my mum designed a home based on frank llyod wright book it was a gorgeous and unusual house we grew up in the 70's and was a home for our family for 40 plus years - nestled into the environment (Australian bush)
Meanwhile, the window manufacturers thank the environmentalists and their lobbyists. On the Gulf Coast, those overhangs save more energy than double pain windows for Pennie’s on the dollar. The double pain windows do almost nothing to help our homes, but they are required by law, and they are many, many times more expensive.
Great video Stewart, I’ve wandered around and toured as many Wright buildings as I could get too and were open to the public. I do love his quote “Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change”.
Silicon caulk is the unsung hero of Frank Lloyd Wright's story. All his building leaked like sieves before Dow Corning's wonder material fixed his mess.
A proper architect is ALWAYS ahead of the materials. And no owner of any Wright home ever complained about a leak. Basically, your comment shows how little you know, and how poorly able you are to assess architectural design.
@@Chris.Davies Nah. I used to do my architect student roommate's drafting homework (before CAD), made parts of his models. Architects can be an odd bunch. Practical would be great, but... The annex to Falling Water is there because the main room was impossible to heat. All the Modern houses of Mies van der Rohe, The Case Study Houses, Schindler,, etc... ALL leaked, (Along the bottoms of the wall windows was chronic.) They were all nearly impossible to heat/air condition. I've been in several, known people who built them, worked on them. They were far ahead of the materials. Only in the past 40 years have there been windows insulated well enough to make those houses practical. Great architecture is first and foremost visual and spatial. I'm sure Wrights bungalow houses in Chicago which were variations on the more conventional upper class domestic architecture of the day were every bit as practical. When his style advanced, he was ahead of the materials. The Ennis House in Los Angeles is crumbling because decomposing granite isn't a good aggregate material. It is such a beautiful house that it's well worth the decades of repairs and searching for new binders to make it work. Caulking when Wright started would be putty (linseed oil and marble dust); oakum, tar and lead; or 'shingling, to shed water.' We now have caulks used on boats that make silicone seem primitive.
Ha! My dad was a forester and he used to bring home wood samples for me to play with. I never pursued a career in architecture, but maybe playing with those blocks nurtured my fascination with architecture. Thank you for your excellent videos!
I wanted to become an architect but found l had a major problem with math. I just could not catch on to calculus. But then when introduced to Algebra l had lots of trouble with it. Until l explained to the instructor that a,b and c. X,y and z didn't mean anything to me. Then she plugged in values and the light went on. Regarding calculus. I have had others say they had a lot of trouble with it. It seems to be primarily an issue of the instructor than the subject matter.
Your channel has helped me to finally make the trip to appreciate Chicago's architecture in person, I fly out from Philadelphia on Tuesday. So excited, thank you for your great videos!
I worked downtown on Jackson and wells right by the sears tower.2 of my favorite architectural buildings are so close by the rookery And the monad mac And the monadnock building I hope you have a chance to see them both Everybody loves mayor daily from the 70s But man he let's so many buildings that were historical get torn down for no reason (money) There should be so many beautiful buildings left there
Frank Lloyd Wright appeared on a 1956 episode of What's My Line. He wasn't technically the mystery guest-that was Liberace. However, the panel was blindfolded while they asked yes or no questions to try to identify his occupation/identity. That episode, like all the surviving episodes of WML, is available here on UA-cam. WML aired on Sunday nights on CBS from 1950 until 1967. I wasn't born until 1968, but about 20 years ago, I came across the show airing on the Game Show Network at 3 AM. I really enjoyed it and began recording the show on my DVR. There is quite a lot to like about the show, but every once in a while, they would have an exceptionally interesting contestant, exceptionally interesting to modern eyes. For instance, they had an episode with Colonel Harland Sanders. But because he wasn't yet the face of a national ad campaign for KFC, the panel didn't need to be blindfolded. Thomas Eagleton, who was then the DA of St. Louis, Missouri, was a contestant. He would go on to be nominated as George McGovern's running mate in 1972 but would withdraw when the press discovered that in the 1960s, Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electroshock therapy for depression. Of course, plenty of Hollywood movie stars appeared as mystery guests, including one future president. Ronald Reagan appeared as a mystery guest in 1953 and as a guest panelist in 1956.
I went down the WML rabbit hole this year. I was sparked by watching 101 Dalmatians. The two henchmen were watching it in their hideout while the puppies were escaping.
@@elizabethperkins5555 Was that in the original animated version or the live-action remake? I haven't seen the original since I was a kid and have never watched the remake. It was more understandable to be distracted by such a popular show in those days since there was no way to rewatch the part that you missed. WML produced a new show almost every week, so there were very few reruns. Somehow, I doubt Cruella was very understanding, though.
Building blocks, Legos, Lincoln logs, etc. are excellent toys to exercise young minds and trigger interests in spatial mathematics, and can lead to careers in architecture and engineering. Do your children a favor and give them hands-on toys in place of electronic video games.
Were there favorable economic conditions during the start of his career? I know that statement can't be applied to his whole career, as Fallingwater was built during the Great Depression.
@@thebigpicture2032 Whether there was manpower is largely irrelevant. Frank Lloyd Wright had to work for clients, and construction in the private sector was greatly slowed during the Great Depression, and that included commissions for Wright.
Although the ranch format does have disadvantages, like how it's land inefficient to have everything on one level, especially when you get to the bigger square footage ranges. Also, the ranch house isn't as frequently featured in movies and TV shows as two+ story house styles are, when someone pictures the idealized American Dream house, chances are that it's two (or three) storey.
When talking about Wright and the Froebel blocks, it would be a good idea to also show a few pages from a popular 19th century architectural reference book that talks about the use of a grid system to line up structural elements and to provide good proportions. The grid is recommended for use in both horizontal, and vertical, planes. The book is, Encyclopedia of Architecture: The Complete Guide to Architecture, from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. It was written by Joseph Gwilt, and published in 1867. I would say that the odds are extremely good to 100%, that a young guy like Wright who was interested in learning about architecture would at least glance through the books in the libraries of the architects he worked for. If Wright's eyes ever ran across the pages in Gwilt's book that cover the grid system, his Froebel block molded mind would latch onto that like a pit bull. And even if Wright never saw Gwilt's book, he worked in a firm that almost invented steel girder skyscrapers, and they were, and still are, distributed on a grid. And it's likely that Gwilt's book was known to both Adler and Sullivan. Finally, Wright was exposed to traditional Japanese house design, which also has a grid system incorporated into it. The result was that he used grids in his work. He used them silently to guide him in his design decisions. But he also used them more overtly, even having masons score a grid on the concrete floors of many of his buildings. A couple of questions remain, what proportioning system was shown in Gwilt's book? And what system did Wright employ? Gwilt did NOT specify a proportioning system, but the illustrations in his book show Fibonacci proportions without naming Fibonacci. And, Wright's plans show Fibonacci proportions of, 1:2, 2:3, 3:5, 5:8, 8:13, etc. Every skilled designer needs to master MANY other important factors involved in design, proportion is just one of them. But, when Froebel is mentioned in relation to Wright, it is probably a good idea to also mention Gwilt, and Fibonacci.
I love Wrights work and think he's brilliant. Another factor which helped him immensely were all of his patrons, many of whom he strung along for money, one whose wife he sorta stole, and most who let him do designs with little oversight. This let him explore his ideas sometimes without the consequences of having to deal with buildings failing, falling apart, leaking, or fitting a program set by his clients that current architects would be in big trouble for.
Yes, it is not enough to be a brilliant architect. One has to be able to communicate the brilliance of one’s architecture. As can be seen in many of the comments, many people have a strong dislike for Frank Loyd Wright’s architecture. Interestingly, most of them don’t say why with any specificity.
Fun fact: I believe at 12:04 we see a model of the Kalita Humphreys Theater Center in Dallas, designed by Wright. It is about to undergo a multi million dollar restoration to return it to the original design after years of neglect and alterations by the City of Dallas!
I was so happy that you covered the Japanese influence with unity temple, I did a case study on the temple for one of my ARCH classes at College of DuPage and when I was trying to find plans I came across an image of the two plans side by side. After a brief deep dive I was shocked with how similar the buildings were on the plans and overall. Great video, I always enjoy your work
10:48 The word "Usonian" struck me as interesting. Bears a striking similarity to the Esperanto word for the USA, which is "Usono". Looked it up and apparently both Wright and the author of Esperanto were influenced by an early 20th century author who advocated to use the name Usonia for the US. Only caught on in Esperanto I guess!
informative. Constructive criticism: Try to move less, especially hand movements. It is distracting. You can then save those movements and especially gestures:for more effective presentation. For example, at 6:00 , the phrase "...not soaring vertical towers..." used a very effective gesture of reaching upward, but it was diminished by all the unnecessary previous hand movements which simply mimic the rhythm of speech (which happens often). When introducing the Charnley-Persky house, after opening the door (nice creative touch), stand as still as possible until saying THIS IS THE... and then do a grand open arms gesture. Smaller or no movements on less important text will make the viewer listen to those parts, and the more visual gestures will cause them to notice/remember key moments in the presentation.
What is touched upon in this video and bears further discussion is how his architecture was of a certain time and place. It is the stuff of the Midwest or the west coast; born of the automobile era. So lateral buildings built across what would be sprawling properties are where it is best suited. These are neighbourhoods where everyone drives and where walking is impractical. It did not fit so well in urban environments. (I bristle against FLW or anyone, really-Steve Jobs, etc-being declared some godlike, always-right solution to the human condition. He was a brilliant man with a lot of great ideas, and yes, there’s much to learn there. But simply copying his work, inconsiderately stamping it across the landscape, well, it’s what led to things like endless tracts of suburbia, traffic jams and strip malls.)
In addition to making a lot of toxic ideas trendy, a lot of Wright's buildings kind of sucked. Fallingwater nearly collapsed in the 90s because, as it turns out, Wright did not know how to build his famous cantilevers. I bet a lot of his popularity is directly attributable to that last thing mentioned in the video: being better than his peers at spreading his ideas to the next generation.
@@TheRealE.B. there’s something to that. Until and perhaps even since then, there’s not been another American architect so singularly attached to a residential housing style. Also, I think he was lucky: he was in the right place at the right time in history. In booming post-WWII America, people had little interest in historic architecture. The burgeoning middle class, emerging from WWII and depression-era austerity, wanted to leave the past behind and embrace something fresh and new. And there he was. It may very well have been that anything new (well, not anything, but anything decent, let’s say) would have been embraced with similar vigor.
Validation first, I'm not a fan of FLW other than his "big picture" aesthetics. He did, most certainly, have an eye for balance and design, but the beauty of it, at best, is subjective. FLW also was the Grandfather of the "MacMansion," and what he did with OPC cementitious materials (one of the worst polluters in the world today) is a blight on architecture and a never-ending battle to keep his architecture even functional as it (very successfully) falls apart. I've worked on Falling Waters, and know many of his projects on a "hands-on" basis. Each is a collection of good aesthetic design but horrid material choices and decisions that even tradespeople and craftspeople at the time told him were bad, which led to him having many leave projects leaving him with those that would capitulate to his ironic demands that we suffer with today in restoration of such work. As a natural and traditional design builder, historic restorationist, and someone who appreciates architecture deeply I can admire some of FLW's work astheticly; however, the legacy of "track homes," sprawling subdivisions, and poor material use is not to be admired at all...
When I look at the rigid structure at Frank Lloyd Wright imposed on his residences, I have to wonder at the pleasure of owning the place. The Guggenheim does not offer a variety of display settings, they are all diagonally placed on the ramp. The Kaleta Humphries theater in Dallas, Texas has windows in the back of the auditorium that require a little wooden panels to close off for productions done in the daytime and it has a set of stairs to the balcony that are small and angled, and since they were provided with carpet to deaden the sound, they are really tricky to walk up. The actual stage space requires accommodation to the architect and has very limited backstage support.
In 1963 my parents thought about buying the FLW house at Forest and Superior in Oak Park. See12:08in vid. BUT the roof leaked like a sieve. I came to learn later that this was a major flaw in many FLW houses.
I'm not an architect but I've been to the Samara house and also the John E Christian house, both in West Lafayette IN. It's like you're witnessing a work of art, it's palpable. There's something about masterful work I suppose, it just speaks for itself.
I bought a set of the Froebel Gifts (blocks) at Taliesin West many years ago. He was the Master, an American treasure. You can see the hand of FLLW in the work of his apprentices. My favorite is E. Fay Jones.
Excellent content, Stewart. Wright's level of thoughtfulness and consideration for construction technique and human psychology are very inspiring to me and my practice 🤘
we had a local architect who was an understudy of his, designed many of the city's municipal buildings in a cubist style, with a lot of pillars, cantilevers, big windows, and shapes
11:00 Unfortunately, modern home design *may* have been influenced with respect to exterior appearance by Wright's practice and theories, but plenty of designers/architects/builders of modern developer homes appear to be phoning it in by blindly copying the form without necessarily understanding how it interacts with the intended function.
Yes. Vestiges of form, like a poorly done counterfeit. The reductiveness of forms, ignoring function, the banality of almost every inadequate design since is what encompasses the American suburban experience, the culture of Americans even now. It creates malaise
So he designed a windmill for his Aunt back home. Very intriguing as it is designed to capture the wind and also resist it. A lesson in wind proofing buildings. We came across it while designing a wind proof home out on the Prairies by Milk River, Alberta.
I always thought of Frank Lloyd Wright's works to be for pretentious people, but after watching this video (I didn't looked much into his biography before) I can't feel but respect for him because he would probably loved all of the attention he got, and will get overtime because of his timeless contributions to architecture.
Wright's ability to manipulate three dimensions in his head is no less impressive than Mozart's ability to manipulate musical ideas in his. Wright fully designed Falling Water in his mind and drew it on paper in a single session. Yes, all those other things were necessary steps along the way, but without his special ability he could not have been what he was: one of America's greatest artists.
To be able to study architecture in Chicago seems like one of many "obvious" choices as well as, a dream come true? I really enjoy everything you have to say, Stewart. I like your subject choices as well as how you organize and phrase things. When you describe one aspect of Wright's devices of "compressing the space vertically, only to release it later," and it becoming a "staple of Wright's work" to describe one method he employed to invoke weightlessness was an elegant exposition contraposing the building's actual heavy weight. I am reminded of what it might feel like to be a fish suddenly enveloped and passing through the relatively small mouth of a sperm whale, only to be dumdounded by a new, much larger space, such as it's stomach, still determined, but a little confused by your new environment. Maybe this is a bit silly of such a specific example, but that initial verical narrowing feels very much like a mouth to me, and the quick switch to a large open space is probably awe inducing and maybe, a little purposely jarring, while still being kind of confined space. Lrobably there is an egress system, but I doubt it is as pleasant to walk up the stairs as it may be to escape out the window, however you do it. Your classes must be wonderful. I don't know if it is just that you pick an organized and digestable sample of material, or if architecture is straightforward in some way. I am going to guess it is the former, since it is surely not a limited subject and it's juggernauts are probably well described as opinionated and diverse, maybe necessarily, so they are remembered, like the artists we actually know of today. You have a knack of making big ideas more simple, and conversational. My whole family is from Chicago for as many generations as we have been in America, but because we moved when I was so young, I grew up in friendlier climates, and I am told, far less dangerous cities. Chicago has so much to offer culturally and educationally. My needs have changed due to disability. While I feel sure I need to live in a modestly large to large city for at minimum, support and medical care, I do worry about crime and how to keep myself safe and I now make great use of elevators. There are many reasons I dream of living in Chicago, and not necessarily for the oresence oflr lack of elevators. Just for a start, what there is to see and do and the great and varied food is clearly enough of a reason for many, and I have so many fond memories of so many of the buildings, museums, and even of the statues and all the art there. Very early on I adopted the opinion that all buildings of any quality should clearly be made of brick and have some style or artifice and probably two, three, or more stories to be of any value, and then if climate and space allows, a good guard dog and a pool. It is funny because so many decades later, I'm not sure that my opinions have changed very much, but I can now at least appreciate many other kinds of buildings, and locations, but I still gravitate toward solid, brick buildings for their various qualities. I am delighted to watch your channel and only wish I could have discussed many of the topics you raise with my father before he passed away. I think he would have enjoyed sharing some of his memories even if he did regard Chicago as a world-class city, but a "tough town" he was glad to eventually leave. Your channel may be about architecture, but it is also invariably about Chicago and it fills me with nostalgia and cultural and familial appreciation. I particularly loved your Chicago Rat Hole video posing the question of wjether or not it is art. This may be my favorite video of yours, but only couched in the appreciation gained through all the other videos I have seen of yours. It would have still been a good video, but it came with well earned appreciation, a promise of a fair critique and suble authority. Honestly, I am not sure how much I would appreciate the same Rat Hole in some other cities for how the location changes its context of it being a destination, its survivability, and its location as a part of a significant city in American history as well as a still, comparatively, very relevant one today. Also, for example, this Rat Hole in Portland or Austin wouldn't be as nearly as important because these cities identify as quirky and it's really on brand and just not as interesting, and would be more suspect as being a manufactured and not serendipitous sort of hole. Thank you for this and all your videos.
I’m not an architect, so I’m aware my opinion is uneducated and probably wrong in eyes of most, but although Wright was an uncontested genius ahead of his time, I cannot help but feeling overwhelmed every time I look at one of his designs, his personal home & studio in particular. It gives me vibes of something you’d see in a horror movie. All of his buildings and houses give the impression of being dark, oppressive, claustrophobic, stuffy, sprawled, inefficient and excessively heavy. It feels as if he were in control all the time by not allowing you to look into, by limiting what you can see out of, by compressing you at the entrance just to release you into dimly lit environments full of heavy furniture and ornaments. Then there is the SC Johnson HQ where the manager’s officers are on a raised level so that they could surveil the lesser employees from above, reinforcing who held the power. Is all very sinister and oppressive to me and I wouldn’t like to be inside one of his creations.
Interesting comment. I love most of Wright's architecture but I agree with you about the horror movie vibe. To me his work is beautiful and elegant but also austere and authoritarian. And as we know the houses were cold and damp. I hadn't realised before that he had no official training, especially in construction. His experimentation was not guided by knowledge. But for all that he was a great architect.
I've always admired wright. I don't did his designs to be horror house like. They are monumental. The also have a heart the hearth the fireplace. Yes his building famously leaked he said that's how you knew that was the roof and if it didntthe architec was too timid. Falling water was known to the family as rising damp. I'm not even a great fan of the prairie home but love the usonian the hollyhawk house and the textile block system. His cross hatched lumber plank walls I find fascinating. Imagion building walls of three inch pannels
Yes his residential designs do give off a bit of modern horror movie vibes. Normal looking rich yuppie family living their comfortable life then out of nowhere wham! their house is actually haunted by a nasty ghost which would suddenly appear and asks: whatcha doin? 😄 I'm not a fan of Mr. Wright but I like his expansive exteriors on some of his residential designs and specifically on his industrial/corporate and institutional structures. They got this 1950s clean industrial look. All looked good on large tracts of land. I like them but I don't want to live in them. Just like I admire the practical looks of fighter jets but it would take me a lot of persuasion to make me ride in one. And don't get me started on going under the ocean in a submarine. But Antoine Predock's futurist style CLA Building gets 8 stars from me. Well, at least it's open triangle corner looks simple but amazing in late afternoon sunlight.
As a matter of fact, William Castle did use one of Wright's Mayan houses for exterior shots in "House On Haunted Hill". But he shot the interiors on Old Dark House sets leading to the question, "Why does this look like 'The Fountainhead' outside and 'Dark Shadows ' inside"?
The Sydney suburb of Castlecrag has several homes by Marion Mahony Griffin, as she and Walter Burley Griffin lived there in a Bohemian community while overseeing the construction of Canberra. They moved to Lucknow, India, where Walter died. I have been inside one of those homes and it is sublime, although costly to maintain the aging concrete.
It's an historical injustice that Walter Burley Griffin is generally credited (solely) with master-planning Canberra, when it's clear that Walter and Marion very much operated organically as a creative (as well as marital) partnership.
Thank you, Stewart for this video. Frank Lloyd Wright is my favorite architect. I like the computer generated models. Are you going to do additonal videos with building models like the ones featured in prior videos? It would be cool to see more.
we owned a house like the one in the thumbnail only bigger. It was easy to live in, easy to clean, it may have been boring but it was our favorite house.
Wright despised garages, attics and basements because he didn't like clutter and knew people would become packrat hoarders by having such spaces. He was right.
I've always been a little skeptical of that block story. I think as architects we tend to embellish the truth for the sake of the bold. And that's okay lol
It’s a shame that we live in an era where we have to tamper down our knowledge that wright was an amazing genius. Reminds me of the kurt vonnegut short story harrison Bergeron. Because we reward mediocrity now, doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate genius
@@codetech5598 The above comments are referring to George Castanza, a character in the television series “Seinfeld”. The character always wanted to be an architect, but has zero training. He attempts to impress women with this claim. When he is an “architect” he uses the name “Art Vandelay”. This channel did a video on the topic. Stewart Hicks: If George Costanza Was Really an Architect
1:31 Im always surprised people struggle with that idea. There is was nothing singularly unique about Wright... or anyone else in history. Some people through natural talent/practice/opportunity, develop a skill set. Sometimes those people are presented an opportunity to use that skill set. Sometimes the right people, at the right time, in the right environment, see the results of that opportunity and that kicks things off. There were probably 10,000s of Wrights in the US at that time. Some lacked the desire to hone that skill, some lacked the opportunity, some never got the opportunity to show it off, some didnt get it shown off to the right person at the right time in the right environment, etc. Im not a big fan of the "mysterious, singular, innate talent" narrative. It doesn't reflect reality and is not good for anyone
In the early 1900's the surveyed people about what they thought was the greatest advance of the era. They could have said the airplane, the automobile, electrification, etc. What were they impressed by? Reenforced concrete.
Great video! I've been reading a lot about FLW lately and one of the more interesting things I came across was the warehouse he built in his hometown (Richland Center). It still stands, although it's heavily under-utilized at the moment. It's called the AD German Warehouse and if you look for a picture of it you'll see it could only have been designed by FLW.
When one looks at FLW's early work, you can see how heavily influenced he was by the Scottish Architect Alexander Thompson, Unity Temple has the Japanese influence but is an almost direct copy of St Vincent Street church in Glasgow. I'm glad Wright is appreciated more in the US than Thompson was until the last 30 to 40 years.
Excellent video! My first exposure to Frank Lloyd Wright was through the Guggenheim (and Simon & Garfunkel's song about Frank Lloyd Wright). My dad would take my brother and me out on Sunday afternoons, and we often went to museums. We didn't go to the Geggenheim very often because the admission price was very steep, but every once in a while we ended up there. I found the quality of space amazing. At the bottom it felt like we were at the bottom of a narrow cylinder, but when we took the elevator to the top, we entered this very open, expansive space, light-filled space with a giant hole in the middle. As we made our way down the ramp the space would gradually constrict until we reached the bottom, and then we were at the bottom of a hole again. I was far more interested in the space than in the art displayed there, to which I paid no attention. That perhaps highlights one of the criticisms of the Guggenheim: the building itself overwhelmed the art within. However, the first time I was really WOWED by a Frank Lloyd Wright interior was when I first visited the 1914-16 Francis W Little living room as installed in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sometime around 1985. After going through period rooms from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, all of which were interesting in their own ways, I entered the Frank Lloyd Wright space. What a revelation! What a contrast! The room was expansive, yet serene, in the way of Zen Buddhist temple is serene. I felt myself relax, physically and emotionally, into that room. I wanted to live in a space like that. My only frustration was that it was only a fragment of the building outside of its original context. Of course, I've seen many FLW buildings since, like Unity Temple, Fallingwater, Taliesin in Wisconsin, and various Usonian houses, and I knew what to expect, but my first visit to the Little House livingroom is still one of the most architecturally powerful experiences I've ever had.
The best story I've heard about FLW was he took a commission and didn't do anything for months. One day his client decided to visit his office. The client would arrive in 3 hours so he locked himself in his draft room and made the plans. The client arrived and loved the plans. The plans were for the Waterfall.
heheheh. Falling Water is cool, but its cool imo because of the waterfall. Its got a lot of glass and open balconies but thats not-building.... the beauty of nature is what you are looking at. The building itself is pretty boxy and ugly. Frank Lloyd Wright got in the rare enviable position where his name brand carried so much weight he could just scribble anything and people immediately called it a masterpiece. And then he was so tempermental people were afraid to criticize anything he put in. "Can he do that? It leaks!" "You're gonna have a house designed by FLW! Do you want to lose the contract?"
"Isn't it bad idea to have our bed on a huge plate of untempered glass, and the furnace underneath it like that?" "Shhh! He'll hear you. " FLW: "Hmh? Whatsthat. You don't like it?" "Oh no Mr. Wright. Its perfect. A masterpiece." "Good." 😆
Maybe the people who designed the first company towns of the Industrial Revolution. The rowhouses built in these company towns were uniform in style, size and floor plan. The company town rowhouses might have inspired the development of the first Levittowns, which would be the first modern cookie cutter suburbs.
I will say when I was about 8 one of the only channels we could get in the mountains was PBS and I saw a special about the Falling Water and that's when I was hooked.
Contraversial architect, though certainly well known. As a one time aspiring architect myself who never panned out (everyone immediately here would bring him up) I always thought pretty much all of the architecture styles were cool at the time he arrived on the scene and he definitely pioneered a new change.... but a lot of people kind of wish he didn't lol. I think he stood out as bold and different at the time and got a lot of attention. But now with everything modern, many tire of living in the plain boxes and playskool shapes. As a lifelong Illinois resident I sort of appreciate that he created a "Prairie Style" but this usually means here a cookie-cutter stampout for small business buildings, they all look practically identical. I call it the "plains" design lol. Its not hard to figure out that most companies looking for an architect see the cheaper price tag for modern and opt for the simple look, telling themselves they are being trendy. Its often the only choice as the skill to make the old buildings is largely gone now. Nobody builds like Chicago Theatre anymore.
@@Roberta-q1q I caught that, but it's one of the few things I feel he explained poorly. Sullivan designed his ornamental foliage on top of underlying geometric patterns. He used the geometry to give pattern to seemingly random/ organic sculpture. Occasionally the geometry broke through the foliage to and became more visible.
Blame Wright? The thumbnail photo is neither a ranch nor a split level. While interesting, this video does next to nothing to explain how Wright influenced those kinds of designs. Ranchers, sure, Prairie design obviously had some influence on the Ranchers, but the ubiquitous split level is generally a hideous style and I don’t see the connection. The tragedy of house building in America is that it is so bland, uninspired, and shoddy. More than 60 years after his death, Wright’s designs still look modern and innovative; much more so than 98 percent of the mindless McMansion boxes built today.
That modest home you are picking home would be helped a lot by painting the garage door to match the dark colors on the front and planting some nice plants in the front. You have deliberately chosen an unloved little place, probably a rental.
I feel like nowadays his lack of formal education would become a humongous problem and drama later on. Wouldn't matter if everything was well within regulations.
When he was designing the SC Johnson Wax Administration Building in his 70s, the Racine planning board learned that despite his fame, he had never had a license to practice architecture. In response he agreed to take an oral exam. The board relented. To be fair, I suspect (but don't know for certain) that licensure was not required at the time Wright started his career.
70% was his work, but 30% was his self promotion. After all Rule #1 at being ‘successful’ in great Art & Design is not the work itself but who you know that can get your work out there, whether you’re a Designer, Writer, Painter or Musician
To me Frank Lloyd Wright is a perfect embodiment of the American shift from good classical architecture (like Louis Sullivan) that was built to be beautiful and last as long as possible; which he did start with… but by the end he was just makin car-centric, cheap looking, low density sprawl structures that is all we seem capable of making anymore 😢
ahaha! very fun that halfway through this video I'm surprised by the appearance of the first licensed female architect, and then seeing her style I notice the name Griffin, and look her up to check that yes, she was married to Walter Burley Griffin and that's why I recognized the artstyle
Did Wright also come up with the idea of excluding let's say small groceries and pubs from residential areas? In that case he would have been instrumental to destroying the American city in general.
my mum designed a home based on frank llyod wright book it was a gorgeous and unusual house we grew up in the 70's and was a home for our family for 40 plus years - nestled into the environment (Australian bush)
That's so awesome! I'd love to build a smaller cabin based on one of his smaller homes
What is the address!?
The roof repair industry would sincerely like to thank Wright for the decades of job security that his influence provided.
Meanwhile, the window manufacturers thank the environmentalists and their lobbyists. On the Gulf Coast, those overhangs save more energy than double pain windows for Pennie’s on the dollar. The double pain windows do almost nothing to help our homes, but they are required by law, and they are many, many times more expensive.
😂 coming from a roofer- that’s exactly what I was thinking
Way overblown.
@@nunyabidness3075I have a couple single pane leaded stain glass windows from a Frank Lloyd Wright house when it was remodeled.
What overhangs are you talking about?
Great video Stewart, I’ve wandered around and toured as many Wright buildings as I could get too and were open to the public. I do love his quote “Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change”.
Silicon caulk is the unsung hero of Frank Lloyd Wright's story. All his building leaked like sieves before Dow Corning's wonder material fixed his mess.
A proper architect is ALWAYS ahead of the materials.
And no owner of any Wright home ever complained about a leak.
Basically, your comment shows how little you know, and how poorly able you are to assess architectural design.
@@Chris.Davies 😂
@@Chris.Davies wow.... just.... wow......
@@Chris.Davies Nah. I used to do my architect student roommate's drafting homework (before CAD), made parts of his models. Architects can be an odd bunch. Practical would be great, but... The annex to Falling Water is there because the main room was impossible to heat. All the Modern houses of Mies van der Rohe, The Case Study Houses, Schindler,, etc... ALL leaked, (Along the bottoms of the wall windows was chronic.) They were all nearly impossible to heat/air condition. I've been in several, known people who built them, worked on them. They were far ahead of the materials. Only in the past 40 years have there been windows insulated well enough to make those houses practical.
Great architecture is first and foremost visual and spatial. I'm sure Wrights bungalow houses in Chicago which were variations on the more conventional upper class domestic architecture of the day were every bit as practical. When his style advanced, he was ahead of the materials. The Ennis House in Los Angeles is crumbling because decomposing granite isn't a good aggregate material. It is such a beautiful house that it's well worth the decades of repairs and searching for new binders to make it work.
Caulking when Wright started would be putty (linseed oil and marble dust); oakum, tar and lead; or 'shingling, to shed water.' We now have caulks used on boats that make silicone seem primitive.
Every building leaks lmao 😂 leaks arent the main thing architects are responsible for and not leaky buildings don’t make it a good building
Ha! My dad was a forester and he used to bring home wood samples for me to play with. I never pursued a career in architecture, but maybe playing with those blocks nurtured my fascination with architecture. Thank you for your excellent videos!
I wanted to become an architect but found l had a major problem with math. I just could not catch on to calculus. But then when introduced to Algebra l had lots of trouble with it. Until l explained to the instructor that a,b and c. X,y and z didn't mean anything to me. Then she plugged in values and the light went on. Regarding calculus. I have had others say they had a lot of trouble with it. It seems to be primarily an issue of the instructor than the subject matter.
Your channel has helped me to finally make the trip to appreciate Chicago's architecture in person, I fly out from Philadelphia on Tuesday. So excited, thank you for your great videos!
I worked downtown on Jackson and wells right by the sears tower.2 of my favorite architectural buildings are so close by the rookery And the monad mac And the monadnock building
I hope you have a chance to see them both
Everybody loves mayor daily from the 70s But man he let's so many buildings that were historical get torn down for no reason (money)
There should be so many beautiful buildings left there
5:12 Topic Suggestion: This is a topic that would make a great video on its own - rebuilding a city after a war or natural disaster.
I would love to hear that
Enough material for a series!
That’s a great idea!
Beirut
Frank Lloyd Wright appeared on a 1956 episode of What's My Line. He wasn't technically the mystery guest-that was Liberace. However, the panel was blindfolded while they asked yes or no questions to try to identify his occupation/identity. That episode, like all the surviving episodes of WML, is available here on UA-cam. WML aired on Sunday nights on CBS from 1950 until 1967. I wasn't born until 1968, but about 20 years ago, I came across the show airing on the Game Show Network at 3 AM. I really enjoyed it and began recording the show on my DVR. There is quite a lot to like about the show, but every once in a while, they would have an exceptionally interesting contestant, exceptionally interesting to modern eyes. For instance, they had an episode with Colonel Harland Sanders. But because he wasn't yet the face of a national ad campaign for KFC, the panel didn't need to be blindfolded. Thomas Eagleton, who was then the DA of St. Louis, Missouri, was a contestant. He would go on to be nominated as George McGovern's running mate in 1972 but would withdraw when the press discovered that in the 1960s, Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electroshock therapy for depression. Of course, plenty of Hollywood movie stars appeared as mystery guests, including one future president. Ronald Reagan appeared as a mystery guest in 1953 and as a guest panelist in 1956.
I went down the WML rabbit hole this year. I was sparked by watching 101 Dalmatians. The two henchmen were watching it in their hideout while the puppies were escaping.
@@elizabethperkins5555 Was that in the original animated version or the live-action remake? I haven't seen the original since I was a kid and have never watched the remake. It was more understandable to be distracted by such a popular show in those days since there was no way to rewatch the part that you missed. WML produced a new show almost every week, so there were very few reruns. Somehow, I doubt Cruella was very understanding, though.
Building blocks, Legos, Lincoln logs, etc. are excellent toys to exercise young minds and trigger interests in spatial mathematics, and can lead to careers in architecture and engineering.
Do your children a favor and give them hands-on toys in place of electronic video games.
I think Frank had something to do with Lincoln logs !
@@ryanburdeaux FLW's son invented Lincoln Logs.
Also, he designed Marge's hairdo, just as Apu Nahasapeemapetilon once sang: "Maggie with her eyes so bright, Marge with hair by Frank Lloyd Wright."
Oh. Marge Simpson, not Taylor Green.
I wanted to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright when I was younger, but I ended up being Frank Lloyd _Wrong_
UA-cam community policy finds your attempt at architectural pun to violate our user guidelines. Try harder.
I tried to go the Frank Lloyd Wright direction too, but I accidentally took a Frank Lloyd Left.
Ooh, too bad! Looks like Frank Lloyd Wright was Frank Lloyd Wstoopid!
Saaaaaame
You need to be PUNished for that one
Another major factor toward his success: favorable economic conditions and a very strong middle class with well paid and talented tradesmen.
💪🏼
Something we will be fortunate to ever see again....
Were there favorable economic conditions during the start of his career? I know that statement can't be applied to his whole career, as Fallingwater was built during the Great Depression.
@@davidmayes4212 building during the Great Depression was easier due to the available manpower.
@@thebigpicture2032 Whether there was manpower is largely irrelevant. Frank Lloyd Wright had to work for clients, and construction in the private sector was greatly slowed during the Great Depression, and that included commissions for Wright.
The ranch house is a great design. Cheap and easy to build, use all square footage, easy to work on.
Although the ranch format does have disadvantages, like how it's land inefficient to have everything on one level, especially when you get to the bigger square footage ranges. Also, the ranch house isn't as frequently featured in movies and TV shows as two+ story house styles are, when someone pictures the idealized American Dream house, chances are that it's two (or three) storey.
Ranch houses are ugly.
@@Libertaro-i2u
Multi story houses aren't so great when one gets older. Believe me.
Thanks!
Thank you!!
When talking about Wright and the Froebel blocks, it would be a good idea to also show a few pages from a popular 19th century architectural reference book that talks about the use of a grid system to line up structural elements and to provide good proportions. The grid is recommended for use in both horizontal, and vertical, planes. The book is, Encyclopedia of Architecture: The Complete Guide to Architecture, from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. It was written by Joseph Gwilt, and published in 1867.
I would say that the odds are extremely good to 100%, that a young guy like Wright who was interested in learning about architecture would at least glance through the books in the libraries of the architects he worked for. If Wright's eyes ever ran across the pages in Gwilt's book that cover the grid system, his Froebel block molded mind would latch onto that like a pit bull. And even if Wright never saw Gwilt's book, he worked in a firm that almost invented steel girder skyscrapers, and they were, and still are, distributed on a grid. And it's likely that Gwilt's book was known to both Adler and Sullivan. Finally, Wright was exposed to traditional Japanese house design, which also has a grid system incorporated into it. The result was that he used grids in his work. He used them silently to guide him in his design decisions. But he also used them more overtly, even having masons score a grid on the concrete floors of many of his buildings.
A couple of questions remain, what proportioning system was shown in Gwilt's book? And what system did Wright employ? Gwilt did NOT specify a proportioning system, but the illustrations in his book show Fibonacci proportions without naming Fibonacci. And, Wright's plans show Fibonacci proportions of, 1:2, 2:3, 3:5, 5:8, 8:13, etc.
Every skilled designer needs to master MANY other important factors involved in design, proportion is just one of them. But, when Froebel is mentioned in relation to Wright, it is probably a good idea to also mention Gwilt, and Fibonacci.
Each video is as professional as if it was filmed by the BBC.
I love Wrights work and think he's brilliant. Another factor which helped him immensely were all of his patrons, many of whom he strung along for money, one whose wife he sorta stole, and most who let him do designs with little oversight. This let him explore his ideas sometimes without the consequences of having to deal with buildings failing, falling apart, leaking, or fitting a program set by his clients that current architects would be in big trouble for.
Yes, it is not enough to be a brilliant architect. One has to be able to communicate the brilliance of one’s architecture. As can be seen in many of the comments, many people have a strong dislike for Frank Loyd Wright’s architecture. Interestingly, most of them don’t say why with any specificity.
@@barryrobbins7694 His ability to be a self promoter was pretty legendary as was his confident communication of his ideas.
@@benmarshall5984 I agree.
@@benmarshall5984 Apparently FLW never got a chance to speak to many of the commentators.😀
Why is everyone shoving each other out of the way to see who can best deep throat FLW? It's disgusting to watch.
Fun fact: I believe at 12:04 we see a model of the Kalita Humphreys Theater Center in Dallas, designed by Wright. It is about to undergo a multi million dollar restoration to return it to the original design after years of neglect and alterations by the City of Dallas!
... I guess I will need to venture eastward and visit Dallas again...
Texas? Ignoring a cultural treasure? I am absolutely shocked. NOT. (From someone who lived there for a long time. Too long.)
As someone who has wanted to be an architect my whole life, thank you for existing. I discovered you yesterday and cannot stop watching vids.
Thanks for making so much Chicago content! You’re our ambassador
I was so happy that you covered the Japanese influence with unity temple, I did a case study on the temple for one of my ARCH classes at College of DuPage and when I was trying to find plans I came across an image of the two plans side by side. After a brief deep dive I was shocked with how similar the buildings were on the plans and overall. Great video, I always enjoy your work
Success is the combination of talent and opportunity!
10:48 The word "Usonian" struck me as interesting. Bears a striking similarity to the Esperanto word for the USA, which is "Usono". Looked it up and apparently both Wright and the author of Esperanto were influenced by an early 20th century author who advocated to use the name Usonia for the US. Only caught on in Esperanto I guess!
there is an Usonian Inn in Spring Green WI
Holy smokes, I loved every second of this one. Looking forward to part 2!!!
informative.
Constructive criticism:
Try to move less, especially hand movements. It is distracting. You can then save those movements and especially gestures:for more effective presentation. For example, at 6:00 , the phrase "...not soaring vertical towers..." used a very effective gesture of reaching upward, but it was diminished by all the unnecessary previous hand movements which simply mimic the rhythm of speech (which happens often).
When introducing the Charnley-Persky house, after opening the door (nice creative touch), stand as still as possible until saying THIS IS THE... and then do a grand open arms gesture. Smaller or no movements on less important text will make the viewer listen to those parts, and the more visual gestures will cause them to notice/remember key moments in the presentation.
What is touched upon in this video and bears further discussion is how his architecture was of a certain time and place. It is the stuff of the Midwest or the west coast; born of the automobile era. So lateral buildings built across what would be sprawling properties are where it is best suited. These are neighbourhoods where everyone drives and where walking is impractical. It did not fit so well in urban environments.
(I bristle against FLW or anyone, really-Steve Jobs, etc-being declared some godlike, always-right solution to the human condition. He was a brilliant man with a lot of great ideas, and yes, there’s much to learn there. But simply copying his work, inconsiderately stamping it across the landscape, well, it’s what led to things like endless tracts of suburbia, traffic jams and strip malls.)
In addition to making a lot of toxic ideas trendy, a lot of Wright's buildings kind of sucked.
Fallingwater nearly collapsed in the 90s because, as it turns out, Wright did not know how to build his famous cantilevers.
I bet a lot of his popularity is directly attributable to that last thing mentioned in the video: being better than his peers at spreading his ideas to the next generation.
@@TheRealE.B. there’s something to that. Until and perhaps even since then, there’s not been another American architect so singularly attached to a residential housing style. Also, I think he was lucky: he was in the right place at the right time in history. In booming post-WWII America, people had little interest in historic architecture. The burgeoning middle class, emerging from WWII and depression-era austerity, wanted to leave the past behind and embrace something fresh and new. And there he was. It may very well have been that anything new (well, not anything, but anything decent, let’s say) would have been embraced with similar vigor.
I live in Fayetteville, AR. One of Wright's students looms large here. Fay Jones has made some truly wonderful and natural spaces here in the Ozarks.
Wright was said to have visited the Japanese village that was part of the Chicago worlds fair, almost daily
Validation first, I'm not a fan of FLW other than his "big picture" aesthetics. He did, most certainly, have an eye for balance and design, but the beauty of it, at best, is subjective. FLW also was the Grandfather of the "MacMansion," and what he did with OPC cementitious materials (one of the worst polluters in the world today) is a blight on architecture and a never-ending battle to keep his architecture even functional as it (very successfully) falls apart. I've worked on Falling Waters, and know many of his projects on a "hands-on" basis. Each is a collection of good aesthetic design but horrid material choices and decisions that even tradespeople and craftspeople at the time told him were bad, which led to him having many leave projects leaving him with those that would capitulate to his ironic demands that we suffer with today in restoration of such work. As a natural and traditional design builder, historic restorationist, and someone who appreciates architecture deeply I can admire some of FLW's work astheticly; however, the legacy of "track homes," sprawling subdivisions, and poor material use is not to be admired at all...
Having studied FLW deeply, specially over his bioclimatic strategies, congratulations for this new high quality report. Saludos desde Uruguay 🇺🇾
When I look at the rigid structure at Frank Lloyd Wright imposed on his residences, I have to wonder at the pleasure of owning the place. The Guggenheim does not offer a variety of display settings, they are all diagonally placed on the ramp. The Kaleta Humphries theater in Dallas, Texas has windows in the back of the auditorium that require a little wooden panels to close off for productions done in the daytime and it has a set of stairs to the balcony that are small and angled, and since they were provided with carpet to deaden the sound, they are really tricky to walk up. The actual stage space requires accommodation to the architect and has very limited backstage support.
Age can not wither Wright, nor custom, stale his wonderful variety. His designs are still incredible.
thanks for the marion mahony griffin info. first time learning of her. really like her renderings.
In 1963 my parents thought about buying the FLW house at Forest and Superior in Oak Park. See12:08in vid. BUT the roof leaked like a sieve. I came to learn later that this was a major flaw in many FLW houses.
I'm not an architect but I've been to the Samara house and also the John E Christian house, both in West Lafayette IN. It's like you're witnessing a work of art, it's palpable. There's something about masterful work I suppose, it just speaks for itself.
I went to Purdue and walked by the flw house near the stadium many times. It was a beaut.
Great summary 🙏🏽
I bought a set of the Froebel Gifts (blocks) at Taliesin West many years ago. He was the Master, an American treasure. You can see the hand of FLLW in the work of his apprentices. My favorite is E. Fay Jones.
Excellent content, Stewart. Wright's level of thoughtfulness and consideration for construction technique and human psychology are very inspiring to me and my practice 🤘
we had a local architect who was an understudy of his, designed many of the city's municipal buildings in a cubist style, with a lot of pillars, cantilevers, big windows, and shapes
Are you in Midland, Michigan, and taking about Alden B. Dow?
10:30 Those one-acre lots!
thank you!!!!
11:00 Unfortunately, modern home design *may* have been influenced with respect to exterior appearance by Wright's practice and theories, but plenty of designers/architects/builders of modern developer homes appear to be phoning it in by blindly copying the form without necessarily understanding how it interacts with the intended function.
Yes. Vestiges of form, like a poorly done counterfeit. The reductiveness of forms, ignoring function, the banality of almost every inadequate design since is what encompasses the American suburban experience, the culture of Americans even now. It creates malaise
So he designed a windmill for his Aunt back home. Very intriguing as it is designed to capture the wind and also resist it. A lesson in wind proofing buildings. We came across it while designing a wind proof home out on the Prairies by Milk River, Alberta.
10:28 Garden Suburbs came from England decades before. Wright was mimicking ideas learned after visting England.
I always thought of Frank Lloyd Wright's works to be for pretentious people, but after watching this video (I didn't looked much into his biography before) I can't feel but respect for him because he would probably loved all of the attention he got, and will get overtime because of his timeless contributions to architecture.
This video was so good!
If that story about his mother giving him blocks is not apocryphal, its incredible parenting.
Wright's ability to manipulate three dimensions in his head is no less impressive than Mozart's ability to manipulate musical ideas in his. Wright fully designed Falling Water in his mind and drew it on paper in a single session. Yes, all those other things were necessary steps along the way, but without his special ability he could not have been what he was: one of America's greatest artists.
Interesting about the building blocks. In much of his architecture, he still uses a look and feel of blocks.
Great video, thanks! Why so much boom on the CG renders though? Rather over the top..
i lived on the block with frank loyd wright's block. oak park is a beautiful place.
To be able to study architecture in Chicago seems like one of many "obvious" choices as well as, a dream come true? I really enjoy everything you have to say, Stewart. I like your subject choices as well as how you organize and phrase things. When you describe one aspect of Wright's devices of "compressing the space vertically, only to release it later," and it becoming a "staple of Wright's work" to describe one method he employed to invoke weightlessness was an elegant exposition contraposing the building's actual heavy weight. I am reminded of what it might feel like to be a fish suddenly enveloped and passing through the relatively small mouth of a sperm whale, only to be dumdounded by a new, much larger space, such as it's stomach, still determined, but a little confused by your new environment. Maybe this is a bit silly of such a specific example, but that initial verical narrowing feels very much like a mouth to me, and the quick switch to a large open space is probably awe inducing and maybe, a little purposely jarring, while still being kind of confined space. Lrobably there is an egress system, but I doubt it is as pleasant to walk up the stairs as it may be to escape out the window, however you do it. Your classes must be wonderful. I don't know if it is just that you pick an organized and digestable sample of material, or if architecture is straightforward in some way. I am going to guess it is the former, since it is surely not a limited subject and it's juggernauts are probably well described as opinionated and diverse, maybe necessarily, so they are remembered, like the artists we actually know of today. You have a knack of making big ideas more simple, and conversational. My whole family is from Chicago for as many generations as we have been in America, but because we moved when I was so young, I grew up in friendlier climates, and I am told, far less dangerous cities. Chicago has so much to offer culturally and educationally. My needs have changed due to disability. While I feel sure I need to live in a modestly large to large city for at minimum, support and medical care, I do worry about crime and how to keep myself safe and I now make great use of elevators. There are many reasons I dream of living in Chicago, and not necessarily for the oresence oflr lack of elevators. Just for a start, what there is to see and do and the great and varied food is clearly enough of a reason for many, and I have so many fond memories of so many of the buildings, museums, and even of the statues and all the art there. Very early on I adopted the opinion that all buildings of any quality should clearly be made of brick and have some style or artifice and probably two, three, or more stories to be of any value, and then if climate and space allows, a good guard dog and a pool. It is funny because so many decades later, I'm not sure that my opinions have changed very much, but I can now at least appreciate many other kinds of buildings, and locations, but I still gravitate toward solid, brick buildings for their various qualities. I am delighted to watch your channel and only wish I could have discussed many of the topics you raise with my father before he passed away. I think he would have enjoyed sharing some of his memories even if he did regard Chicago as a world-class city, but a "tough town" he was glad to eventually leave. Your channel may be about architecture, but it is also invariably about Chicago and it fills me with nostalgia and cultural and familial appreciation. I particularly loved your Chicago Rat Hole video posing the question of wjether or not it is art. This may be my favorite video of yours, but only couched in the appreciation gained through all the other videos I have seen of yours. It would have still been a good video, but it came with well earned appreciation, a promise of a fair critique and suble authority. Honestly, I am not sure how much I would appreciate the same Rat Hole in some other cities for how the location changes its context of it being a destination, its survivability, and its location as a part of a significant city in American history as well as a still, comparatively, very relevant one today. Also, for example, this Rat Hole in Portland or Austin wouldn't be as nearly as important because these cities identify as quirky and it's really on brand and just not as interesting, and would be more suspect as being a manufactured and not serendipitous sort of hole. Thank you for this and all your videos.
Enjoyable vid, thanks
I was prepping for a Skillshare ad read this whole time!
I’m not an architect, so I’m aware my opinion is uneducated and probably wrong in eyes of most, but although Wright was an uncontested genius ahead of his time, I cannot help but feeling overwhelmed every time I look at one of his designs, his personal home & studio in particular. It gives me vibes of something you’d see in a horror movie. All of his buildings and houses give the impression of being dark, oppressive, claustrophobic, stuffy, sprawled, inefficient and excessively heavy. It feels as if he were in control all the time by not allowing you to look into, by limiting what you can see out of, by compressing you at the entrance just to release you into dimly lit environments full of heavy furniture and ornaments. Then there is the SC Johnson HQ where the manager’s officers are on a raised level so that they could surveil the lesser employees from above, reinforcing who held the power. Is all very sinister and oppressive to me and I wouldn’t like to be inside one of his creations.
Interesting comment. I love most of Wright's architecture but I agree with you about the horror movie vibe. To me his work is beautiful and elegant but also austere and authoritarian. And as we know the houses were cold and damp. I hadn't realised before that he had no official training, especially in construction. His experimentation was not guided by knowledge. But for all that he was a great architect.
I've always admired wright. I don't did his designs to be horror house like. They are monumental. The also have a heart the hearth the fireplace. Yes his building famously leaked he said that's how you knew that was the roof and if it didntthe architec was too timid. Falling water was known to the family as rising damp. I'm not even a great fan of the prairie home but love the usonian the hollyhawk house and the textile block system. His cross hatched lumber plank walls I find fascinating. Imagion building walls of three inch pannels
Yes his residential designs do give off a bit of modern horror movie vibes. Normal looking rich yuppie family living their comfortable life then out of nowhere wham! their house is actually haunted by a nasty ghost which would suddenly appear and asks: whatcha doin? 😄
I'm not a fan of Mr. Wright but I like his expansive exteriors on some of his residential designs and specifically on his industrial/corporate and institutional structures. They got this 1950s clean industrial look. All looked good on large tracts of land. I like them but I don't want to live in them. Just like I admire the practical looks of fighter jets but it would take me a lot of persuasion to make me ride in one. And don't get me started on going under the ocean in a submarine.
But Antoine Predock's futurist style CLA Building gets 8 stars from me. Well, at least it's open triangle corner looks simple but amazing in late afternoon sunlight.
As a matter of fact, William Castle did use one of Wright's Mayan houses for exterior shots in "House On Haunted Hill". But he shot the interiors on Old Dark House sets leading to the question, "Why does this look like 'The Fountainhead' outside and 'Dark Shadows ' inside"?
The Sydney suburb of Castlecrag has several homes by Marion Mahony Griffin, as she and Walter Burley Griffin lived there in a Bohemian community while overseeing the construction of Canberra. They moved to Lucknow, India, where Walter died. I have been inside one of those homes and it is sublime, although costly to maintain the aging concrete.
I've long been fascinated by the story of Canberra. It's quite a saga
It's an historical injustice that Walter Burley Griffin is generally credited (solely) with master-planning Canberra, when it's clear that Walter and Marion very much operated organically as a creative (as well as marital) partnership.
Thank you, Stewart for this video. Frank Lloyd Wright is my favorite architect. I like the computer generated models. Are you going to do additonal videos with building models like the ones featured in prior videos? It would be cool to see more.
we owned a house like the one in the thumbnail only bigger. It was easy to live in, easy to clean, it may have been boring but it was our favorite house.
Anyone know the woodblock print at 8:03 please?
I absolutely hate the miles upon miles of large garages with a small living space attached that have proliferated across the world.
Wright despised garages, attics and basements because he didn't like clutter and knew people would become packrat hoarders by having such spaces. He was right.
I've always been a little skeptical of that block story. I think as architects we tend to embellish the truth for the sake of the bold. And that's okay lol
How many million kids were given blocks by their parents?
My grandfather was apprenticed to Alphonso Illaneilli. It would be awesome to hear about some of those artists behind the artist!
Frank Loyd wright building in Bartlesville, ok has an interesting story for apartment upstairs and design/ look of it.
It’s a shame that we live in an era where we have to tamper down our knowledge that wright was an amazing genius. Reminds me of the kurt vonnegut short story harrison Bergeron. Because we reward mediocrity now, doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate genius
I thought George Costanza designed the Guggenheim 😂
No, just the new addition to it 😂
I thought Art Vandelay designed it.😀
Wright designed the Guggenheim museum in New York City.
@@codetech5598 The above comments are referring to George Castanza, a character in the television series “Seinfeld”. The character always wanted to be an architect, but has zero training. He attempts to impress women with this claim. When he is an “architect” he uses the name “Art Vandelay”. This channel did a video on the topic.
Stewart Hicks: If George Costanza Was Really an Architect
Didn't really take him very long either
I can only imagine travelling to Japan in 1905. It's an intimidating thought even today. You can see a lot of his influence in Japanese architecture.
1:31 Im always surprised people struggle with that idea. There is was nothing singularly unique about Wright... or anyone else in history. Some people through natural talent/practice/opportunity, develop a skill set. Sometimes those people are presented an opportunity to use that skill set. Sometimes the right people, at the right time, in the right environment, see the results of that opportunity and that kicks things off.
There were probably 10,000s of Wrights in the US at that time. Some lacked the desire to hone that skill, some lacked the opportunity, some never got the opportunity to show it off, some didnt get it shown off to the right person at the right time in the right environment, etc. Im not a big fan of the "mysterious, singular, innate talent" narrative. It doesn't reflect reality and is not good for anyone
In the early 1900's the surveyed people about what they thought was the greatest advance of the era. They could have said the airplane, the automobile, electrification, etc. What were they impressed by? Reenforced concrete.
Great video! I've been reading a lot about FLW lately and one of the more interesting things I came across was the warehouse he built in his hometown (Richland Center). It still stands, although it's heavily under-utilized at the moment. It's called the AD German Warehouse and if you look for a picture of it you'll see it could only have been designed by FLW.
Really cool building.
Seems to me as a clutter of styles and materials , proportionally unbalanced, in all sense
When one looks at FLW's early work, you can see how heavily influenced he was by the Scottish Architect Alexander Thompson, Unity Temple has the Japanese influence but is an almost direct copy of St Vincent Street church in Glasgow.
I'm glad Wright is appreciated more in the US than Thompson was until the last 30 to 40 years.
Excellent video! My first exposure to Frank Lloyd Wright was through the Guggenheim (and Simon & Garfunkel's song about Frank Lloyd Wright). My dad would take my brother and me out on Sunday afternoons, and we often went to museums. We didn't go to the Geggenheim very often because the admission price was very steep, but every once in a while we ended up there. I found the quality of space amazing. At the bottom it felt like we were at the bottom of a narrow cylinder, but when we took the elevator to the top, we entered this very open, expansive space, light-filled space with a giant hole in the middle. As we made our way down the ramp the space would gradually constrict until we reached the bottom, and then we were at the bottom of a hole again. I was far more interested in the space than in the art displayed there, to which I paid no attention. That perhaps highlights one of the criticisms of the Guggenheim: the building itself overwhelmed the art within.
However, the first time I was really WOWED by a Frank Lloyd Wright interior was when I first visited the 1914-16 Francis W Little living room as installed in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sometime around 1985. After going through period rooms from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, all of which were interesting in their own ways, I entered the Frank Lloyd Wright space. What a revelation! What a contrast! The room was expansive, yet serene, in the way of Zen Buddhist temple is serene. I felt myself relax, physically and emotionally, into that room. I wanted to live in a space like that. My only frustration was that it was only a fragment of the building outside of its original context. Of course, I've seen many FLW buildings since, like Unity Temple, Fallingwater, Taliesin in Wisconsin, and various Usonian houses, and I knew what to expect, but my first visit to the Little House livingroom is still one of the most architecturally powerful experiences I've ever had.
The best story I've heard about FLW was he took a commission and didn't do anything for months. One day his client decided to visit his office. The client would arrive in 3 hours so he locked himself in his draft room and made the plans. The client arrived and loved the plans. The plans were for the Waterfall.
heheheh. Falling Water is cool, but its cool imo because of the waterfall. Its got a lot of glass and open balconies but thats not-building.... the beauty of nature is what you are looking at. The building itself is pretty boxy and ugly.
Frank Lloyd Wright got in the rare enviable position where his name brand carried so much weight he could just scribble anything and people immediately called it a masterpiece.
And then he was so tempermental people were afraid to criticize anything he put in. "Can he do that? It leaks!" "You're gonna have a house designed by FLW! Do you want to lose the contract?"
"Isn't it bad idea to have our bed on a huge plate of untempered glass, and the furnace underneath it like that?"
"Shhh! He'll hear you. "
FLW: "Hmh? Whatsthat. You don't like it?"
"Oh no Mr. Wright. Its perfect. A masterpiece."
"Good."
😆
Unrelated to the video. I now realised the genius of your logo
Where are the designs that influenced track-homes???
Maybe the people who designed the first company towns of the Industrial Revolution. The rowhouses built in these company towns were uniform in style, size and floor plan. The company town rowhouses might have inspired the development of the first Levittowns, which would be the first modern cookie cutter suburbs.
@@Libertaro-i2u Thank you so much for this reply. I now have more research ahed of me...
I will say when I was about 8 one of the only channels we could get in the mountains was PBS and I saw a special about the Falling Water and that's when I was hooked.
Outliers is a very good read I’d recommend as well
Contraversial architect, though certainly well known. As a one time aspiring architect myself who never panned out (everyone immediately here would bring him up) I always thought pretty much all of the architecture styles were cool at the time he arrived on the scene and he definitely pioneered a new change.... but a lot of people kind of wish he didn't lol.
I think he stood out as bold and different at the time and got a lot of attention. But now with everything modern, many tire of living in the plain boxes and playskool shapes.
As a lifelong Illinois resident I sort of appreciate that he created a "Prairie Style" but this usually means here a cookie-cutter stampout for small business buildings, they all look practically identical. I call it the "plains" design lol.
Its not hard to figure out that most companies looking for an architect see the cheaper price tag for modern and opt for the simple look, telling themselves they are being trendy. Its often the only choice as the skill to make the old buildings is largely gone now. Nobody builds like Chicago Theatre anymore.
It's hard to think of a bad FLLW building although, like Lutyens, he paid little mind to budgets.
1:50 aux contraire, we have to draw a straight Line. We are talking about Architecture after all.
That ad at the end is giving me ransom video vibes
The wood block thumbnail was way more intriguing.
FLW's mom wanted him to be an architect when she was pregnant. She put prints of some of the world's great architecture up in his nursery
Dissapointed that your split level choices use gable roofs. I lived 58 years in one with Wrightian hip roofs with sheltering overhanging eaves.
Naturally he needed the opportunities and encouragement, but in my experience, those mean nothing without the right person getting them.
Cool to see you in the Charnley house foyer
Ironic that narration praises simple geometric surface designs on wood walls while showing close up of baroque twining foliage motif on column.
@@Roberta-q1q I caught that, but it's one of the few things I feel he explained poorly. Sullivan designed his ornamental foliage on top of underlying geometric patterns. He used the geometry to give pattern to seemingly random/ organic sculpture. Occasionally the geometry broke through the foliage to and became more visible.
What I think is cool about people like Frank Lloyd wright is that people who don't know the first thing about architecture know who he is.
A movie about his life would be awesome! I see Leonardo DiCaprio playing the part.
Blame Wright? The thumbnail photo is neither a ranch nor a split level. While interesting, this video does next to nothing to explain how Wright influenced those kinds of designs. Ranchers, sure, Prairie design obviously had some influence on the Ranchers, but the ubiquitous split level is generally a hideous style and I don’t see the connection. The tragedy of house building in America is that it is so bland, uninspired, and shoddy. More than 60 years after his death, Wright’s designs still look modern and innovative; much more so than 98 percent of the mindless McMansion boxes built today.
There's nothing inherently wrong with split-level houses.
Beautifully made with fresh perspectives, thanks
That modest home you are picking home would be helped a lot by painting the garage door to match the dark colors on the front and planting some nice plants in the front. You have deliberately chosen an unloved little place, probably a rental.
The long repetitive bleak grid layout of the suburbs is nothing to be proud of.
I'm sure he wouldn't be proud of how his ideas were twisted into the current suburban landscape.
@@benmarshall5984 *suburban Hellscape
Thumbnail seems clickbait-y, since it implied FLW was the cause of the prominent garages in many home designs.
I feel like nowadays his lack of formal education would become a humongous problem and drama later on. Wouldn't matter if everything was well within regulations.
When he was designing the SC Johnson Wax Administration Building in his 70s, the Racine planning board learned that despite his fame, he had never had a license to practice architecture. In response he agreed to take an oral exam. The board relented. To be fair, I suspect (but don't know for certain) that licensure was not required at the time Wright started his career.
Informative and entertaining. Excellent work as usual.
70% was his work, but 30% was his self promotion. After all Rule #1 at being ‘successful’ in great Art & Design is not the work itself but who you know that can get your work out there, whether you’re a Designer, Writer, Painter or Musician
To me Frank Lloyd Wright is a perfect embodiment of the American shift from good classical architecture (like Louis Sullivan) that was built to be beautiful and last as long as possible; which he did start with… but by the end he was just makin car-centric, cheap looking, low density sprawl structures that is all we seem capable of making anymore 😢
ahaha! very fun that halfway through this video I'm surprised by the appearance of the first licensed female architect, and then seeing her style I notice the name Griffin, and look her up to check that yes, she was married to Walter Burley Griffin and that's why I recognized the artstyle
Shingles , a roof a tornado lifts off and slams back down directly atop the structure
Did Wright also come up with the idea of excluding let's say small groceries and pubs from residential areas? In that case he would have been instrumental to destroying the American city in general.
That was postwar zoning made for the car. Not this great architect
That would be the fault of later urban planners and the implementation of strict zoning.
Wright has an amazing house in the Phoenix, AZ area