Frank Lloyd Wright

Year Awarded: 1949
Born: June 08, 1867; Richland Center, Wisconsin
Died: 1959; Taliesin,Arizona

Quote
A doctor can bury mistakes, an architect can only advise their client to plant vines. That's how you can tell it’s a roof. —in response to complaints about roof leaks in his buildings


Projects
• 1905: Unity Temple, Oka Park, Ill.
• 1959: Guggenheim Museum, New York City
• 1953: Boomer Residence, Phoenix
• 1951: Unitarian Meeting House, Madison, Wisc.
• 1939: Johnson Wax Building, Racine, Wisc.
• 1938: Pfeiffer Chapel, Lakeland, Fla.
• 1937: Taliesin West, Scottsdale
• 1936: Jacobs House, Madison, Wisc.
• 1934: Fallingwater, Ohiopyle, Pa.
• 1923: Ennis House, Los Angeles
• 1922: Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan
• 1911: Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisc.
• 1908: Coonley House, Riverside, Ill.


Biography
Frank Lloyd Wright's interest in design emerged from playing with Froebel Blocks as a child; he later wrote about how these blocks influenced his geometrical approach to architecture. From 1895, he studied briefly at the University of Wisconsin’s School for Engineering. He took mechanical drawing and basic math courses while apprenticing to Allen Conover, who was a professor of civil engineering and a local builder.

Wright left the university in 1887, before earning a degree; he moved to Chicago and began working for J.L. Silsbee. After a few months there, he moved to the firm of Adler & Sullivan, where he worked on residential design from 1890 until he left the firm in 1893. He then set up his own practice in Oak Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

In 1894 Wright joined Robert Spencer and Dwight Perkins, two of those with whom he would launch the Prairie School style. He developed the idea of the prairie house, low buildings with shallow, sloping roofs, clean lines, suppressed chimneys, overhangs, and terraces, the first examples of the open plan design style. The style used simple, unfinished materials such as brick, wood, and plaster.

Wright established the famed Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, taking in apprentices who worked on construction projects while completing their design studies. The students worked on projects begun by local contractors and remodeling projects at Taliesin, Wright’s home.

Though he never finished his formal education, Wright received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin in 1955. Four of his buildings have been honored with the AIA's Twenty-five Year Award: Taliesin West (Scottsdale, Ariz.), 1973; Johnson and Son Administration Building (Racine, Wis.), 1974; Price Tower (Bartlesville, Okla.), 1983; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City), 1986.