week 7 : frank lloyd wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. Organic architecture is about designing in harmony with the environment and humanity. One of his most famed works, Falling Water is a good example of his philosophy.
Falling Water is a house designed in the 1930s located in southwest Pennsylvania, Laurel Highlands. This building by Wright was revolutionary as it was the perfect embodiment of his philosophy “organic design”.
When laying your eyes on falling water for the first time, you will notice that the house blends into the mountain terrain of the Highlands. The verticality of the trees are complemented by the vertical stone column while the horizontal planes of the stone terrain are in line with the large horizontal form of the rooms and the balcony. The form of the building blends in very well to the surrounding and its nature, as if the house has grown out of the mountain.
One very big part of why the house had such an organic feel was due to where the house is built. Usually when there is a waterfall on site, architects would frame the waterfall and place the house facing the waterfall. However, Wright decided to place the house right on top of the waterfall, blending it into the surroundings. By placing it on the waterfall, it gives the house this dream-like, floating feeling, never seen before at its time.
Lastly, the materials he used in the building gave the building the final touches to truly harmonise with the surrounding. He used a mixture of stone, concrete, steel, glass, and wood. These materials are mostly organic materials and will age over time. Apart from the age factor of the materials, the flooring used in the house resembled and reminded the user of the waterfall the very house is situated on.
Combining all these factors, Falling Water has become one of the most iconic and revolutionary houses of its time, as it is the vindication of organic design which blended the sound and visuals of the surroundings to the house that no one at that time has witnessed.
The Johnson Wax Headquarters is located in Wisconsin and was built in 1939. It was a very special building due to its circular form which looked very futuristic at its time. The way that Wright has treated the interior was genius in response to the brief.
The client has told Wright that the building should not have any windows due to privacy reasons. However, working in a room with no windows and natural light was unproductive and inefficient, therefore Wright wanted to bring the outdoors into the office.
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The interior of the building was like no other, entering the space felt like stepping into another world, equally as uplifting and inspiring like the outdoor environment. The vertical columns placed in a grid-like arrangement acts like trees in the space, accompanied by the skylights in the ceilings which brings in natural light. Even Though the space is completely sealed in the building, it still feels open and inspiring to work in.
The building was also revolutionary due to its use of new technology and materials. The columns were a first of its kind. It supported extreme heavy loads and its vertical look gave it a very unique form. The skylights were also made of pyrex tubes, giving it a patterned look, which diffuses the sunlight as well as giving the skylight a more interesting form.
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In my opinion, I think Wright’s work is relevant in Singapore in terms of its groundbreaking and experimental approach of designing. Singapore being so technologically advanced and with our population being people from all over the world, is the perfect place for architects from all over the world to experiment and leave their mark here.
During his time, he was known for not confining with the norm from one of his early works to his last. One example of this is the Unity Temple.
Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, built during 1905 to 1908. His design of the church was the non imaginable, which was a geometric building, cladded in concrete with a very heavy form. Churches in that time period were usually buildings with tall stained glass with a spire on top of it. Wright has completely thrown away that picture and put something new on the table with this design, showing his experimental mindset.
Wright’s last work was also famous for breaking the mould of the architecture in New York. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is an art museum located at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The circular form of the building contrasted heavily with its surroundings, breaking the rectangular grid in New York City. His design proved that buildings did not have to conform to a certain shape to be practical.
