Frank Lloyd WRIGHT

(1867-1959)

American architect and designer

Frank Lloyd Wright began his practice with Louis H. Sullivan, the first American Art Nouveau architect, and was one of the most productive and revolutionary American architects at that time. Contemporary of Belgian Art Nouveau designers Henry van de Velde and Victor Horta, he was influenced by the British Arts and Crafts Movement, as he worked for architectural and social emancipation.

In 1894, he built his personal house and his workshop in Oak Park, Chicago (USA). Fascinated by Japanese Art, he visited Japan in 1905. He later began designing and building his "Prairies Houses", an original architectural project, where he elaborated new concepts for the shape of the buildings and for their relationship to their surrounding environment. In 1909 he traveled in Europe, where he was inspired by other European architects. Back in the US in 1911, he founded the Wisconsin School of Architecture in his home.


The works of Frank Lloyd Wright are the result of pure functionalism concepts, where the form follows the function. He created simple and linear forms, fluid spatial transitions, intersecting planes and surfaces. He designed low buildings of stone and wood, connecting the inside with the outside of the house by combining terraces, water basins, gardens. The way of life had to coincide with the objects, furniture and architecture in an appropriate environment, near nature.


Major works:

"Prairies Houses", Chicago, USA (1906-1911)
Falling Water House, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (1937)
Guggenheim Museum, New-York (1943)