#memory
Frank Lloyd Wright.
8 June is the birth anniversary of the world renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
Wright was the person who moved architecture from the traditional box-type residential buildings to an organic style marked by lengthier buildings with low roof and wide windows.
His ‘Prairie Style’ became the basis of residential architecture in the USA in the 20th century.
His ‘Falling water’, a residence built in the mountains near Florida, is considered one of the architectural marvels in history.
Lloyd joined the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1885. Since there was no course in architecture, he left after a few terms of studying engineering, and got a job with the architect J L Silsbee. But it was under architect Louis Sullivan that Lloyd bloomed as an architect. He started his own architectural practice in 1893.
The 1923 stock market crash resulted in no work for the architects. He used the lull period to lecture in colleges.
Frank Lloyd Wright achieved international fame when the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, designed by him in 1915 withstood the devastating earthquake in 1923.
A prolific author, his best known books are, An Autobiography ( 1932, revised in 1943), An Organic Architecture (1939) and, A Testament (1957).
– Joy Kallivayalil.
