Frank Lloyd Wright Impact On Architecture

One of the most influential and well-known architectural engineers in America during the twentieth century has got to be Frank Lloyd Wright. He’s created and designed many creative and functional buildings for most of his career which spanned to about seventy years. His futuristic and modern designs were unique and creative, yet they were still functional for one to live in them. His eccentric thinking has brought about and greatly influenced the image of twentieth century architecture. His works have paved the way to the designs and structures of the civil engineers and architects that we have today in the twenty-first century.

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in June 8, 1869 in Richland Center, Wisconsin. He was the eldest of the three children

He and Catherine had six children, in which two became architectural engineers. To help support for his wife and family, Wright took on extra work designing houses. Wright took some designs from his firm and added some ideas into them, which eventually ended his relationship with Sullivan and the firm. In 1893, Wright created his own architectural firm. In 1909, Wright abandoned his wife of 20 years as well as his children, and ran off to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, who was a wife of a formal client. The two stayed away from the United States for around a year, and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin in 1911. There, he built the well-known residence Taliesin. Unfortunately, in 1914, a servant at the Taliesin residence set the house on fire, murdering Mamah, her two children and four others. The house was left in complete ruins. Wright rebuilt Taliesin and later traveled to Tokyo.

He went to Tokyo as he was commissioned to build the Imperial Hotel. He created this hotel with much thought on protecting it from an earthquake and a fire. He created a pool in the front of the hotel as a source of water when a fire occurs. He placed soft soil under the foundation to provide as a cushion to when an earthquake strikes. These well thought-out parts in the structure and engineering of the Imperial Hotel helped it to survive the earthquake of 1823. It, however, did not survive

One unique thing about him was that he actually did some engineering in his works, which isn’t usually seen in an architect, but due to “form follows function” ideology that he has learned, he has took quite an effect in the engineering on his works. He has affected the art of architecture in many ways for his unique and radical designs, but these designs that were considered radical at the time are what we see these days as he has affected modern architecture greatly. He also has affected engineering, as he has proved that with radical designs and forms, there can still be functionality in them. He has also brought unique ways that can help a building from many dangers and situations. His designing of the Imperial Hotel, in my opinion, has helped influence civil engineers all over the world of how a building can survive an earthquake. Also, his unique use of geometric patterns in his works such as the Fallingwater residence in Pennsylvania, and the use of cantilevers and a waterfall in the residence have influenced many engineers and architects all around. All in all, it is clear that he has earned himself a place in history as a genius in architecture and