Frank Lloyd Wright
When you love the way someone thinks or the work they create, you can't help feeling inspired to dive deeper into their life. You wonder…
How did they become who they are?
What things in life inspired them?
How did they become a master of their craft?
Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography is a book to hold close, and sift through whenever an extra dose of quiet inspiration feels much needed in a crowded mind. A peek into a creative individual’s world, and a gentle reminder that the projects we create, are most beautiful when crafted with meaning and purpose.
Article Source: Franklloydwright.org
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 532 works. His buildings were unique in terms of their structural behavior and spatial arrangement and his architectural drawings and correspondence are recognized as historical artifacts.
He was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time."
Wright was one of the 20th century's leading architects. His work, influential in its entirety, includes breaking new ground in architecture through his early leadership in the development of the modern open plan; promotion of related social ideals, including advocacy for racial equality, public art and a commitment to craftsmanship, as well as through his experimental use of new materials, form, spatial organization and construction methods.
“The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.
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“‘Wright’s work from 1899 to 1910 belongs to what became known as the ‘Prairie Style.’ With the ‘Prairie house’— a long, low, open plan structure that eschewed the typical high, straight-sided box in order to emphasize the horizontal line of the prairie and domesticity— Wright established the first truly American architecture. In a Prairie house, ‘the essential nature of the box could be eliminated,’ Wright explained. Interior walls were minimized to emphasize openness and community. ‘The relationship of inhabitants to the outside became more intimate; landscape and building became one, more harmonious; and instead of a separate thing set up independently of landscape and site, the building with landscape and site became inevitably one.’”
In his autobiography, he talks about his inspiring observations in Japan - one of many experiences that left an impact on him in his lifetime. He writes:
"For pleasure in all this human affair you couldn't tell where the garden leaves off and the garden begins. I soon ceased to try, too delighted with the problem to attempt to solve it... By heaven, here was a house used by those who made it with just that naturalness with which a turtle uses his shell."
Wright believed that good design has the power to make people more aware and respectful of their surroundings and of nature, which Muscato Design couldn’t agree with more. Did you know he also studied patterns?
“. . . All my planning was devised on a properly proportional unit system. I found this would keep all to scale, insure consistent proportion throughout the design, which thus became – like tapestry – a consistent fabric woven of interdependent, related units, however various . . . Invariably it appears in Organic architecture as visible feature in the fabric of the design – insuring unity of proportion. The harmony of texture is thus, with the scale of all parts, within the complete ensemble.
Let us learn to see within, at least far enough to grasp essential pattern in all created things. Method in creation will come freely to him who learns to see in the abstract. Study the geometry that is the idea of every form: a quail, a snail, a shell, a fish. Take for analysis the more simple, obvious things first.
Then take the texture of the trees.
Learn the essential pattern that makes the oak and distinguishes it from essential pattern that makes the pine.
Then make new ones. Try after this, the curling vine, flowing water, curving sand.
Then try the flowers, butterflies, and bees.
A Chrysanthemum is easy.
A rock or rose is difficult.
And I do not mean to take the obvious surface effects that differentiate each, but to go within to find the essential geometry of pattern that gives character to each. That is the proper study for an architect who would find method and get legitimate “effects.”
Try this method and gradually discipline your power to see. Get patiently to the point where you naturally see this element of pattern in everything.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright
View WRIGHT’S collection of patterns and wallpapers, here.
Who inspires you? Who or what inspired them? Why?
Try carving out a moment for a little extra enjoyment in your week, and dive in to ignite your creativity.
