Happy Birthday, Frank Lloyd Wright!

Hey, if you haven't seen the special Google logo today, check it out.... today is Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday, woot! He was born on June 8, 1867. I've always loved his architecture... the man was just brilliant. His studio is kinda near me in beautiful Oak Park, Illinois... come take the tour sometime!

In honor of Wright's birthday, here's a favorite quote from him:

"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines."

Quick, somebody build a birthday cake with cantilevered layers!

Is it just me or is Frank Lloyd Wright over rated??

No, he isn't.

I saw that Google thing too, pretty cool.

Frank Lloyd Wright rocks. In fact we need to do all we can to help preserve his amazing work.
Check and the foundation and give a small contribution if you can. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Having grown up in Wisconsin, where Wright has been beatified and his works enshrined as holy writ, I'm rather tired of every new commercial development being a pale imitation of his work and a caricature of the prairie style. I remember attending the Monona Terrace opening and being overawed by the beauty of the building. Now, having gained a few more years of wisdom, I've decided that the Monona Terrace is the ultimate shrine to aesthetic onanism. It is a convention center fitting for a city half Madison's size, but is so inadequate for larger conferences that the decrepit and hideous Alliant Energy Center nee Coliseum is still used for conferences of any substantial size. I don't think Wright deserves all of the blame for the inadequacies of the Monona Terrace, as it was a vintage design that should have been updated for today. I don't think Wright deserves the blame for pioneering an architectural style so pleasing that it has been mimicked and abused wholesale.

Ultimately, I recognize that he's a great architect. However, he is most certainly not the immaculate designer which people so often make him out to be. Many of his designs are practicaly impossible to live in, either because of poor engineering or bad ergonomics. Some of the anecdotes from owners of Wright homes made it abundantly clear that one's lifestyle was forced to conform to the house, and not the other way around.

For me, the most important thing Wright did was by not being afraid of breaking the rules of traditional forms of architecture.

His doing so made it OK for others to follow suit, and to not be afraid of the Victorian mindset's scrutiny, as well as that of other classically minded critics and architects.

So happy birthday Frank!

Cheers!

Cats rocked! I saw it twice!

Schwaa?

I'm imagining Juro right now - face red as a beet with steam flying out of his ears

Siggy.

I used to fear I was an uncultured slob for not appreciating modern buildings inspired by prarie style. At last one person agrees with me!




Interesting point.
It seems he focused more ont the relationship of building + environment as opposed to building + people who had to live there. Maybe he knew that the visual impact of the former combo was stronger than the later- as the proportion of people who saw the buildings was huge compared to the number of people who moved into them.

You might think that Wright is overrated, when you think of how his body of work compares to modern architecture, but the fact is that, at least here in the United States, much of our daily life is still dominated by his designs. Much of what you see, from ranch style homes to garages purpose-built for automobiles to picture windows; he was the first to use them. He literally invented the modern home, all on his own.
When Wright first started designing in his Prairie Style, back in the 1890's, it was virtually unique. Everyone else was still designing in the Queen Anne or Colonial Revival styles. Homes and offices had been closed in with walls and doorways. Rooms were dark and windows were draped with heavy fabrics. Wright opened up structures to the outside world, and spent his entire life pushing the technological envelope with new materials such as poured concrete, cast cement and plywood. A few years ago, the Johnson Co., in Racine, Wisconsin returned one of their buildings to Wright's original design, because it is only recently that it was possible to make the curved glass that his design called for back in 1936.

The live 10 blocks from a Frank Lloyd Wright house (wow, what a road map for stalkers since there aren't many and I live in Chicago ), and it is impossible that he is over rated, but quite possible most people have horrible taste. Visit any suburban area and you can see evidence of this everyday I worship Chicago architecture and he is one of my idols.

Yeah what my husband said.

It's just you, hehe.

Funny coincidence... today I'm wearing a t-shirt of Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window designs and I didn't even know it was his birthday. Pretty cool

To be that is part of the problem. His work were just down right bad in allot of ways. Some things were out of there world and others just ok.



The Modern home is not something to be proud of.



I don't mindQueen Anne and Colonial Revival styles.Victorian architecture is my favorite. Maybe if I lived in his time I would have liked his better because it was different then all the other stuff.



I hate the new Cubical style, I really hate the 1/2 wall cubical style, give me walls and doors. I had to make my own drapes because I wanted heavy fabrics, a richer warmer feel then the light air style of his.


The open thing is just not something I like. I see it as a wasted space. The new materials was a great thing but we can name 100s before and after him that did the same.


And this makes him good why? Yes many people like him, but I can’t think I am the only one here that just thinks “Over done and overrated”. Luckily I married some one that HATES his stuff, I don’t hate it. I dislike modern architecture I like a more Classical design. Give me Dark Cherry Stained wood, give me Heavy Rich Fabrics. I am making new Drapes to cover all my walls, all will be Dark and heavy. This will make it darker in the house (I have light houses) and by covering the walls it will damper the sounds and raise the R value of the walls (all the fabric will be backed with R rated backing).

FLW seems dated and 50s to me now, but I don't care, I love it. Some of it seems cramped, and "push-media" -- the style forces you into a certain entrance, a certain furniture, etc. These are definitely overwhelming buildings -- but still, they are interesting and so much better to look at than cubes or turds in the plaza or tract houses.

It's interesting that in SL, Juro Kothari sort of builds in this style. That is, he can imitate it almost exactly, as he did in Annie's Home (can't remember which sim in SL), and he can also be inspired by it, as he did for Robin Linden's home in Alice. Some of Juro's pre-fabs look like a cross between Asian and FLW.

There's also an FLW prefab made by the Lindens. It's too prim-heavy and weird, and few people use it, but I ought to put it out for FLW's birthday celebration.

And someone even made a deprimmed version of this house, but then they couldn't distribute it because of some texture perm glitch drat.

Barnes also works with FLW's inspirations and clones -- I have one of his little ones and I love it to pieces.

Is that the Fallingwater build?
I was impressed that it was recreated here, although it's ironic that the original was carefully crafted to compliment its environment, while the replica can be rezzed anywhere.

Too bad we can't bring Frank back from the dead for some SL expirementation. Taking the suroundings into consideration, what would he build in Cordova? Ahern? The snow sims? The Moth sims?

Well, again, I didn't really get into criticism of his actual styles; I'm sure that I could not live in one of the Usonian houses and I like a bit more of a formal, traditional layout than you see in the Prairie Style. Over the course of his seventy-odd year long carrer he hit a lot of both heights and lows. What I was getting at was his innovation. In-floor radiant heating, high-speed elevators, concrete block, earthquake-proof buildings, these all concepts that he thought up. He had a major influence on the worldwide built environment during the last century, for better or worse.

Well I got to say ok to that, I don't know much about him and the things you have pointed out and if true (I don't think your lieing) then I can see that as a good thing. Still call him overrated but then again I could just be nuts.

If I recall correctly, I saw that Hollyhock house on television before. It had this massive courtyard with mesoamerican inspired tiles. It was very reminiscent of Machu Pichu, and very cool. Definitely not his typical work.