Talk:Frank Lloyd Wright

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[edit] Frank Japan?

Karen Severns and Koichi Mori made a documentary, Magnificent Obsession: Frank Lloyd Wright's Buildings and Legacy in Japan. His chief assistant was Arata Endo. Seems like Wright's experience in Japan, as they claim, could have lifted his profile at a time when it was rather flat. Is it a good idea to add a section on this episode or does it overload an already long article?

PS I believe he didn't just tone his creations in with the landscape but used materials from the site as far as possible in the building itself. This was a nice economy of context as well as the organic thing. Julia Rossi 23:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] suggestions, additions, etc.

firstly, by what criteria are we defining a "work?" built or otherwise. by my own standards I certainly consider the present list to be strinkingly incomplete as well as inconsistently populated.

and scant, scant mention of wright's notable (albeit less known) contributions to the development of american city planning and urban design. some would argue these works to be the the apex of his portfolio.

the man wrote some pretty serious heavyweight books about living & place, but the entire article is just about what he built & architected. no mention of wright's favorite dirty word: rent? what kind of bullshit excuse for an article is this anyways?!

Well sir, this is what makes Wikipedia so great, if you do not agree with or like an article, you can change it. If you truly believe that this article is "Bullshit" why don't you find some better reference material, change the article to reflect this new material and cite the reference. Why complain when you can contribute? T.C. 11:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

prarie house. ill-defined and understated. Wright was in constant battle with the paradoxical elements of the suburban ideal. the prairie house he sought to ariculate was an elusive one.

and the fireplace. the defining characterisitic of his most noteable homes -- core and focus. important to wright in its expression and also in establishing the direction of the space.

and automobility. great deal of work reflects his efforts to fuse the automobility of cars with the immobilitiy of the edifice. and not only in reference to his obsession with the "auto objective." jacobs carport was the first such allocation of space is residential architecture. also note the cheney garage.


I think that there needs to be a lot more content and information about Wright's later work, after he returned from Europe. Falling Water is but one of many important designs that he completed in this period. Also, the section about his time in Europe and his personal life should be merged more seamlessly with the rest of the article. There are many facts about his personal life that are mentioned more than once or presented in slightly different ways at different points in the article.

[edit] JR Nikko train station

Hard to believe this structure was designed by Wright, unless while working under Silsbee or Sullivan, before striking out on his own. Both the design style and the date of construction are highly suspect. Not at all a good example of his life's work in any case. It's notable that it doesn't appear in William Allin Storrer's catalog of his works either.

Much, much better examples of his work would be the Robie House, the Coonley House, Wingspread, Fallingwater, or the Guggenheim.

[edit] J.R. Nikko Train Station

I agree with the first comment, from June 14, 2004. The J.R. Nikko Train Station has never been considered a work by Frank Lloyd Wright. He was still working as a draftsman for Louis Sullivan in Chicago in 1890, and did not have any substantive connections at that time to Japan. For him to have done a work like this in Japan at that time would mean that he would have had connections, and he would have had to go there, at least once. There is no record of this occurring, and it is accepted that he went to Japan for the first time in 1906. I have never heard that Wright did anything in Japan before receiving a commission for Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, c. 1913. I'm not sure where the author[s] of the article got this piece of information.

[edit] ken burns

ken burns may have named him america's best architect, but i dont think this is relevant information for the -first- paragraph of the article. if we had an interesting facts bit, that might belong there, but one way or another i fail to see the importance of this; even though i agree that FLW was a magnificent architect (and possibly history's best/etc.), there are a -lot- of people who have been named america's best / world's best ___, etc. --shrimppesto

  • I don't really know who Ken Burns is, but I guess the phrasing comes about from the Manual of Style's advice to 'Avoid Weasel Terms'. When making a superlative statement such as this, it is generally better to give an attributable source rather than resort to 'some have said that...'. That would be just vague opinion that others may or may not agree with. The statement, 'Ken Burns said that...', is (presumably) true whether you agree or not.
  • However, I quite agree it was out of place in the lead para. -- Solipsist 22:35, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Ken Burns is a notable documentary film maker. Kalmia 04:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] $80,000 architect's fee

My understanding is that the architect's fee is 10% of the cost of the commission. In which case, if the cost of $155,000 is correct for Fallingwater (I've heard higher and lower estimates), then that would make his fee $15,500. <---10% is correct most of the time but is on the high end of architectural fees.

[edit] Addresses

Do you people think it would be good to add the addresses next to the buildings for those that would like to go by them? A disclaimer noting that some are private residences should be added too. Many of his buildings are located within 40 miles of where I live. I could list some. Kalmia 04:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reference style is off

Okay, so the individual facts don't link to their references. I'm going to add some friendly tags to this effect, and we'll all work it on out. This doesn't mean that I think the facts are untrue, it means that if I were looking for a source to write a paper, I wouldn't be able to figure out which fact came from what reference. 63.231.154.244 20:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Building names

In the list of Wright structures, is there a standard reference used to decide the names of the buildings? I started the page for the Charles Weltzheimer Residence, since that is what is used on Wright's bio page, but the house's official name (according to Oberlin College, its owner) is the Weltzheimer/Johnson House. Are the names used here drawn from the Wright archives?

I put in a reidrect from Weltzheimer/Johnson HOuse to Charles Weltzheimer Residence, but I'm not completely sure it shouldn't be the other way around. Douglas Anders 16:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Storrer's book, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, is considered the gold standard for Wright enthusiasts looking for a system of organizing his works. It has a numbering system (e.g. S.230 is Fallingwater) and naming convention that is very useful. - David Sides October 31, 2006 at 22:56:04 UTC

[edit] Cultural depictions of Frank Lloyd Wright

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 15:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] added info but need help

I added information about Wright's association with Adler & Sullivan, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to cite a non-electronic source; I know Wikipedia provides directions, but they read like stereo instructions. Minaker 16:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] influences?

Does anybody know anything about Franks's influences regarding Mayan architecture and Japanese architecture, prints and motifs. The article did not say anything about this.

This is an important question. I just got back from visiting FLW's home in Oak Park, and part of the tour indicates that he did not make much money with the architecture gig, and actually made most of his income trading and selling Japanese prints. The safe in his home studio was apparently mostly devoted to storing Japanese art prints, not for architectural drawings. And there are clear Japanese influences on his style.

[edit] A few things....

The details of Frank Lloyd Wrights many personal difficulties are WELL known and documented in his own autobiography, in several books including Many of Many Masks by Brendan Gill and the new Book on the Taliesin Fellowship (although that book makes HUNDREDS of unsupportable claims)

Architects fees in Wrights time ranged between 5 and 7 1/2 % with wright this also generally included HIS structural engineer, but not your own and not the survey of the land. In those day projects rarely needed mechanical engineers, title 24 reports and on and on.

Presently Architecs fees range between 10 and 15% for a residence and usually DO NOT include structural engineers, title 24 engineers, mechanical engineers or engineering for "green" systems. This is not a result of declining ability ofr many in the Architectural field, but mostly of the litigation environment, one that Wright never seems to have faced.

[edit] Structure of article

Ive made some changes to this. I think it is difficult to get the right mix of personal life and architectural qualities. Basically i think the thing is to alternate sections of his personl life at the time and his architectural work at the time, and then put the 'legacy' and 'career concept' stuff after his death. But we have pitifully little in this article on many large periods of his life (eg. the textile block houses are missing altogether), so Its not really able to form cohesively yet. If anyone else has a better idea on the structure though, please post it here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Miscreant (talk • contribs) 13:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Solar hemicycle

Although it deals in detail with the prairie house genre and to some extent with the the Usonian houses, why does the F.Ll.W. article make no mention of the solar hemicycles (e.g., Herbert Jacobs II)? They are a discrete and readily identifiable style which encompassed much of the work from the '30s to the '50s. 139.130.36.190 05:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fallingwater $155k price in today's dollars

Per the consumer price index inflation calculator at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl , the house would cost $2.25M in 2006 dollars... interesting enough to add to article?

—Hobart 11:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that figure is very accurate because the CPI isn't very accurate considering it excludes some things. Has real estate and construction costs ever been a part of it? Average residential rents are a bit different. --Kalmia 15:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
In my area of the country, using the CPI to predict future housing costs would significantly underestimate them (though this may not really be relevant, as the CPI would be off for any single item). I do think it would be helpful to make people aware somehow that $155k then is vastly different from $155k now. (It is much more different than people think it is, so in one sense even stating $155k without qualification is misleading.) -DoctorW 20:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Good points, I think this should definitely be added to the article, something along the lines of "$155,000 (approximately $2.5 million in 2006 dollars)" or something to that effect.--Gloriamarie 17:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Child of the Sun

I may be able to get some photographs around the various buildings that make up the Child of the Sun grouping. If so, I'll upload them and try to find some decent ones for illustrating the article, since it's the largest collection of FLW's work in existence. The Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel in particular is a striking building. The Dark 16:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Influencing the entire course of architecture

The opening paragraph makes a somewhat weasely claim that FLW influenced the entire course of architecture and building internationally. He was certainly one of the greatest 20th century architects and a defining force in his home country, but the opening paragraph makes it sound as though he rewrote some mystical worldwide construction and design rulebook. Which, plainly, he didn't. I propose putting it back to neutrality either by removing the entire course of or by prefixing architecture and with the word American. Any thoughts? 213.165.225.152 (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I was the one who changed 'American' to 'internationally' some time ago. I think its a pretty bad opening paragraph too. But I don't think you can limit his influence to the USA, as plainly he was a strong influence in certain architectural movements in Europe (eg. De Stijl), Australia, etc., etc. I do agree about 'the entire course of' though. Why don't we just chop the whole phrase off Miscreant (talk) 01:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Lopping it off seems like the best course of action. Perhaps the edited paragraph could read: He developed a series of highly individual styles over a long career, and to this day remains America's most famous architect. This is also short enough to join with the first or third paras and make the whole intro punchier ThwartedEfforts (talk) 20:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo of playhouse

I think that this website should at least put one of his extremely famous pieces of architechture, the playhouse, which is located Riverside, Illinois, the town next to the one in which I live in, Berwyn, Illinois. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.174.231 (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be excellent! Maybe you could take a few photos and upload them? (I think you need to create an account for the latter.) —EncMstr 18:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where Frank was from

In the top biography it states that Frank is from Oak Park Ill., yet below it says from Richland Center, Wis.

He obviously spent a number of years in Oak Park, but we in Wisconsin take pride in claiming an accomplished son and arguably the Greatest American Architect in History.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.77.26 (talk) 21:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Consistent with other biographical articles, it correctly lists his birthplace as Wisconsin, but since he is most closely identified during his adult life (and afterward) with Oak Park, that should show up in the opening paragraph. HokieRNB (talk) 21:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
He was not from Illinois. He may have lived there later in his life, but he was a transplant. Most condsider Wright to be "from" Wisconsin, which he was. I changed the section to just state "Wisconsin" 216.54.131.165 (talk) 03:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I still contend that Oak Park should be in the opening paragraph as he is most closely associated with that over the course of this life and career. However, I will refrain from changing it back to "from Oak Park". The article already states his birthplace in the infobox and in the biographical section, so it would be redundant to include it in the opening sentence. HokieRNB (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Functionality of his works

I don't know much about Frank Lloyd Wright, but I've heard that many of his buildings have practical engineering problems, such as leaks and structural faults, and ergonomic problems, such as a chair which intersects with a door arc when not pushed flat against the table, and the arrangement of beams and lighting in a drafting room making supplementary lighting necessary. I don't know how much justification there is for this, and some of it no doubt says more about the faults of building contractors than those of architects. But I tried to look it up, and the only source I've been able to find for this online is

http://www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd-wright/criticism_fallingwater.html

Within the article, there is also a mention of some of Fallingwater's structural problems, and the words "This appears to have been the result of a faulty electrical system".

I find how-it-works detail interesting, and would like a bit more than offhand references to flashing, poured concrete and cantilevers. It would be nice to have a section on "Functional and Engineering Aspects", or "Maintenance, Safety, and Livability of Frank Lloyd Wright designs", or some such. For an idea of what I'm talking about, I recommend J.E. Gordon's popular structural science books, which should be accessible to anyone literate.

Would anyone volunteer to write this, preferably with help from someone with a background in structural engineering and restoration?

Thanks! HLHJ (talk) 15:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Although I have no personal interest in investing the time needed to edit this article as HLHJ suggests; I do recognize that good questions are raised. In this context, the following becomes relevant:
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York: A team of restoration architects, structural engineers, and architectural conservators worked together to create a comprehensive assessment of the building's condition in 2007. [See -- here.]
  • Imperial Hotel in Tokyo: The hotel passed the most crucial test for any structure during an earthquake: it remained structurally sound despite the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. [See -- here.]
In the absence of something more, the demonstrable consequences of Wright's structural engineering schemes in these two examples are noteworthy. In a way, this is responsive to some of what HLHJ questions above. --Tenmei (talk) 16:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The roof leaking in Wright's own office at Taliesin West.
The roof leaking in Wright's own office at Taliesin West.


Consider first the fact that many of his designs were of 'new' or different construction to what was commonly built at the time (roofs leaking), and the fact that many of his structural engineers were testing the edges of what was known (fallingwater's need to be reinforced) before you start to complain at Wright. It was a factor of the experimental nature of his works, not oversights that a 'better man' could easily correct. Ergonomic problems were his own, but he pushed the use of space to the edge of practicality sometimes - for which the clients did suffer sometimes. Lighting is difficult for any architect and could well have been a contractor issue. The best source for this would be "the details of modern architecture" by william ford. One of the two books at least gives an overview of wright in this regard (especially as compared to other architects of the time). Just some input. I dont want to write it. (Anyhow - things aren't made to last forever. People kept using them and rebuilding them didn't they?- Miscreant (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)) Miscreant (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)