wright defined organic architecture as that in which all the parts are related to the whole and the whole is related to the parts.

• Even though the horizontal plane is a dominant characteristic of his designs, there is still a complex arrangement of spaces as demonstrated by the 3-dimensional quality of the façade.