Cities that we live today is not as it is now when it was rst discovered many years ago.

Many has undergone through a very long process from what started as simple as a small settlement developing to become a great metropolis today such as London and Tokyo to name a few. Undeniably, in the process of evolution of these great cities, architects has played a very important role in determining how our cities work, through the design of buildings such as houses and civic centre, to the bigger scale city master planing.
One of those architects, Frank Lloyd Wright (g.1), whose name is synonym with the modern American architecture has undoubtedly brought inuence to the development of our cities today. Although his contributions are mainly in the early stage of the gure 1 modern architecture, it is interesting to examine and try to understand how the movement started to develop to become the basis of our current development in architecture today.
Wrights architectural journey started when decided to pursue a career as an architect in the city of Chicago, according to Kaufmann (1989), Wright worked rst for J. Lyman Silsbee where he quickly become a skilled draughtsman. Later, he was interviewed by Louis H. Sullivan, a professional architect and partner in Adler & Sullivans ofce, and joined the rm as a draughtsman. Wright eventually became Sullivans close assistant and from there began to make his marks.
Wrights rst remarkable design was done in 1893, a house for a wealthy businessman called William H. Winslow. The Winslow House (g. 2) as it is called was built on a large piece of land in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago. It is a simple symmetrical structure, two stories in height with a pitched roof of terra-cotta tiles. Blake (1976:310) described the house as:

gure 2

Anyone looking at the Winslow house today would be struck by the quiet distinction and good taste of its facades, and by the excellence of the workmanship.


The Winslow House success lies in two of its strength, rst the in control of its horizontal composition and secondly in the handling of its scale. Wright managed to make the horizontal composition as the dominant detail of this house, even the doublehung windows are were divided horizontally into two long and at rectangles of glass. As for the scale of the house, Wright successfully as suggested by Blake (1976), perform the eternal rules of great architecture, which is a building must stand up visually from two vantage points, from far away (colossal scale) and at close (human scale). Wright clearly showed he understood the principle that has been used by the Classical and Renaissance master, which has been forgotten in the years of modern architecture, as much modern architecture appears to be dull and at at close. In what way has Wright contributed to the development of American cities is clearly described by Desmond (1998:179): The Winslow house synthesizes the Neoclassical and Romantic architectural systems of the nineteenth century in its analysis of the image of shelter, its rethinking of the needs of the nuclear family, and its effort to complete the visual structure of the emerging American industrial city.
Apart from that, the Winslow house has not only impacted the development of American cities, but the inuence of the design philosophy is far-reaching and can be seen in the design of Shimamura residence (Appendix i.) in Omiya, Japan by architect Shozo Uchii. According to Alofsin (1999), Uchii believes Wright was the only architect to construct an alternative to modernism that promotes technological progress, as Wrights work seek solutions from the nature.
Another project by Wright that is interesting to be examined is the Unity Temple. Unity temple was built at Oak Park, Illinois in the year 1906-1908. The building was built to replace the original Unity Church that was burned down in 1905. Wright does not only design the main structure of the Unity Temple, but he also designed the furnitures inside the building as well as the stained glass. Primarily, the building can be divided into two main section in two separate blocks. The rst section is an auditorium, about square in plan and the second section is a parish house which is linked to the auditorium by a narrow connector that also acts as the entrance to the building.


Like the Winslow house, the Unity Temple was also very simple in its composition. However, the main importance of Unity temple lies in its plan (g. 3), the organisation of its space and lastly the quality of its linear, geometric and interior ornament. Unity Temple utilises the gure 3 the H-plan or binuclear plan that as Blake (1976) argues, the type of plan that every functionalist such as Le Corbusier found as the most ideal solution to the organisation of multifunctional buildings. Mainly, the H-plan works by separating the two principal, opposing functions of any given building and link these opposing functions by a connector that also serves as the principal entrance to the building. Unity Temple successfully demonstrated the principle of separate articulation which is one of the really fundamental principle in modern architecture.
The second aspect, on the organisation of its space, Wright successfully developed and entirely plastic space or a space that has multidirectional movement. Unity Temple was built tall and complex in their height, balconies intrude both the auditorium and parish house at various levels, and light can enter the building from the sides as well as from above so that the space within is drawn towards all direction.
The linear and geometric ornament Wright used particularly on the auditorium section of the building, consisted of long band of at trim, occasionally forming squares and rectangles in dynamic and asymmetric compositions. While many did not realise this, Wright through his design has actually laid the foundation for one of the most important movement in modern design, the De Stijl movement which was formed in Holland a dozen years later after Unity Temple was built. Blake (1976:332) describes this occasion as: There can be no questions whatever that the Dutch De Stijl painters and architects had seen exhibition of Wrightss work in Holland in 1910 and that they were familiar with his Unity Church. Thus we nd Wright giving birth, almost absent-mindedly, to one of the most inuential and one the most powerful groups in entire history of modern art.


Wright has gave the modern architecture its foundation based on his work of the Unity Temple which introduced to the world what he chose to call Organic Architecture. According to Pfeiffer (1987), organic architecture meant, for Wright, that all the parts are in relation to each other and in turn all things related to the whole. He believed in the integrity of materials used in buildings, to be treated according to its nature. A building must be of its own time and place.
Despite his work being the foundation of the modern architecture in the later years, they do not entirely represent Wrights organic architecture. He saw many works being done in the Europe lost the fundamental principle of his organic architecture. The new architecture that emerged in Europe at that time was more form oriented at the expense of integrity. Pfeiffer (1978), explained that, for Wright, the International Style that emerged from the foundation laid by Wrights architecture lacked depth, which is the dimension manifested from the integration of the plan and elevation of a building. Wright believes the old emphasis on facaded architecture that Europe had been practising since Renaissance has reverted back despite its use of modern name.
The inuence brought by Frank Lloyd Wright to our contemporary architecture today may not be visible in a quick glance but further inspection of his works during the early modern period beyond doubt proves that without Wrights introduction of his organic architecture to the world, modern period might have taken a different path from what we can see today. From there, we can clearly see that our architecture which has dened our cities today has gone through a vast development that should be appreciated and examined in order for us to learn from the past.

Appendix

Appendix i. Shimamura residence, Omiya, 1985. Shozo Uchii, architect. (Koji Horiuchi, photographer)

Bibliography
Alofsin, A. (1999) Wright, inuence, and the world at large. in Alofsin, A. (ed.) Frank Lloyd Wright, Europe and Beyond. California: University of California Press, pp.1-23. Blake, P. (1976) The Master Builders, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Desmond, J.M. (1998) VIII: Buildings for Individual Dwelling. in De Long, D.G. (ed.) Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City. Geneva: Skira. Desmond, J.M. (1998) IX: Buildings for Communal Dwelling. in De Long, D.G. (ed.) Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City. Geneva: Skira. Frampton, K. (2007) Modern Architecture : A Critical History. 4th edition., London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Joncas, R. (1998) III: Buildings for Worship. in De Long, D.G. (ed.) Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City. Geneva: Skira. Kaufmann, E. (1989) 9 Commentaries on Frank Lloyd Wright. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Library of Congress. (1926) Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect [Online] [Accessed on 2 April 2011] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Lloyd_Wright_LC-USZ62-36384.jpg Oak Park Cycle Club. (2007) William H. Winslow House Front Facade [Online] [Accessed on 2 January 2011] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_H._Winslow_House_Front_Facade.jpg Pfeiffer, B. B. (1987) Frank Lloyd Wright Letter to Architects. London: The Architectural Press Limited

Satler, G. (1999) The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Global View. Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 53 (1) pp.15-24 [Online] [Accessed 4 April 2011] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1425549 Taliesin Fellowship. (1976) Plan of Unity Church. The Master Builders, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Turner, P. V. (1983) Frank Lloyd Wright and the Young Le Corbusier. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 42 (4) pp. 350-359 [Online] [Accessed 2 April 2011] http://www.jstor.org/stable/989921

Frank Lloyd Wright

MOHAMMAD AKMAL BIN A KHADIR 10981557 / 7656837