Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, artist, interior designer and writer born on June 8 1867- April 9 1959. He was famous for promoting organic architecture and known as the father of prairie style. He was a nature inspired architect whose designs were influenced by social context, contemporary moments of that time period, and so on.
Creations of Wright are influenced by society as well as his creations have guided the way of living of people.
Social determinism of Wright are:
- Community and social interaction:
Wright designed built mass that fostered the interaction and engagement of society. For instance, in prairie school houses, he featured the central hearth as gathering space where families can come together.
Similarly, he designed communal space within his larger project such as Unity temple in Oak park, which served as a place for congregation.
Wright’s intent behind his design for the Unity Temple was to create two separate spaces for two different functions common in the modern church: a place for worship and a place for the service of man. The building is thereby broken into two distinct spaces, allowing form to follow function. Likewise, use of principles of modern architecture and applying the use of concrete in daring ways for its time also broke the European architecture being used.
- Affordable housing:
Wright experimented with affordable housing designs that aimed to improve quality of life for ordinary people in projects like Usonian houses.
- Arts and Crafts movement:
Wright was part of the Arts and Crafts movement, which emphasized craftsmanship, simplicity, and functionality in design. This movement was a reaction against the excesses of industrialization and mass production, which helped for faster production but degraded quality of product, and it influenced Wright’s approach to architecture, promoting organic and harmonious integration of buildings with their natural surroundings.
- Democratic architecture:
His Architecture and built environment were accessible to all people regardless of their economy and social status. His democratic architecture followed human scale as he had no intention to show grandeur. Similarly, he designed free flowing space.
- Prairie Architecture:
Prairie style was born from a desire to break free from European classicism, moved away from transplanted Victorian aesthetics and Greek and roman designs, coming to grips with the American essence. Moreover, European classicism became a staple of American culture especially in the late 18th and 19th century. Hence, prairie style was inspired from the broad and flat landscape of America, during the early years in Chicago around 1900 with characteristics such as windows grouped in horizontal bands, flat or hipped roof with board overhanging eaves, craftsmanship, solid construction, discipline use of ornamentation and so on.
Similarly, various architectural determinism of Wright are:
- Integration of Nature:
Wright was able to create unique designs as nature was his main source of inspiration. He believed “study nature, love nature, stay close to nature, it will never fail you.” Similarly, Wright carefully selected sites for his building considering the natural features of landscape and used natural materials. Moreover, his designs featured open floor plans with fluid transition between indoor and outdoor spaces, large windows and so on helping to integrate nature within the building.
- Biomimicry:
One of the creations of Wright, Guggenheim museum was inspired from a snail shell. Inspired by the snail, the museum had circular ramps spiraling upwards and opening to the court crowned with a dramatic skylight.
- Spatial organization:
Wright could be called as a master of spatial organization. He believed that layout of buildings could influence human behavior of interaction. Similarly, his design features open plan living, flexible spaces and interconnected rooms to promote social interaction. Likewise, there is the contrast between narrow and large space, the hallways are narrow so the living room at the end feels wider.
- Adaptation to the Site:
Wright carefully selected a site for his buildings and tried to blend the building with its environment. Wright believed “buildings should be of the hill but not from the hill.” For instance, in falling water house, the waterfall could have been used just as a viewpoint but Wright constructed it right on top of the waterfall as if the house is part of the site.
- Geometry:
Geometry was Wright’s key to consistency. Wright used simple geometry and played with different geometric form to obtain new designs.
Moreover, in his childhood he played with froebel blocks and during his career, he mentioned that he played with the blocks in his head while designing. He followed penetration, nesting, extension and so on of various geometrical blocks while developing form.
In a nutshell, Frank Lloyd Wright was a famous architect, pioneer of modern architecture, whose creations were influenced by social context, contemporary movements of that time period, need of the society for its betterment as well as his creations are guiding the society and teaching a new way of living and experiencing spaces.
