Organic Architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright

Different from all architects at his time, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sullivan's disciple, treated rules as something to be broken when needed. Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture was rooted in nature; he called it organic. How did he make his organic architecture apply to time, to environment and to man? How did he merge environment to urban and rural buildings with the use of different materials? Wright chose the word organic to describe his architecture and first used the term in a public address in 1894: “Let your home appear to grow easily from its site and shape it to sympathize with the surroundings if nature is manifest there, and if not, try and be as quiet, substantial, and organic as she would have been if she had the chance.”¹ He was a Nature …show more content…
The property was designed for Frederick Robie who wanted a building of concrete and steel and open spaces with sheltering roofs; in addition, he emphasized on not invading his privacy.5 Robie House had a style on its own and met the client’s requirements. In the street of the house, the buildings all followed the rule of having thirty five foot setback from the street and lot line.6 In Robie house, Wright stopped the interior at the setback line as required but made the house appear to go almost to the street line by extending the brick terrace walls and the cantilevers roof projecting far beyond the neighbors’ façade. It had layers of horizontal lines which makes it the most horizontally emphatic designed on one axis. Even with its brick masonry and dramatic cantilevers, it appears to float in tiers with sweeping lines and low proportions. Frank Lloyd Wright reexamined and reinterpreted nature’s principles to come up with forms himself.7 He believed that simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the …show more content…
The utilities and entertainment are on the ground level, and the main living areas are raised to the top providing privacy and a view outside the prairie. Planting boxes and urns connect and extend the interior space to the outside and into the space beyond that, this juxtaposition of and natural efflorescence are explanatory of Wright’s success. The overall massing of robie house is surprisingly simple. While the house expresses its vigorous structure of space it does not reveal its actual structure. Wright’s concept of coherence between spatial composition and structural composition did not require the literal exposure of structure: “Why should you always expose the structure? I call it indecent exposure”.9 Light was an important element, which is why he had uninterrupted walls of windows and created a dynamic balance between transparency and enclosure, weakening the boundaries between interior space and the world of nature since almost everything was made out of glass.10 “From nature and elemental geometry grew Wright’s ability to abstract natural forms-. This pattern could then be manipulated in various combinations into a new composition. These geometric exercises became the sources of floor plans, elevations and decorative arts, each element generated from the same design theme.”11 Wright learned