The architect-philosopher
What enabled the maverick Frank Lloyd Wright to become, without even looking for it, the leader of modern American architecture, were the values he espoused with the fervor of a missionary. Wright always rejected all forms of academicism. In fact, he trained on the job with Louis Sullivan, one of the masters of the Chicago School. Both shared the same vision of architecture in harmony with nature and resolutely American (Wright often drew inspiration from pre-Columbian motifs for his massive facades). He also championed an egalitarian society where architecture would be designed for all. Everything must be designed with the human being as the yardstick. That's why he attaches so much importance to interior spaces, which are like the projection of each individual's rich and unique inner world. He also defends honest architecture, based on the intrinsic qualities of the materials he works with like a craftsman. Wood, stone, brick, cement, glass: under Wright's gesture, often described as expressionist, materials come alive, thanks in particular to light, which seems to be integrated into the materials. This is particularly true of his California Villas. This emphasis on light and interior spaces is also reflected in his forays into the architecture of administrative buildings. In 1905, he revolutionized the genre with the Larkin Company building, a fortress housing a large interior volume bathed in zenithal light. 30 years later, he took this concept a step further with the Johnson Wax building in Racine, Wisconsin, which houses an incredible interior space punctuated by pillars resembling mushroom trees, the corners of which are pierced by luminous buttonholes. Wright abhorred the city, yet it inspired him to create astonishing buildings that broke with urban monotony, such as his most famous work, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, a spiral walk through art history and the embodiment of a democratic idea of artistic enjoyment. Wright disseminated this philosophy of architecture in the two communities he created, first in Wisconsin, then in Arizona, which he named Taliesin. Manifestations of harmony with nature and the fight against urban corruption, these communities were the first manifestations of a way of thinking that he would later develop in his Usonian houses, homes that united the individual and the landscape in an organic unity of life, and symbols of the American Way of Life. These houses were the starting point for Broadacre City, his utopian city project. An optimistic, democratic city, Broadacre is the epitome of Wright's paradox. Centered on working the land, and conceived in unity with nature, Broadacre nonetheless places great emphasis on the car, an indispensable condition for its proper functioning. So Wright was not the romantic he was sometimes portrayed as, but a visionary who had already grasped the future upheavals of the great metropolises. His hundreds of buildings bear witness to Wright's prolific genius, as he fulfilled his mother's dream of seeing her son become America's greatest architect.
Prairie Houses
At the end of the 19th century, Chicago's first residential suburbs still rubbed shoulders with vast expanses of nature. These "prairies" inspired Wright's Prairie Houses. These single-family homes are emblematic of the organic architecture he championed. For Wright, a building is organic when the exterior and interior are in harmony, and when these conform to the character and nature of its use, construction and site. Rooms are no longer simply closed, interlocking boxes, but large, fluid spaces that let in air and light; horizontal lines parallel to the earth are favored, so that each house follows its site; roofs are wide and slightly sloped, with overhanging projections protecting the openings; the sub-basement is raised to serve as a pedestal; the general plan is liberal and generous, giving pride of place to the human element; the use of ornamentation deriving solely from the nature of the materials employed ensures overall harmony; the organic ideal being pushed to the point of including heating-lighting-plumbing elements and furniture as architectural elements forming one with the building as a whole. All these houses are also built around a key element: the chimney, whose verticality creates a dynamic asymmetry. In this way, Wright invented a warm, luminous way of living. His Oak Park studio house (Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio) is one of his earliest experiments, and already displays the sober elegance that characterizes the Prairie Houses. But it is undoubtedly the Frederick C. Robie House, in the Hyde Park district, that represents the quintessence of this style, with its long living room and its stepped articulation towards the central hearth. In Riverside, Illinois, the Coonley House is one of the largest Prairie Houses ever built. It is in fact a complex of several houses laid out according to an aggregative plan in which all the spaces intermingle. Other famous Prairie Houses include the Willits House (Highland Park, Illinois), with its cross-plan articulated around an imposing chimney, and the Roberts House (River Forest, Illinois), with its large living room connecting the two levels of the house. But the building Wright considered "his jewel" was the Unity Temple in Oak Park. He designed absolutely everything, including the stained glass windows and furniture. The temple shines with fluidity, harmony and balance. Finally, even though the latter was built almost 30 years after the first Prairie Houses, we couldn't end this overview without mentioning the most legendary of all Wright's houses, the House on the Waterfall or Fallingwater (Bear Run, Pennsylvania), a masterpiece of organic architecture.
The Prairie Houses are a poetic reinterpretation of the family home and an expression of Wright's sincere, harmonious architecture.
In 2019, UNESCO classifies eight emblematic achievements of the architect's work as World Heritage, including Chicago's Unity Temple and Robie House, the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House in Madison and Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
