How Frank Lloyd Wright Changed America

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  • Опубліковано 17 кві 2024
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    _Special Thanks_
    + Evan Montgomery -- Coproduction and editing
    + Society of Architectural Historians (www.sah.org)-- filming at the Charnley Persky House
    + Allison Newmeyer -- 3D modeling of the Unity Chapel
    _Description_
    From a young boy playing with blocks to becoming one of the most revered architects in history, Frank Lloyd Wright's journey is one of creativity, opportunity, and adaptability. Early experiences with geometric patterns and design principles laid the groundwork for an incredible career, challenging the notion that his skills were merely innate rather than cultivated through experiences and serendipitous opportunities.
    This video traces the career of Frank Lloyd Wright in an attempt to dispel the traditional narrative that he was simply a singular genius. Rather, his ability to leverage economic and social shifts, especially in architectural practices, set him apart and propelled him into the cultural figure we know today.
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    _About the Channel_
    Architecture with Stewart is a UA-cam journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
    _About Me_
    Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
    _Contact_
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    University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: arch.uic.edu/
    _Special Thanks_
    Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock.
    Music provided by Epidemic Sound
    #architecture #urbandesign

КОМЕНТАРІ • 388

  • @SKYRIDGENIGERIANDWARFS
    @SKYRIDGENIGERIANDWARFS 24 дні тому +66

    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)

    • @MarineCarpenter
      @MarineCarpenter 7 днів тому

      That's so awesome! I'd love to build a smaller cabin based on one of his smaller homes

  • @aes53
    @aes53 Місяць тому +68

    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”.

  • @greble11
    @greble11 Місяць тому +47

    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!

    • @mpetersen6
      @mpetersen6 14 днів тому +1

      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.

  • @harbl99
    @harbl99 Місяць тому +233

    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.

    • @Chris.Davies
      @Chris.Davies Місяць тому +15

      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.

    • @jredmane
      @jredmane Місяць тому +21

      ​@@Chris.Davies 😂

    • @alittlebitgone
      @alittlebitgone Місяць тому +28

      @@Chris.Davies wow.... just.... wow......

    • @WillN2Go1
      @WillN2Go1 Місяць тому +45

      @@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.

    • @justthink5854
      @justthink5854 Місяць тому +28

      @@Chris.Davies dumb reply. a proper architect works within the confines of budget, weather, the site, etc. great talent. terrible person. he steam rolled so many people. he ate up poor Peters who kept many of his designs from collapsing. take the FL Wright walking tour in Oak Park. his own home, which he remodeled over and over, is a delight.

  • @barryrobbins7694
    @barryrobbins7694 Місяць тому +62

    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.

  • @michaelmcchesney6645
    @michaelmcchesney6645 Місяць тому +22

    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.

  • @vanbilly8387
    @vanbilly8387 15 днів тому +17

    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.

  • @pillmuncher67
    @pillmuncher67 Місяць тому +53

    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."

  • @Darrida
    @Darrida Місяць тому +11

    Each video is as professional as if it was filmed by the BBC.

  • @deezynar
    @deezynar 25 днів тому +7

    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.

  • @benmarshall5984
    @benmarshall5984 Місяць тому +79

    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.

    • @barryrobbins7694
      @barryrobbins7694 Місяць тому +11

      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.

    • @benmarshall5984
      @benmarshall5984 Місяць тому +12

      @@barryrobbins7694 His ability to be a self promoter was pretty legendary as was his confident communication of his ideas.

    • @barryrobbins7694
      @barryrobbins7694 Місяць тому

      @@benmarshall5984 I agree.

    • @barryrobbins7694
      @barryrobbins7694 Місяць тому +2

      @@benmarshall5984 Apparently FLW never got a chance to speak to many of the commentators.😀

    • @t.w.7731
      @t.w.7731 Місяць тому

      Why is everyone shoving each other out of the way to see who can best deep throat FLW? It's disgusting to watch.

  • @pault5557
    @pault5557 14 днів тому +9

    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!

    • @scottpearce8772
      @scottpearce8772 10 днів тому

      ... I guess I will need to venture eastward and visit Dallas again...

    • @stardresser1
      @stardresser1 8 днів тому

      Texas? Ignoring a cultural treasure? I am absolutely shocked. NOT. (From someone who lived there for a long time. Too long.)

  • @TheSSEssesse
    @TheSSEssesse Місяць тому +39

    Another major factor toward his success: favorable economic conditions and a very strong middle class with well paid and talented tradesmen.

    • @redd_xiii
      @redd_xiii 14 днів тому +1

      💪🏼

    • @neiljohnsen276
      @neiljohnsen276 14 днів тому +1

      Something we will be fortunate to ever see again....

    • @davidmayes4212
      @davidmayes4212 9 днів тому +2

      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
      @thebigpicture2032 9 днів тому

      @@davidmayes4212 building during the Great Depression was easier due to the available manpower.

    • @davidmayes4212
      @davidmayes4212 9 днів тому

      @@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.

  • @lyndonbronson6655
    @lyndonbronson6655 29 днів тому +8

    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!

    • @cokesquirrel
      @cokesquirrel 20 днів тому +2

      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

  • @jpp7783
    @jpp7783 Місяць тому +18

    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.)

    • @TheRealE.B.
      @TheRealE.B. 22 дні тому +5

      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.

    • @jpp7783
      @jpp7783 22 дні тому +2

      @@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.

  • @arranciske7297
    @arranciske7297 21 день тому +2

    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

  • @pizzaearthpancakesandother2549
    @pizzaearthpancakesandother2549 Місяць тому +472

    I wanted to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright when I was younger, but I ended up being Frank Lloyd _Wrong_

    • @billyjones6626
      @billyjones6626 Місяць тому +43

      UA-cam community policy finds your attempt at architectural pun to violate our user guidelines. Try harder.

    • @FEEDMEKITTENS
      @FEEDMEKITTENS Місяць тому +45

      I tried to go the Frank Lloyd Wright direction too, but I accidentally took a Frank Lloyd Left.

    • @imveryangryitsnotbutter
      @imveryangryitsnotbutter Місяць тому +7

      Ooh, too bad! Looks like Frank Lloyd Wright was Frank Lloyd Wstoopid!

    • @jakeharms1386
      @jakeharms1386 Місяць тому +2

      Saaaaaame

    • @TheNiteinjail
      @TheNiteinjail Місяць тому +9

      You need to be PUNished for that one

  • @jakejacobs4463
    @jakejacobs4463 25 днів тому +4

    Wright was said to have visited the Japanese village that was part of the Chicago worlds fair, almost daily

  • @glenmorrison8080
    @glenmorrison8080 Місяць тому +10

    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!

  • @aquaman415
    @aquaman415 14 днів тому +3

    Thanks for making so much Chicago content! You’re our ambassador

  • @josephcalvosa8272
    @josephcalvosa8272 21 день тому +2

    Success is the combination of talent and opportunity!

  • @tgdomnemo5052
    @tgdomnemo5052 3 дні тому

    Great summary 🙏🏽

  • @JayJay-ii5un
    @JayJay-ii5un 7 днів тому +1

    The ranch house is a great design. Cheap and easy to build, use all square footage, easy to work on.

  • @jtd8719
    @jtd8719 15 днів тому +4

    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.

  • @chrisclouds4182
    @chrisclouds4182 Місяць тому +1

    This video was so good!

  • @sdeepj
    @sdeepj Місяць тому +8

    I thought George Costanza designed the Guggenheim 😂

    • @lukerinderknecht2982
      @lukerinderknecht2982 Місяць тому +1

      No, just the new addition to it 😂

    • @barryrobbins7694
      @barryrobbins7694 Місяць тому +1

      I thought Art Vandelay designed it.😀

    • @codetech5598
      @codetech5598 14 днів тому +1

      Wright designed the Guggenheim museum in New York City.

    • @barryrobbins7694
      @barryrobbins7694 14 днів тому +1

      @@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

    • @Bubbles99718
      @Bubbles99718 14 днів тому +1

      Didn't really take him very long either

  • @thomaspscheidt3876
    @thomaspscheidt3876 14 днів тому

    thank you!!!!

  • @FinlayHamm
    @FinlayHamm 13 днів тому

    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

  • @alexanderboulton2123
    @alexanderboulton2123 18 днів тому +1

    I was prepping for a Skillshare ad read this whole time!

  • @johnstjohn4705
    @johnstjohn4705 7 днів тому

    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.

  • @tomwinston6758
    @tomwinston6758 15 днів тому

    Enjoyable vid, thanks

  • @StephenCoorlas
    @StephenCoorlas Місяць тому +5

    Excellent content, Stewart. Wright's level of thoughtfulness and consideration for construction technique and human psychology are very inspiring to me and my practice 🤘

  • @mikefirth9654
    @mikefirth9654 Місяць тому +14

    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.

  • @stanwoody4988
    @stanwoody4988 17 днів тому +2

    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.

  • @Dev1nci
    @Dev1nci Місяць тому +1

    Anyone know the woodblock print at 8:03 please?

  • @stefan.c4826
    @stefan.c4826 День тому

    Unrelated to the video. I now realised the genius of your logo

  • @jimburchett
    @jimburchett 14 днів тому +2

    thanks for the marion mahony griffin info. first time learning of her. really like her renderings.

  • @charleskimson2288
    @charleskimson2288 6 днів тому

    Interesting about the building blocks. In much of his architecture, he still uses a look and feel of blocks.

  • @mikesercanto9149
    @mikesercanto9149 Місяць тому +1

    Thanks!

  • @WeyounSix
    @WeyounSix 23 дні тому +1

    If that story about his mother giving him blocks is not apocryphal, its incredible parenting.

  • @kzisnbkosplay3346
    @kzisnbkosplay3346 Місяць тому +5

    My grandfather was apprenticed to Alphonso Illaneilli. It would be awesome to hear about some of those artists behind the artist!

  • @robtennapel78
    @robtennapel78 Місяць тому

    Love it ❤

  • @ct00001
    @ct00001 Місяць тому +1

    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.

    • @wordup897
      @wordup897 22 дні тому +1

      I went to Purdue and walked by the flw house near the stadium many times. It was a beaut.

  • @christopherstephenjenksbsg4944
    @christopherstephenjenksbsg4944 Місяць тому +8

    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.

    • @justthink5854
      @justthink5854 Місяць тому +1

      great talent. terrible person. he steam rolled so many people. he ate up poor Peters who kept many of his designs from collapsing. take the FL Wright walking tour in Oak Park. his own home, which he remodeled over and over, is a delight.

  • @dfgyuhdd
    @dfgyuhdd 8 днів тому +1

    The roof repair industry would sincerely like to thank Wright for the decades of job security that his influence provided.

  • @christianschultz9012
    @christianschultz9012 4 дні тому

    Frank Loyd wright building in Bartlesville, ok has an interesting story for apartment upstairs and design/ look of it.

  • @dth-2783
    @dth-2783 21 день тому +1

    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.

  • @StephenCoorlas
    @StephenCoorlas 20 днів тому

    The wood block thumbnail was way more intriguing.

  • @bob-rogers
    @bob-rogers 21 день тому +1

    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.

  • @industrialize
    @industrialize Місяць тому +4

    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.

    • @thainesmith
      @thainesmith Місяць тому

      Really cool building.

    • @ereceeme
      @ereceeme Місяць тому

      Seems to me as a clutter of styles and materials , proportionally unbalanced, in all sense

  • @Josh-yr7gd
    @Josh-yr7gd Місяць тому +2

    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.

  • @MrMomo182
    @MrMomo182 Місяць тому +9

    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.

    • @glennaa11
      @glennaa11 Місяць тому +1

      I've long been fascinated by the story of Canberra. It's quite a saga

    • @damonroberts7372
      @damonroberts7372 Місяць тому +1

      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.

  • @brunodesrosiers266
    @brunodesrosiers266 Місяць тому +2

    But how is FLW relevant today? Indeed he is, and some time might have been spent specifically on that. Thank you for this video. It is a very good one.

  • @kozad86
    @kozad86 17 днів тому +2

    I absolutely hate the miles upon miles of large garages with a small living space attached that have proliferated across the world.

  • @Bonserak23
    @Bonserak23 Місяць тому +2

    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.

  • @Bonserak23
    @Bonserak23 Місяць тому +2

    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

  • @klaasvanmanen8214
    @klaasvanmanen8214 21 день тому +2

    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.

  • @michaelepp6212
    @michaelepp6212 Місяць тому +2

    It's hard to think of a bad FLLW building although, like Lutyens, he paid little mind to budgets.

  • @DeeRuss
    @DeeRuss 10 днів тому +2

    Would you rather live in a traditional American neighborhood built in the 1920s, A brick row house built in the 1800s, or a modern suburb

  • @dr.kraemer
    @dr.kraemer 19 днів тому +1

    10:30 Those one-acre lots!

  • @jaspermolenaar1218
    @jaspermolenaar1218 Місяць тому +3

    Beautifully made with fresh perspectives, thanks

  • @anthonybarsness1462
    @anthonybarsness1462 19 днів тому +1

    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

  • @ryandeal4216
    @ryandeal4216 Місяць тому +1

    A movie about his life would be awesome! I see Leonardo DiCaprio playing the part.

  • @BobAbc0815
    @BobAbc0815 Місяць тому

    1:50 aux contraire, we have to draw a straight Line. We are talking about Architecture after all.

  • @kmiller0402
    @kmiller0402 Місяць тому

    Wright has an amazing house in the Phoenix, AZ area

  • @cdronk
    @cdronk Місяць тому +3

    Informative and entertaining. Excellent work as usual.

  • @tp3u
    @tp3u День тому

    Ridge not collegiate is my favorite wrightbuilding

  • @michaelepp6212
    @michaelepp6212 Місяць тому +4

    Cool to see you in the Charnley house foyer

    • @user-pt3gi5ul2e
      @user-pt3gi5ul2e 15 днів тому

      Ironic that narration praises simple geometric surface designs on wood walls while showing close up of baroque twining foliage motif on column.

    • @RobRainone
      @RobRainone 13 днів тому

      @@user-pt3gi5ul2e 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.

  • @FurthermoreJack
    @FurthermoreJack 7 днів тому

    Shingles , a roof a tornado lifts off and slams back down directly atop the structure

  • @low-energypolitics5677
    @low-energypolitics5677 Місяць тому

    Love this overview!

  • @j.mieses8139
    @j.mieses8139 Місяць тому +2

    Well Done!

  • @hardlyb
    @hardlyb Місяць тому +1

    Naturally he needed the opportunities and encouragement, but in my experience, those mean nothing without the right person getting them.

  • @ereceeme
    @ereceeme Місяць тому +1

    IMOP his talents were space, looks and feel.

  • @ronjohnson4566
    @ronjohnson4566 19 днів тому +1

    i didn't know Frank Lloyd Wright invented the box.

  • @rigorousbean
    @rigorousbean Місяць тому

    I just noticed your channel logo.
    Good Lord. 👏 Maybe I'm late to the party, but this is sooo good.

  • @ares395
    @ares395 26 днів тому +1

    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.

    • @RobRainone
      @RobRainone 13 днів тому +1

      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.

  • @danieldumas7361
    @danieldumas7361 18 днів тому +1

    Where are the designs that influenced track-homes???

  • @chrislashley
    @chrislashley Місяць тому +2

    I was worried this was going to be another "dunking on" video.

  • @TheLuisg92
    @TheLuisg92 Місяць тому +10

    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.

    • @lobstermash
      @lobstermash 18 днів тому +2

      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.

    • @jeffbybee5207
      @jeffbybee5207 18 днів тому

      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

    • @pbxn-3rdx-85percent
      @pbxn-3rdx-85percent 16 днів тому

      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.

  • @jakedallas8012
    @jakedallas8012 3 дні тому

    Outliers! I knew it.

  • @Aphelion969
    @Aphelion969 Місяць тому +1

    I am interacting with the content

  • @pleappleappleap
    @pleappleappleap 5 днів тому

    I dig that mustache, man.

  • @vveston7
    @vveston7 Місяць тому +4

    The Malcolm gladwell reference in a FLW video is *chefs kiss* 👨‍🍳🤌

    • @alittlebitgone
      @alittlebitgone Місяць тому +5

      Uh, a Gladwell reference is not a good sign at all, he is not a serious or reliable source for anything and I am frankly shocked to see Stewart name check him here.

    • @striveforselflessness3220
      @striveforselflessness3220 10 днів тому

      ​@@alittlebitgone I literally thought the exact same thing the second he mentioned him. Why in the world give that man any credibility. He's an absolute shill in the name of journalism and clearly is a puppet for a political agenda.

  • @freedomthroughspirit
    @freedomthroughspirit 15 днів тому +1

    I hope in my "late career" *after I die* I am most successful. 😂 Seriously, though, a great video, thank you. That part just made me laugh.

  • @joemeyer6876
    @joemeyer6876 Місяць тому +1

    John Lautner: Hold My Beer!

  • @michaelplunkett8059
    @michaelplunkett8059 17 днів тому

    Dissapointed that your split level choices use gable roofs. I lived 58 years in one with Wrightian hip roofs with sheltering overhanging eaves.

  • @thorakvideos2495
    @thorakvideos2495 Місяць тому

    Would love to see a video about how his buildings work.
    Talking about the layouts and the tricks to improve the experience.

  • @tobiasskane264
    @tobiasskane264 Місяць тому +2

    I like your contet only because i like arcitekture. Keep up the good work you do.

  • @TheRealBrook1968
    @TheRealBrook1968 15 днів тому +1

    His was not a destiny of happenstance. He looked at with what he had to work and consciously integrated his advantages.

  • @RENO_K
    @RENO_K Місяць тому

    Wright is a great example of a great contratian

  • @phyarth8082
    @phyarth8082 18 днів тому

    "Inside LLewyn Davis" a Welshman who not became a Bob Dylan. Circumstances :)

  • @orazha
    @orazha Місяць тому

    Thank you for this excellent review of FLW. I've spent a lot of time in various FLW homes, mostly Wingspread when I was a young musician. I loved that home/community center. I can say that, for me, FLWs homes are fun. They're fun to explore. I've also spent time in his grandparent's farm home in Spring Green, WI and both Talieson and Talieson West. The one negative thing I've heard about his homes is that they require a lot of expensive work to keep them in good condition.

  • @john-carl2054
    @john-carl2054 27 днів тому

    I know about FLW I read Endymion.

  • @dpsamu2000
    @dpsamu2000 5 днів тому

    By exploring the reasoning chatgbt AI uses I can better figure out how to approach it to get it to do useful things. Like a common question arises in philosophy about talking to dolphins, AI, and aliens. What do you say to a dolphin? I've been asking friends with computers since the 1970s "what do you do with it?". They always said "anything you want". But they never answered the question because they never really did anything with it. The first person I knew that did anything with it was me. It's a tool. But like a lot of people who have all kinds of tools they never make anything with them. Like a lot of people have art supplies, and even learn to paint but never paint anything. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright who is a genius in what he does. Because there's something in him that generates ideas of what to do with the tools. That's the source of genius. That's why gen is in the word genius, and generate.
    Even Richard Feynman pointed out that if you have a tool but have little inside you want to do with it what you do with it is useless. He was in charge of the computing group at Los Alamos. A bunch of smart high school boys. They weren't getting anything done with the primitive computers they had, punch card tabulators. When Feynman told them what they were doing it transformed the group. They didn't need supervision, they worked nights, they came up with better ways of doing it. The guy who was originally in charge caught what Feynman calls a disease. The thing about computers is you play with them. You figure out what you can do with them, if you're clever enough. This guy wasn't getting any work done. Eventually he showed them what he had been doing. He had figured out how to get it to calculate tables of arc tangent x. Perfectly useless. They already had tables of arc tangent x. So most people are satisfied with doing nothing with computers except play video games.
    I'm trying to figure out What AI can do by applying it to things I want to do like talk to dolphins, solve the galactic rotation curve problem without the dark matter cheat etc.

  • @rossrreyes
    @rossrreyes Місяць тому +4

    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

  • @JayCWhiteCloud
    @JayCWhiteCloud Місяць тому +17

    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...

  • @egbun
    @egbun Місяць тому +31

    The long repetitive bleak grid layout of the suburbs is nothing to be proud of.

    • @benmarshall5984
      @benmarshall5984 Місяць тому +11

      I'm sure he wouldn't be proud of how his ideas were twisted into the current suburban landscape.

    • @Schregger
      @Schregger 8 днів тому +2

      @@benmarshall5984 *suburban Hellscape

  • @michaeledgar5863
    @michaeledgar5863 Місяць тому +1

    Great work!
    Now do le Corbusier, then compare and contrast...

  • @mitchv.7492
    @mitchv.7492 Місяць тому

    3:36 Unitarian* Minister

  • @StLouis-yu9iz
    @StLouis-yu9iz Місяць тому +2

    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 😢