Designers of impact

1. Designers of impact An American design Icon, Frank Lloyd Wright

2. “Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.“ • Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the greatest American architects of the 20th century. His innovative design works have had great influence on many designers across the world.

3. “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." Wright design style was greatly influenced by his beliefs in simplicity and nature - a philosophy that he carried through in most of his works. His work is rooted in what he regarded as organic architecture. Wright believed that architecture is “primarily an idea –an idea about life, nature and environment”. Horizontal expressions demonstrated on the building façade was intended to follow the rhythm of the surrounding environment and landscape – an abstraction of nature with its elements express in mere geometrical terms.

4. The Prairie Style Wright was a leading founder of a design movement – the Prairie Style that established a new American architecture and cultural expressions from 1899 to 1919. Features of prairies style low–pitched hipped or flat roofs with wide, projecting (or cantilevered) overhangs that reflect the horizontal lines of the Midwestern prairie); central broad chimneys; Ribbon windows (often with leaded art glass); Roman brick or stucco siding with dark wood bands; and massive porch supports.

5. Space organizing principles: the grid, axis and symmetry • Wright liked order in design inside and out. In the design of the Robbie house and Unity Church, Wright used simple grids, axes and symmetries to organize and create spatial hierarchy, architectural unity and harmony.

6. "Form follows function- that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union." • Wright believed that building and its surroundings are one - marrying buildings to its natural surroundings using natural materials, skylights and walls of windows to integrate his buildings to the surrounding environment.

7. "Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind." • Wright designed many buildings that mimicked nature such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York that resembles the structure of a shell or snail and Larkin building, Buffalo, New York or Fallingwater House, Mill Run, Pennsylvania

8. His Legacies • The history of American culture would be incomplete without references to Wright’s exemplary contributions and legacies to American architecture.