Frank Lloyd Wright’s Design Process

Robert's Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright's Design Process To understand Frank Lloyd Wright, we have to look to his mentor, who was Louis Henry Sullivan. He wrote a book in 1924 called A System of Architectural Ornament. Not only did Sullivan teach him basic architectural principles, but he also taught him a philosophy of architecture that would stay with Frank Lloyd Wright throughout his career. He uses the subdivision of a triangle, sometimes called formal subdivision or dynamic symmetry. Sullivan was often called the father of the skyscraper and the father of modernism and was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. He was the first architect to use the term form follows function, but his idea was a more organic conception of nature, rather than the German functionalist one at the time. Sullivan worked for the great American architect Frank Furness before moving to Chicago and being part of the Chicago School of Architecture. Wright called Sullivan Liebermeister, suggesting that Sullivan was his artistic mentor in architecture and design. It seems that Wright copied Sullivan's geometric design process almost exactly. What Wright worked out taking Sullivan's process to the next level was to take formal geometric subdivision from two dimensions in the ground plane to three dimensions to create architectural space. This process was used in formal design and renaissance architecture, but Wright's use of it was unique and based more on Sullivan's art style. Here we see one of Sullivan's designs on the Merchant National Bank in Grinnell, Iowa from 1914. Frank Lloyd Wright used several principles in his work, including starting with geometry, figure ground, addition, penetration, nesting, a grid, addition, extension, or penetration, and nesting. Sullivan states in his book A System of Architectural Ornament, these simple forms of ancient discovery and use were given esoteric meanings and occult powers by the men of that day in an effort to control by means of formulas and secret rituals the destiny of man amidst the powers of nature. With mystic numbers and other phenomena they formed part of an elaborate system of magic to which the world penned its faith. This is a diagram of Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma from 1953. Here is a geometric derivation diagram of the Willits House in Highland Park, Illinois from 1902. One technique Frank Lloyd Wright was particularly fond of was the pinwheel where he would take a geometric form and have it rotate around a center creating a pinwheel-like effect. Then once the pinwheel was created he would move and manipulate the different forms from the pinwheel. This is done by rotating a form around a center. Technically, as an item in the progress of our demonstration, the above forms rigid in their quality are to be considered in our philosophy as containers of radial energy extensive and intensive, that is to say extensions of form along lines or axes raiding from the center and intentions of form along the same or other radials from the periphery towards the center. Here then appears the will of man to cause the inorganic and rigid to become fluent through his powers. Also note that we assume energy to be resident in the periphery and that all lines are energy lines and this may be called plastic geometry. One of the interesting things about Frank Lloyd Wright is his ability to create spaces that penetrate one another. He pulls space out from the geometric form and then has one space interpenetrate or nest inside another space. The love of nature and natural forms and developing geometric forms and contrasting geometric with the organic. These all come from Louis Sullivan. From Louis Sullivan's A System of Architectural Ornament from 1929, he describes subdividing the square. Here, however, a new faith is advanced, a faith in man, an unwavering faith that man with his natural powers developed and free may and shall control his destiny through the finer magic of his enlarged vision and of his will to attain. Master of the inorganic and organic, he will, when he has found himself, become the master of himself. The Unity Temple is Frank Lloyd Wright's tour de force in terms of nesting and extension and penetration of architectural forms. In it, he uses almost all of the formal devices that was discussed. He uses figure ground, addition, penetration, nesting, grid, extension, all of these to create a multi-layered space where space is seen to penetrate and interpenetrate each other. I'm Jamie Roberts. If you like this video, please like and subscribe.