Two Frank Lloyd Wright houses made from textile blocks. Frank Lloyd Wright: the genius of American architecture Frank Lloyd Wright projects

"To the Young Architect" was one of two lectures given by Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago in 1931. Despite its age, many of its theses are still relevant today. The architect reflects on the backwardness of the architectural education system, the importance of studying technologies and materials, and the commercialization of architecture. At the end he gives twelve pieces of advice to the young architect:

1. Forget about all the architectures in the world if you don’t understand that they were good in their kind and in their time.

2. Let none of you enter into architecture in order to earn a living if you do not love architecture as a living principle, if you do not love it for its own sake; prepare to be faithful to her, as a mother, a friend, to yourself.

3. Beware of architecture schools for anything other than engineering education.

4. Go into manufacturing where you can see the machinery at work that produces modern buildings, or work in hands-on construction until you can move naturally from construction to design.

5. Immediately begin to develop the habit of wondering “why” about everything you like or dislike.

6. Do not take anything for granted - beautiful or ugly - but disassemble each building in parts, finding fault with every feature. Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful.

7. Acquire the habit of analysis; over time, the ability to analyze will make it possible to develop the ability to synthesize, which will also become a habit of the mind.

8. “Think in simple terms,” as my teacher used to say, meaning that the whole is reduced to its parts and simplest elements based on first principles. Do this in order to go from the general to the specific, never confusing them, otherwise you will get confused yourself.

9. Throw away like poison the American idea of ​​“fast turnaround.” To begin a practical activity half-baked means to sell your innate right to be an architect for lentil stew, or to die pretending to be an architect.

10. Take your time to complete your preparation. At least ten years of preliminary preparation for architectural practice is necessary for the architect who wants to rise above the average level in judgment and in the practical practice of architecture.

12. Consider building a chicken coop as good a job for yourself as building a cathedral. The size of the project means little in art, if we ignore financial issues. Expressiveness is actually taken into account. Expressiveness can be big in small things or small in big things.

As a supplement, one cannot help but cite an excerpt from Wright’s thoughts on modern organic architecture, expressed at the same lecture:

In organic architecture, the rigid straight line is broken into a dotted line, which is not limited to mere bare necessity, but allows the manifestation of an appropriate rhythm to give room to the judgment of proper values. This is modern.

In organic architecture, the design of a building as a building begins with the basic and develops towards external expression, but does not begin with any pictorial expression and then grope in the opposite direction. This is modern.

Tired of repetitions of faceless banalities in which light reflects from bare planes or sadly falls into holes cut into them, organic architecture again brings man face to face with the appropriate nature of the play of chiaroscuro, which gives freedom to man's creative thought and his inherent sense of artistic imagination. This is modern.

The understanding of interior space as a reality in organic architecture is consistent with the increased capabilities of modern materials. The building now figures according to this understanding of interior space; the fence now appears not only as walls and roofs, but as a fencing of the internal space. This reality is modern.

In truly modern architecture, therefore, the sense of surface and mass disappears. A structure must no less be an expression of the principle of force directed towards an end than that which is seen in any mechanical device or apparatus. Modern architecture affirms the highest human sense of sunlit space. Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the web, buildings characterized by light and expressed by the character of their surroundings - connected to the earth. This is modern!

The book “The Future of Architecture” was translated into Russian and published in the USSR under the editorship of the prominent architect A.I. Geggelo in 1960, a year after Frank Lloyd Wright's death.

Photo Tour de Force 360VR, xlforum.net, studyblue.com, flwright.org, trekearth.com

Frank Lloyd Wright (06/08/1867 – 04/09/1959) is one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, the founder of “organic architecture” and the principle of free planning.

The creator of the famous “House Over the Falls” (1939) and New York (1959), author of more than 20 books (among them “The Future of Architecture” and “The Vanishing City”), Wright radically changed the image of a residential building, abandoning eclecticism in favor of geometric you just. The career of the architect, who scandalized American society with the ups and downs of his personal life (high-profile divorces, financial litigation and even arrest in the mid-1920s), is full of ups and downs.

Guggenheim Museum, (1959).

A pioneer of the modern movement, who had a huge influence on the development of functionalism in Europe, he remained a lone architect in the New World. People first started talking about Wright in 1910, when a series of his articles were published in Germany. It turned out that a young talent on the other side of the Atlantic was creating advanced architecture and solving planning problems that leading European architects were then struggling with.

"House of Kunley", (1908).

Most of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings from 1893 to 1910 were residential buildings built for private clients in Illinois (Wright opened his own office here in 1894). They are called “prairie houses”: low volumes stretched along the horizon line, echoing the flat landscape of the Midwest. It was in these buildings (Willits House, 1902; Coonley House, 1908; Robie House, 1908) that Wright first formulated the principles of “organic architecture,” which became his creative credo: the unity of the building and the natural environment, architecture and interior.

He sets out to free up the interior space of the house: instead of “box-like rooms”, he designs a single room with a central fireplace, develops built-in furniture for each order, integrates heating, water supply and lighting systems into the building’s design, achieving absolute unity of all elements. The integrity of the design must be evident in everything: “the carpets on the floor and the curtains are as much parts of the building as the plaster of the walls and the tiles of the roof,” wrote the architect. Wright compared the abundance of things cluttering up space to an upset stomach. The architect’s ideal was a traditional Japanese house, practically devoid of furniture (Wright began to become interested in Japanese culture back in the 1890s, and in 1905 he made his first trip to this country).

"Willits House", (1902).

A true masterpiece among “prairie houses” is the Teilizin estate in southern Wisconsin, built by Wright in 1911 for his mistress Martha Borthwick. Architectural volumes made of local limestone are inscribed into the hillside and complemented by a landscaped park with swimming pools. Teilizin suffered three fires; the worst happened in 1914: six people died in a fire, including Martha Borthwick and her children...

In the 1920s, Wright worked in Tokyo, where he built the Imperial Hotel (1915-1923). In America, with the renewed fashion for eclecticism, his name is not popular and is even considered “indecent.” A new career rise begins in the 1930s. As part of his “City of Broad Horizons” concept, which implies the development of the city in breadth and merging with green suburbs, Wright creates a series of typical “USONA” projects (USONA - United States of North America) - low-rise residential buildings for the middle class.

“Doctors can bury their mistakes with their patients, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant ivy.”

Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin. His father was a priest and musician, his mother was a rural teacher. The boy's entire upbringing was subordinated to the mother's dream of making her son a great architect. The engravings and albums and books of Viollet-le-Duc that surrounded him from an early age helped shape the consciousness of the future architect through more than 2 years of study at the Engineering College of the University of Wisconsin, which Wright was unable to graduate from. L. Sullivan, in whose studio in Chicago he began working in 1887, became a real teacher for him.

Already in Wright's first works, under the influence of G. Richardson, Sullivan's symmetrical, balanced schemes received an intensely expressive romantic solution ( Charlie's house in Chicago). Romantic tendencies intensified in his work in 1893, when he built a series of country mansion houses, the so-called “prairie houses”, in which the principle of “organic architecture”, which he adopted from Sullivan and implying the inseparability of architecture from the environment, was developed, and also embodied the idea of ​​continuity of space. In "prairie houses" the central core is a large room with a fireplace, into which the living room, dining room and hall open, echoing the ancient tradition of the American home with a hearth in the middle. During the construction and decoration of these buildings, the architect used materials and structures that contrast in color and texture, while rationally using their specific properties. The most significant and interesting among the “prairie houses” he built were Willis House in Highland Park, Illinois (1902), Martini House in Buffalo, New York (1904), Isabella Roberts House in River Forest, Illinois (1908). And this series ends with Robie's house in Chicago (1909).

In 1909, Wright traveled to Europe, where exhibitions were held and a monograph was published. Wright's work had a great influence on rationalist direction in architecture, which began to take shape in those years in Western Europe in the works of Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and the “Style” group.

Having gained extraordinary popularity in Europe, Wright remained unrecognized in his homeland. The university management intended to demolish the famous Robie House. The position of a lonely fighter for new principles in architecture exacerbates his individualism, which will be the main feature throughout his work.

“Wright would not only be an architect. He was one of the great spiritual leaders of his country. He had sufficient will and courage to protest, fight and stand” (Z. Gideon).

The years 1910-25, the period of eclecticism dominating US architecture, were difficult for Wright. He had almost no orders. At the same time, troubles in his personal life befell him. At this time he received an invitation from Japan, where in the period 1916-22 he built Imperial Hotel Tokyo. A special anti-seismic structural structure developed specifically for it allowed the building to withstand the catastrophic earthquake of 1923, which destroyed almost the entire city.

Wright received a telegram from Tokyo: “The hotel stands intact as a monument to your genius.”
If the design of the Imperial Hotel was Wright's outstanding achievement, the architectural design gives rise to a sense of lack of stylistic integrity. A combination of modern motifs of horizontal divisions, familiar from the “prairie houses”, with the highly decorated, monumental forms of ancient Japanese buildings. It did not create a single harmonious impression.

After returning to the United States, Wright built a series of houses in California from concrete blocks, among which the most interesting Millard House in Passadena, lined with tiles ornamented in the spirit of ancient Mexican monumental architecture.

In 1932 he opened his own workshop-school, calling it a “partnership”. The members of the partnership not only designed, but also trained in construction, working as masons and carpenters on the expansion of Wright's Wisconsin residence.

By this time, the novelty of Wright's first works had already been forgotten. Masters such as Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe have gone far ahead in the application of new architectural techniques. The Western European press began to lose interest in new works by the aging master.

In the mid-30s, Wright's second heyday began. Two buildings brought him success: Kaufman's country house in Pennsylvania, built in 1936 and known in history as the "house on the waterfall", and Johnson & Sons office building in Racine (1936-39). The architect's signature work was the Kaufman House, which amazes with the extraordinary skill with which it fits into the environment. This is another brilliant example of “organic architecture”. The system of bold reinforced concrete consoles overhanging each other, which are like a continuation of the rock ledges on the forest stream, organically combines with the romantic landscape.

In the Johnson building, the luminous ceiling and forest of slender columns create a striking, unusual artistic effect.

As Henry Russell Hitchcock wrote: “The illusion of the sky being seen from the bottom of the aquarium is created.”
Over the years, Wright's individualism intensifies.

He denies the typification of structures promoted by supporters Modern movement. “The house plan is a way of life, and the way of life is always individual,” he argued, calling functionalist buildings “boxes on stilts.” Considering the interior space of an architectural structure to be its essence, and the exterior shell as a derivative of it, Wright developed the "inside-out" design concept used in the Guggenheim Museum building in New York (designed 1943-46, built 1956-59). This is Wright's most interesting and significant work. The powerful plasticity of this structure, similar to an abstract sculpture, with its large scale did not allow it to dissolve in the thicket of Manhattan skyscrapers. The museum's exposition has also been designed in a new way. The movement of visitors occurs from top to bottom along a spiral sloping ramp.

Wright's high-rise buildings are also of great interest. This Johnson Laboratory in Racine and Price Tower in Bartsville built in the 50s. In them, Wright implemented the idea of ​​a “tree house” with a powerful concrete core, including elevators and stairs, from which, like branches from a trunk, consoles of reinforced concrete floors extend.

Staying true to the idea of ​​living among nature ( project “city of wide open space” – BroadacreCity, 1934-35) and believing that the principles of organic architecture are capable of humanizing human existence, Wright at the same time became one of the founders of rationalism in modern architecture. In his work, based on the American tradition, an organic perception of the world and the ability to find artistic forms that meet the spirit of the times, progressive searches in the architecture of the late 19th century are directly related to the architecture of the 20s and 50s of the 20th century.

Being a bright artistic individual, Wright did not create his own architectural school, like Mies van der Rohe, but over the 70 years of his creative career he did more for the development of modern architecture than any other master in Western countries, having a huge influence on Western European architecture: one of the first began to fight academic stylization in architecture, formulated the idea of ​​continuity of architectural space, which became the basis of the so-called free plan technique widely used in modern architecture. He was the last romanticist and the first functionalist in the architecture of the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries.

Frank Lloyd Wright(Frank Lloyd Wright 1869-1959) - American architect and architectural theorist. Wright put forward the principle of organic architecture - that is, holistic, being an inseparable part of the environment surrounding a person. He formulated the idea of ​​continuity of architectural space, opposed to articulation, the emphasized selection of parts in classical architecture. Based on this idea, the technique of the so-called free plan has become one of the means used by all movements of modern architecture. However, Wright's influence extends far beyond the movement he founded, the so-called organic architecture.

Born June 8, 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA, the son of William Russell Wright, a music teacher and church leader, and Anna Lloyd Wright, a teacher from the prominent Lloyd family in Wisconsin. He was brought up in the canons of the Unitarian Church. As a child, I played a lot with the “developmental” construction set “Kindergarten”, developed by Friedrich Froebel. Wright's parents divorced in 1885 due to William's inability to support his family. Frank had to shoulder the load.

Wright was homeschooled without attending school. In 1885 he entered the engineering faculty of the University of Wisconsin. While studying at the university, he works part-time as an assistant to a local civil engineer. Wright left the university without receiving a degree. In 1887, he moved to Chicago, where he joined the architectural office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee, a proponent of eclecticism. A year later, he went to work for the firm Adler and Sullivan, headed by the famous ideologist of the “Chicago school” L. Sullivan. Since 1890, in this company he was entrusted with all projects for the construction of residential real estate. In 1893, Wright was forced to leave the company when Sullivan learned that Wright was designing houses on the side.

In 1893, Wright founded his own company in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. By 1901, his track record already included about 50 projects.

PRAIRIE HOUSE

Wright is best known for his Prairie Houses, which he designed from 1900 to 1917. “Prairie Houses” were created within the framework of the concept of “organic architecture”, the ideal of which is integrity and unity with nature. They are characterized by an open plan, horizontals prevailing in the composition, roof slopes and terraces extended far beyond the house, finishing with unprocessed natural materials, rhythmic divisions of the facade with frames, the prototype of which was Japanese temples. Many of the houses are cruciform in plan, with a central fireplace unifying the open space. Wright paid special attention to the interiors of houses, creating furniture himself and ensuring that each element was meaningful and organically fit into the environment he created. The most famous of the "Prairie Houses" are the Willits House, the Martin House, and the Robie House.

Wright also built his own home, Taliesin, in the Prairie House style in 1911. Taliesin was damaged by fire twice in 1914 and 1925 and was completely rebuilt, renamed Taliesin II and Taliesin III, respectively.

Wright sought to embody in architecture an idea whose meaning transcends the specific type of building. “Space must be seen as architecture, otherwise we will not have architecture.” The embodiment of this idea was associated with the study of traditional Japanese architecture, which Wright became interested in in the 1890s. The Japanese house served as Wright's ultimate example of how to eliminate not only what is unnecessary when designing, but even more so how to eliminate what is not essential. In the American home he eliminated everything trivial and confusing. He did even more. In purely functional elements, which often went unnoticed, he discovered a previously hidden power of expression, just as subsequent generations of architects discovered the hidden power of expression in design.

During the first decade of the 20th century, Wright built more than a hundred houses, but they did not have a noticeable impact on the development of American architecture at that time. But in Europe, Wright was soon appreciated, and he was recognized by a generation of architects belonging to the modern trend in architecture. In 1908, he was visited by Kuno Franke, who taught aesthetics at Harvard University. The result of this meeting was Wright's two books, published in 1910 and 1911, which began the spread of his influence on architecture outside America. In 1909, Wright travels to Europe. In Berlin in 1910, an exhibition of his works was organized, a two-volume portfolio was published, and his works became known in Europe.

They have a great influence on the rationalist trend, which began to take shape in those years in Western Europe. The work of Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Erich Mendelssohn, and the Dutch group “Style” over the next decade and a half reveals obvious traces of this influence.

For several years, Wright worked in Japan, where he built the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (1916-1922). The use of the idea of ​​structural integrity provided this building with the strength to withstand the catastrophic earthquake of 1923. By the mid-1920s, Wright's creativity seemed to have run its course. He was going through a period of difficult trials in his personal life and had almost no orders. At home, Wright remained isolated. The position of a lonely fighter for new principles in architecture sharpened his individualism; elements of gloomy fantasy penetrated his work. Geometric patterns appeared on heavy, almost grotesquely monumental forms, indicating the influence of the architecture of ancient America. While experiencing a crisis in his artistic pursuits, Wright remained an innovator in the use of technical means in architecture. Thus, by the time of his return to the United States in the early 1920s, a series of houses in California were built from concrete blocks. Most notable among them is the Millard House in Pasadena (1923), where the repetition of standard elements forms a rhythmic dissection of surfaces. Unrecognized in its homeland, it, however, still remains popular in Europe. And even more incomprehensible to Europeans was the fact that Wright was completely alone in America. Moreover, as Bruno Taut wrote in his book “Modern Architecture”, published in 1929, “The mention of his (Wright’s) name is considered indecent among us.” The rise of eclecticism in America signaled not only the end of the Chicago School, but at the same time the end of all other modern movements. And only with the growing influence of new European architecture in America did they again become interested in Wright's works.

U.S.O.N.A., 30s

The second peak in Wright's work occurred in the 30s. Wright began to use prefabricated elements and reinforced concrete structures, continuing to contrast the technical aspirations of functionalism with romantic ideas of unity with nature. From 1935 to 1939, Wright built for I.J. Kaufman's famous "House over the Waterfall" ("Fallingwater"), pcs. Pennsylvania. The house is a composition of concrete terraces and vertical limestone surfaces located on steel supports directly above the stream. Part of the cliff on which the house stands ended up inside the building and was used by Wright as an interior design detail. Construction of the house cost $155,000, of which the architect's fee was $8,000. Not everything about the house's design was perfect, and it was remodeled twice in 1994 and 2002 with the addition of additional steel supports.

During this period, Wright designed moderately priced homes for middle-class clients. Wright himself calls them “Usonian” or “North American”, from the abbreviation U.S.O.N.A (Unites States of Northern America). Compact, economical and technologically advanced, “Uson” houses developed the principles laid down in the “Prairie Houses”. The wide roof of the houses hovered above the walls due to the use of narrow strip windows near the ceiling. Houses were designed primarily to be single-story and L-shaped in plan, allowing them to fit into complexly shaped lots. The frame structure made it possible to reduce the cost of construction.

“Usonovsky” houses were supposed to become the building blocks of Wright’s urban planning concept - “City of Broad Horizons.” The concentrated, overpopulated city was to naturally “de-urbanize”, spreading out into agricultural suburbs, and the car was to become the main means of transportation. The concept of the "City of Broad Horizons" significantly influenced the nature of the development of American low-rise suburbs.

In the 40-50s, Wright also built public buildings, among which the most famous is the headquarters of the Johnson Wax company (1936-1939) in Racine, PC. Wisconsin. The basis of the structure is a central hall with a “tree-like” colonnade, in which each column expands upward. The structure of the tree is also repeated by the laboratory - its rooms are grouped around a central core - a “trunk”, carrying elevator shafts, and the floor slabs alternate in shape - square slabs form the frame of the building into which round slabs fit. Lighting through a system of translucent glass tubes helps create an atmosphere of “holiness” in the workplace.

The apotheosis of Wright's work was the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York, which the architect designed and built over the course of 16 years (1943-1959). The outside of the museum is an inverted spiral, and its interior resembles a shell, in the center of which is a glassed courtyard. Wright envisioned the exhibitions to be viewed from top to bottom, with the visitor ascending to the top floor in an elevator and gradually descending along a central spiral ramp. Paintings hanging on inclined walls should be in the same position as on the artist’s easel. The museum's management has not fulfilled all of Wright's demands, and now the exhibitions are being examined from the bottom up.

In the residential buildings of this period, Wright also abandoned the right angle as an “artificial” shape and turned to the spiral and the circular circle.

Not all of Wright's projects were realized during his lifetime. The overly decorated and borderline kitschy Marin County Courthouse was completed 4 years after his death. The project for the mile-high Illinois skyscraper, designed for 130,000 residents and representing a triangular prism tapering upward, remained unimplemented.

In total, Wright built 363 houses. By 2005, approximately 300 of them had survived.

Unity Chapel, Spring Green, Wisconsin (Church, Spring Green, Wisconsin), 1886	Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois, 1889-1909	James A. Charnley House, Chicago, Illinois (James Charnley House, Chicago, Illinois), 1891-1892	Robert P. Parker House, Oak Park, Illinois (Robert Parker House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1892
Thomas H. Gale House, Oak Park, Illinois (Thomas Gale House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1892	Francis J. Woolley House, Oak Park, Illinois (Francis Woolley House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1893	Walter H. Gale House, Oak Park, Illinois (Walter Gale House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1893	William H. Winslow House, River Forest, Illinois (William H. Winslow House, River Forest, Illinois), 1893
Robert W. Roloson Houses, Chicago, Illinois (Robert Roloson House, Chicago, Illinois), 1894	Edward C. Waller Apartments, Chicago, Illinois (Edward C. Waller Apartment House, Chicago, Illinois), 1895	Harrison P. Young House, Oak Park, Illinois (Remodeling of G. P. Young House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1895	Nathan G. Moore Residence, Oak Park, Illinois (Nathan G. Moore House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1895; partially destroyed in 1922
Isidore H. Heller House, Chicago, Illinois, 1896-1897	Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1896; rebuilt in 1938	George W. Furbeck House, Oak Park, Illinois (George Furbeck House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1897	William and Jessie M. Adams House, Chicago, Illinois (William and Jessie Adams House, Chicago, Illinois), 1900
Arthur B. Heurtley House, Oak Park, Illinois (Arthur Heurtley House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1902	F. B. Henderson House, Elmhurst, Illinois (F. B. Henderson House, Elmhurst, Illinois), 1901	Frank W. Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois (Frank Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1901; restoration 1975	Ward Winfield Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois (Ward W. Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois), 1901
Horse Show Fountain, Oak Park, Illinois (Scoville Park Fountain, Oak Park, Illinois), 1903-1909; rebuilt in 1969	Dana-Thomas House, Springfield, Illinois (Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, Illinois), 1902-1904	Hillside Home School II, Spring Green, Wisconsin (Reconstruction of Hillside Home School, Spring Green, Wisconsin), 1902	George F. Barton House, Buffalo, New York (George Barton House, Buffalo, New York), 1903-1904
Darwin D. Martin House Complex, Buffalo, New York (Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, New York), 1904-1905; reconstruction 2007	Joseph J. Walser Jr. Residence, Chicago, Illinois (J. J. Walser House, Chicago, Illinois), 1903	Robert M. Lamp House, Madison, Wisconsin (Robert M. Lamp House, Madison, Wisconsin), 1903	Burton J. Westcott House, Springfield, Ohio, 1904-1908; reconstruction 2003-2007
Darwin D. Martin Gardener's Cottage, Buffalo, New York (D. D. Martin's Greenhouse, Buffalo, New York), 1905-1909	Ferdinand F. Tomek House (The Ship House), Riverside, Illinois, 1904-1906	Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, New York (Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, New York), 1904; demolished 1950	Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois (Temple of Concord, Oak Park, Illinois), 1904-1908
Edward R. Hills House, Oak Park, Illinois (Edward Hills House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1906; rebuilt	Frank L. Smith Bank, Dwight, Illinois (Bank of Frank L. Smith, Dwight, Illinois), 1905	Rookery Building, Chicago, Illinois (Rookery Building, interior), 1905-1907; rebuilt	Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine, Wisconsin (House of Thomas P. Hardy, Racine, Wisconsin), 1905
Avery Coonley House, Riverside, Illinois (Avery Coonley House, Riverside, Illinois), 1907-1912	Mrs. A. W. Gridley House (Ravine House), Batavia, Illinois, 1906	Peter A. Beachy House, Oak Park, Illinois, 1906	William H. Pettit Mortuary Chapel, Belvidere, Illinois, 1906-1907
Eugene A. Gilmore House (Airplane House), Madison, Wisconsin, 1908	George Blossom Garage, Chicago, Illinois (George Blossom Garage, Chicago, Illinois), 1907	Tan-Y-Deri (Andrew T. Porter House), Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1907	Edward E. Boynton House, Rochester, New York (E.E. Boynton House, Rochester, New York), 1908
Raymond W. Evans House, Chicago, Illinois (Robert W. Evans House, Chicago, Illinois), 1908	Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago, Illinois (Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago, Illinois), 1908-1910	Isabel Roberts House, River Forest, Illinois (Isabella Roberts House, River Forest, Illinois), 1908; reconstruction 1958	Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan (Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan), 1908
Mrs. Thomas H. Gale House, Oak Park, Illinois (House of Mrs. Thomas Gale, Oak Park, Illinois), 1909	Walter V. Davidson House, Buffalo, New York (Walter V. Davidson House, Buffalo, New York), 1908	William H. Copeland House, Oak Park, Illinois (Remodeling of Dr. W. H. Copeland's house, (second design, added garage) Oak Park, Illinois), 1908	City National Bank Building and Park Inn Hotel, Mason City, Iowa, 1909-1910
Oscar B. Balch House, Oak Park, Illinois (O.B. Balch House, Oak Park, Illinois), 1911	Rev. Jessie R. Zeigler House, Frankfort, Kentucky, 1909	Avery Coonley Coach House, Riverside, Illinois, 1911	Avery Coonley Gardner's Cottage, Riverside, Illinois (Avery Coonley Cottage, Riverside, Illinois), 1911
Emil Bach House, Chicago, Illinois (Emil Bach House, Chicago, Illinois), 1915	Avery Coonley Playhouse, Riverside, Illinois, 1912	A. D. German Warehouse, Richland Center, Wisconsin (A. D. German Warehouse, Richland Center, Wisconsin), 1915-1921	Arthur L. Richards Duplex Apartments, Milwaukee, Wisconsin ("American Homes" commissioned by the Richards Company (ARCS), Milwaukee, Wisconsin), 1915-1916
Hollyhock House (Aline Barnsdall House), Little Armenia, Los Angeles, California, 1917-1921	Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan (Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan), 1915; demolished 1968 (reconstructed 1976)	Ravine Bluffs Development Bridge (Sylvan Road Bridge) & Sculptures, Glencoe, Illinois, 1915	Frederick C. Bogk House, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1916
Tazaemon Yamamura House (Yodokō Guest House), Hyogo-Ken, Japan (Tezaemon Yamamura House, Japan), 1918-1924	Jiyu Gakuen Girls' School, Tokyo, Japan (Iyu Gakuen School, Tokyo, Japan), 1921	Alice Millard House (La Miniatura), Pasadena, California ("Miniature", Alice Millard House, Pasadena, California), 1923	Charles Ennis House, Los Angeles, California (Charles Ennis House, Los Angeles, California), 1923-1924
Dr. John Storer House, Hollywood, California (John Storer House, Los Angeles, California), 1923	Samuel Freeman House, Hollywood Hills, California (Samuel Freeman House, Los Angeles, California), 1923	Taliesin III, Spring Green, Wisconsin (Taliesin III, Spring Green, Wisconsin), 1925	Graycliff Estate (Isabelle R. Martin House), Derby, New York, 1926
Arizona Biltmore Hotel, Phoenix, Arizona, 1927-1929	Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence), Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1935-1938	Herbert Jacobs House I, Madison, Wisconsin (Herbert Jacobs House, Madison, Wisconsin), 1936-1937	Johnson Wax Headquarters, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936-1939
Malcolm E. Willey House, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Malcolm Willey House, Minneapolis, Minneapolis), 1934	Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona (Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona), 1937	Wingspread (Herbert F. Johnson House), Wind Point, Wisconsin, 1937-1939	Annie M. Pfeiffer Chapel, Lakeland, Florida (Annie M. Pfeiffer Chapel, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1938-1941 (project Child of the Sun )
Hanna-Honeycomb House (At Stanford University), Palo Alto, California, 1937	Suntop Homes, Ardmore, 1938-1939	George D. Sturges House, Brentwood Heights, California (George Sturges House, Brentwood Heights, California), 1939	Loren B. Pope Residence (Pope-Leighey House), Falls Church, Virginia, 1939-1940; transported (Alexandria, VA, 2001)
Charles L. Manson House, Wausau, Wisconsin (Charles L. Manson House, Wausau, Wisconsin), 1938-1941	Auldbrass Plantation (C. Leigh Stevens House), Yemassee, South Carolina, 1940-1951	Community Christian Church, Kansas City, Missouri (United Church, Kansas City, Missouri), 1940-1942	Seminar Buildings I, II, & III, Lakeland, Florida, 1940-1949 (project Child of the Sun)
Stanley Rosenbaum House, Florence, Alabama (Stanley Rosenbaum House, Florence, Alabama), 1939-1940	Industrial Arts Building, Lakeland, Florida (Industrial Design Building, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1942-1952 (project Child of the Sun)	Herbert Jacobs House II (Solar Hemicycle), Middleton, Wisconsin, 1944-1948	Emile E. Watson and Benjamin Fine Administration Building, Lakeland, Florida (Administrative Building, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1945-1949 (project Child of the Sun)
E. T. Roux Library, Lakeland, Florida (Roux Library, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1941-1946 (project Child of the Sun)	Unitarian Society Meeting House, Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin, 1947-1951	J. Edgar Wall Water Dome, Lakeland, Florida (Pond, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1948-1949 (project Child of the Sun)	V. C. Morris Gift Shop, San Francisco, California (B. C. Morris Store, San Francisco, California), 1948-1949
Covered walkways or Esplanades, Lakeland, Florida, 1946-1958 (project Child of the Sun)	Anderton Court Shops, Beverly Hills, California (Anderton Stores, Beverly Hills, California), 1952	Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma (Harold S. Price Company Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma), 1952-1956	Kentuck Knob (I.N. Hagan House), Chalkhill, Pennsylvania, 1953-1956
First Christian Church, Phoenix, Arizona (First Christian Church, Phoenix, Arizona), 1950-1970	Riverview Terrace Restaurant (Frank Lloyd Wright Visitors" Center), Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1953	Beth Sholom Synagogue, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (Synagogue "Beth Sholom", Elkins Park, Pennsylvania), 1954-1959	William H. Danforth Chapel, Lakeland, Florida (Danforth Chapel, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1954-1955 (project Child of the Sun)
Polk County Science Building, Lakeland, Florida (Science and Cosmography Buildings, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida), 1953-1958 (project Child of the Sun)	R. W. Lindholm Service Station, Cloquet, Minnesota, 1956-1958	Wyoming Valley Grammar School, Spring Green, Wisconsin (Wyoming Valley School, Wyoming Valley, near Spring Green, Wisconsin), 1956	Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California, 1957-1976
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin), 1956-1961	Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), 1943-1959	The Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, Tempe, Arizona, 1959

Key dates in Wright's life and work:

1910 - Wright travels to Berlin and then to Fiesole. There he worked with his son on illustrations for the book "Realized Buildings and Projects", which would be published in the same year by Ernst Wasmuth in Berlin.

1911 - Wright begins building a new home and workshops near Spring Green, Wisconsin. All this will acquire the name “Teylisin”.

1913 - Wright travels to Japan to negotiate a contract for the Imperial Hotel and acquire Japanese prints for American clients.

1914 - Julian Carlston kills Maimah Cheney and six others and then sets Teilizin on fire. Wright meets Miriam Noel.

1918 - Wright travels to Peiping in China. There he goes sightseeing as a guest of the writer Ku Hong Ming.

1922 - Wright opens an office in Los Angeles. Divorce from Katherine.

1923 - The Kanto earthquake destroys much of Tokyo. The Imperial Hotel remains undamaged. Wright publishes a book, Experimenting with Human Lives, about the earthquake and the Imperial Hotel. He marries Miriam Noel.

1924 - Wright meets “Olgivanna” - Olga Ivanovna Lazovich-Ginzenberg.

1925 - Second fire of Teilizin. Birth of Iovanna, daughter of Wright and "Olgivanna" Ginzenberg.

1926 - Bank of Wisconsin takes over Teilizin due to Wright's debts. Near Minneapolis, Wright and Ginzenberg are arrested for immoral behavior.

1927 - Wright writes a series of articles entitled "In the Cause of Architecture", which are published monthly in The Architectural Record magazine. Divorce from Miriam Noel-Wright.

1928 - Wright marries Olga Ivanovna Ginzenberg.

1929 - Work on the Chandler project initially continues, but is then interrupted after the stock market crash in October.

1930 - Wright gives a series of lectures at Princeton University and then publishes them under the title Modern Architecture. A large exhibition of works travels to Princeton, New York, Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee.

1932 - The Wrights found the Teilisin Fellowship and converted the Hillside School buildings into fellowship premises. Wright publishes Autobiography and The Disappearing City. His works are included in the International Style exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

1934 - Together with his students, Wright begins building a scale model of “Broadacre City.” The first issue of Taliesin, a magazine founded by Wright, is published by Taliesin Press.

1935 - A model of the "Wide Open City" is exhibited at the Industrial Arts Exhibition at Rockefeller Center in New York. "The House at the Falls" by Edgar J. Kaufmann, Mill Run, Pennsylvania

1938 - Wright designs the January issue of Architectural Forum magazine, which is dedicated to his work. Wright's portrait appears on the cover of Time magazine.

Florida Southern College, Master Plan Commissioned by Dr. Lud M. Spivey, Lakeland, Florida

1939 - Wright is invited to London to give a series of lectures at Sulgrave Manor Board. The lectures are published under the title “An Organic Architecture”.

1940 - The Museum of Modern Art in New York mounts a major retrospective exhibition, "The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright."

1952 - Fire destroys part of the Hillside School building in Spring Green. The exhibition “Sixty Years of Living Architecture” takes place in Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

1955 - Wright created the book American Architecture, published by Edgar Kaufmann Jr.

1957 - Wright is invited to Baghdad (Iraq) to create designs for an opera house, cultural center, museum, university and telegraph office. Wright's book "A Testament" is published.

20th century architecture

The father of American architectural modernism, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), said: “Doctors can bury their mistakes with their patients, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant ivy.”

How they were built textile block houses Frank Lloyd Wright's "Miniature" and the Ennis House.

Wright considered this house to be the first "Usonian" building, reflecting the architect's dream of an ideal America. "Usonian" or "Usonian", "North American" style of Frank Lloyd Wright - from Usonia, an abbreviation of U.S.O.N.A. /Unites States of Northern America. Beginning in 1936, Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built about 50 Usonian-style homes: single-story structures surrounded by gardens; compact, economical and technologically advanced with flat roofs. Such houses were intended for citizens with average incomes. Wright’s immediate “Usonian” period is later – the 1930s, and La Miniatura is a work of the 20s, when Wright built four houses in a similar textile-block design.

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Millard House or "Miniature". Pasadena, California. Construction 1923 Architect Frank Lloyd Wright / The Millard House. Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright and Lloyd Wright. Year built: 1924. Sq. Ft.: 4230. Beds/Baths: 3/3.

In the early 1920s, the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was deeply saddened by the fate of concrete blocks. “So what is a concrete block? For years it remained the cheapest and ugliest item in the construction world. He huddled on the outskirts of architecture - he had to imitate the texture of stone. Is it really impossible to change the fate of this outcast?” - Wright wrote. His idea was as follows: he proposed making concrete blocks of a non-standard cubic shape, hollow inside, with holes at the top and bottom, and stringing them on reinforcing bars, like beads on a thread. Or like a transverse thread in weaving fabric - it is no coincidence that Wright called his blocks “textile”. With this design, much less cement mortar was needed, the wall surface looked neater and could be perceived as a single decorative plane. Because Wright, of course, wasn't content with just a constructive idea—he turned concrete blocks into an aesthetic statement. He came up with the idea of ​​covering the visible surfaces of the cube with an ornament in the spirit of the Mayan Indians.

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Frank Lloyd Wright and his "Miniature" / This photograph shows Frank Lloyd Wright walking past his residential design La Miniatura, also known as the Millard House. La Miniatura was the first of Wright's four "textile block" houses—all built in Los Angeles County in 1923 and 1924. Photo Credit: Robert Carroll May, 1940. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives. The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York.

The first house Wright built in the newly invented style was the Millard House in Pasadena. The decor there was not particularly Mayan - just a cross and four holes. For Storer's house on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, Wright came up with a design more reminiscent of a Romanesque cross. It was this house that was once owned by “The Matrix” producer Joel Silver. Wright built both of these houses and the Freeman mansion in Los Angeles in 1923.

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Architect Frank Lloyd Wright

A year later, in 1924, he began the construction of the Ennis house - the largest and with the most complex asymmetrical ornamentation on the surface of the blocks.

However, first things first. First, about the Millard House La Miniatura.

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The Millard House

Each work of art is a portrait of its creator. So the author of an article in Architectural Digest Russia, Vladimir Paperny, found features of the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the La Miniatura house in California.

Article:

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The Millard House

Our shortcomings are a continuation of our strengths. This conventional wisdom applies entirely to the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. A rich imagination turned into a disregard for facts - he half-invented his autobiography, starting with his date of birth (1869 instead of 1867), height (174 instead of 170 cm) and education (he studied, but did not graduate from school or university).

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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is probably America's most famous architect and an emblematic figure in the profession in general.

His uncompromising attitude and contempt for bourgeois conventions sometimes forced his friends to break off relations with him. Just look at the episode in 1909, when Frank, leaving his wife and six children, went to Europe with his client’s wife. He treated money with the same unceremoniousness. The search for new designs and materials helped to find unexpected solutions, but experiments sometimes led to a catastrophic increase in construction costs. Trust in his own intuition (and not in engineering calculations) led to alterations and rebuilds, sometimes even at his own expense. The California period of the architect's career perfectly illustrates all the pros and cons of Wright's character.

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In the 1920s, the orange groves of Southern California were transformed into Hollywood film sets. A mass migration of actors, directors and writers began from the East Coast to the West. The aliens, who got rich in the film industry, began to build houses for themselves in the Hollywood Hills. This is where they needed architecture. Wright's first California building was the home of Elin Barnsdall (1921), an oil heiress, philanthropist, failed actress and “salon Bolshevik.” Here Wright first used the “California Romanza” style: a collage of elements of the architecture of Egypt and pre-Columbian Mexico with the addition of some formality of the Beaux Arts style.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

It was in California that Wright invented the so-called textile blocks. The idea had two origins: they reminded Frank of his childhood Froebel Gifts building blocks, and they seemed like a way to make construction cheaper through standardization. Reinforced concrete blocks (approximately 40 × 40 × 20 cm) were cast into molds with stylized patterns. Double walls were built from them with a small gap for heat and sound insulation. In theory, no qualifications were required to cast blocks; anyone could do it for a minimal fee. The combination of manual labor with standardization was supposed to give the house a unique texture and make it financially accessible to the masses. In theory everything was great, but in practice problems arose. Blocks cast by unskilled workers often had to be remade several times. The reinforcement inside the blocks began to rust, and after a few years the blocks cracked and sometimes fell apart.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

La Miniatura (1923) is considered Wright's absolute masterpiece, although it was not without technical problems. The client, a collector of rare books and antiques Alice Millard, showed miracles of patience, generosity and trust in the architect. As he later did with The House Over the Waterfall, Wright chose a picturesque location that seemed unsuitable for construction - a deep ravine with two picturesque eucalyptus trees.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

To create organic architecture that expressed the “spirit of place” and was in color harmony with the environment, Wright added sand and gravel from the construction site to the concrete composition. Fortunately, this time the blocks were made without metal reinforcement, so they were well preserved.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

You understand the uniqueness of the house when you climb the stairs from the lower level facing the pond (dining room, kitchen, servants' quarters) to the middle one (guest room and two-story living room with fireplace and balcony), and then to the upper one (master bedroom with access to the mezzanine above the living room and bathroom). The upward movement occurs in a spiral and clockwise direction.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

This already contains the seed of Wright's idea for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. One of Alice Millard's conditions - to integrate objects from her collection into architecture - Wright faithfully fulfilled: a rare case when he refused total control. Sales of books and antiques grew, the owner needed additional space. It became the studio, which is located on the left (if viewed from the side of the pond). It was added in 1926, and not by Frank himself, but by his son, Lloyd Wright, who managed to accurately repeat his father’s style.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

The current owner has invested a lot of money into restoring the house, but no one lives there now and it is for sale through ArchitectureForSale.com. The unique house is magically attractive, but few local residents have heard of it. It's hard to find, but I advise anyone who finds themselves in Los Angeles to enter the address: 645 Prospect Crescent, Pasadena, California 91103 into their GPS and go looking. I assure you, you won't regret it.

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The Millard House - La Miniatura

Text: Vladimir Paperny
Photo: Vladimir Paperny, ESTO, SCOTT MAYORAL
Article from AD: in pdf Architectural Digest Russia: Legendary house. Portrait Miniature and on the AD website ADmagazine.ru: "Miniature" by Frank Lloyd Wright

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Frank Lloyd Wright. Millard House - La Miniatura, Pasadena, California.

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Frank Lloyd Wright. Millard House - La Miniatura, Pasadena, California.

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Frank Lloyd Wright. Millard House - La Miniatura, Pasadena, California.

The last of the four mansions in the “textile” style that the architect became interested in in the 1920s was the Ennis House.

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Ennis House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A black-and-white photograph from the 1940s clearly shows the Mayan origins of the Ennis House's austere geometric volumes.

The house was under construction in 1924. And immediately after construction was completed, the Ennis House became famous.

Fragment of the article Ennis House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright from AD Magazine Russia:

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Wright's drawing showing the plan and perspective of the house. Wright made presentation drawings like this for all of his projects.

Wright's clients were Charles Ennis, a millionaire who made a fortune from a chain of department stores, and his wife Mabel. Ennis was keenly interested in Mayan culture, which is why he ordered such an unusual project. A large budget and shared tastes with the client allowed Wright to expand - the scale of the building can only be described as grandiose. From the outside it does not give a residential impression - rather it looks like an ancient temple. The forbidding image is partly softened by the texture of the concrete blocks: they divide the high walls into small cells, the cells themselves are also delineated with decorative brackets. As a result, the facade of the house, especially in the rays of the setting sun, appears as a luxurious patterned fabric with a slight relief - an effect due to which the term "textile houses" is often mistakenly attributed not to constructive, but to Wright's decorative solutions.

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The inhospitable appearance of the Ennis house's façade is softened by the texture of the concrete blocks and the soft, sandy color of the walls.

Inside the house makes an ambivalent impression. Its enormity and solemnity do not disappear anywhere: high ceilings, long corridors, twenty-seven stained glass windows - at times it seems that you have entered a cathedral, and not a living space. However, in general, Wright managed to curb the desire for gigantomania in this project, primarily because he abandoned his beloved open plan. The Ennis house is clearly divided. There is a front part: a living room with a balcony overlooking Los Angeles, a symmetrical dining room, which is decorated with the rarest golden glass mosaic panel in Wright’s creative heritage, and a swimming pool in the courtyard. This pool, however, appeared in the house only in the 1940s, although Wright designed it right away - it runs along a long corridor connecting the front rooms with much more modest and discreet bedrooms. And throughout all the rooms, Wright very delicately plays with scale, “breaking up” the empty and echoing spaces with divisions and details: sometimes a height difference of two or three steps, sometimes a row of screen partitions, sometimes a niche, sometimes a bronze panel, sometimes a mosaic above the fireplace.

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The Ennis House in Los Angeles was built by the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1924. The salon features antique Art Deco furniture.

As usual in his homes, Wright designed everything for the Ennises, from the architectural volumes to the smallest details, like electrical switches. However, Ennis' interest in Mayan culture ultimately led to a conflict: the client did not obediently listen to Wright's every word - he expressed his own opinion, and Wright left the construction site with a scandal. So now researchers studying the Ennis house are wondering which details are really Wright’s, and which were invented by Charles Ennis himself after his departure. In the original project there were, for example, no marble floors, no wrought iron grille on the stairs, no Tiffany chandeliers, no Art Deco furniture - Ennis did not order furniture designed by Wright. The fact that all these things ended up fitting into the interior of the house quite organically once again shows how good the structure of the building is: a beautiful face, as we know, cannot be spoiled even by the worst makeup.

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The dining room is on the first floor of the Ennis house. The late Art Nouveau wrought iron chandelier appeared here, of course, without Wright's approval.

The fate of the Ennis house turned out to be quite dramatic. It was Wright's last work in the "textile" style: conflicts with Ennis forced him to abandon the idea of ​​​​ornamental concrete blocks. Despite the disputes with Wright, the owners loved the mansion and lived in it for quite a long time - only in 1968 it was bought by a certain Augustus Brown. In 1980, Brown donated the house to the Society for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. The community celebrated this good deed by renaming the monument “Ennis-Brown House.”

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Dining room. In the wall there is a glass mosaic created according to Wright's sketches.

Even after ceasing to be private property, the magnificent building lived a full life - it was constantly filmed in films. In fact, the process began back in 1959 - it was the Ennis house that was the main character in the legendary horror film The Haunting of Hill House with Vincent Price. The filmography of the house includes more than twenty titles - from the computer fantasy “The Thirteenth Floor” to the action film “Rush Hour” with Jackie Chan. Ridley Scott used the house twice - in Blade Runner (1982) and Black Rain (1989). David Lynch said of him: "Walking into the Ennis house is like entering heaven." A beautiful phrase, although the gloomy creator of Twin Peaks has, of course, not quite ordinary ideas about paradise.

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The owner of the house himself came up with a grate on the stairs.

But there are troubles in paradise, and for the Ennis-Brown house they began in 1994 - it was damaged during a devastating earthquake. Raising funds for its restoration was extremely slow - ten years later, in 2004, the house was still in a “vulnerable” state. And higher powers dealt the building a new blow: the winter of 2004 turned out to be unusually rainy in California, and the damaged Ennis house suffered from moisture and wind. Wright could not have foreseen such misfortunes - in his time the Californian weather was not so capricious. The house was completely closed to the public and they urgently began to organize the non-profit Ennis House Foundation - Wright's son, Eric Lloyd Wright, who also became an architect, plays a prominent role in it. The foundation estimated the building's conservation work at $5 million. All fifteen were needed for a complete restoration. One and a half million, received from the California state government, went to make the Ennis house safe for tourists and thus raise a little more money for restoration.

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Bedroom. The owners abandoned the gloomy furniture created by Wright in favor of comfort.

Until 2011, restoration work in the Ennis house (the foundation “cut off” the mention of Brown from the name of the monument) was in full swing, but there was still not enough money. That's why four years ago [? from what year to count] Billionaire businessman Ronald Burkle purchased the house for $4.5 million to continue the foundation's restoration efforts.

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The courtyard pool was designed by Wright in 1924 but not built until the 1940s.

Text: David Suffman and Evgenia Mikulina
Photo: Alexis Armande; Getty Images/Fotobank.Com; Alexis Armanet/Marie Claire/East News; Copyright 1962, 2006 The Frank Lloyd Write Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ
Published: ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST. The most beautiful houses in the world. No. 8 (43) August 2006. Original article.