Modern Master: Frank Lloyd Wright
The visionary work of Frank Lloyd Wright continues to influence the public and design professionals. The architect's uncompromising vision led to innovations in architecture, including further developments in engineering and materials.
The Laurent House opens to the public for the first time on June 7 and will be open the first and last weekend of each month. Admission is $15. Photo courtesy of Wright Auction House.
The seeds for Frank Lloyd Wright's collaboration with prefab builder Marshall Erdman were planted when Erdman hired the architect to design the First Unitarian Society meeting house in Madison, Wisconsin. [Photo credit courtesy The Kubala Washatko Architects (TKWA) via ArchDaily]
An archival view of the pavilion. It featured one long, rectangular room with exposed eaves.
The "hemicycle" layout of the house is one of only 12 or 13 similar structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright around the world.
UNESCO World Heritage Nomination According to Scott Perkins, Director of Preservation at Fallingwater, ten of Wright’s building have been nominated to become UNESCO World Heritage sites, a massive inclusion that would add an important icon of American modernism to the prestigious list, as well as raise awareness and grant more public access to his work. The nominees include Fallingwater, the Hollyhock House, Taliesin West, Taliesin East, Unity Temple, the Guggenheim, Price Tower, Marin County Civic Center, the Frederick C. Robie House, and the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House. While the buildings have previously been submitted and are on the tentative list, supporters hope they make the final cut by 2016. Photo by John Amarantides
He Even Designed Modern Gas Stations This small town service station outside of Duluth may stand as an outlier among Wright’s many commissions, but its unmistakably his, from the copper cantilevered canopy to the glassed-in observation deck. Created with prefab construction and expansion in mind, the station supposedly drew from earlier sketches and ideas Wright had for gas pumps at his proposed Broadacre development. The initial plans even propose hoisting the gas pumps overhead to create a service area free from impediments, a creative but unworkable solution due to building codes. Photo by Eugene D. Becker