A-Z | Prairie Style Architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American Architect born in 1867 and a pioneer of the prairie school of architecture. He was a strong believer in bringing the outside in and designed buildings which he felt were sympathetic to their surroundings in harmony with nature. 

 Frank Lloyd Wright's home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois - http://gowright.org/home-and-studio.html

Prairie style architecture was a late 19th and early 20th century architecture style typical in the midwestern United States. It can be recognised by horizontal lines, overhanging eaves, giving the houses a wide, low style to mimic the flat, wide treeless expanses of the mid west.

 Nathan G Moore House, 1895/1906 Frank Lloyd Wright, Oak Park, IL

Frank moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1887 and was hired as a draftsman for an architecture firm. Victorian architecture was prevalent at the time, but Wright searched to create more progressive work. In 1889 he borrowed $5000 to buy some land and built his own shingle style home in the Oak Park neighborhood.

Walter H Gale House 1893, Fran Lloyd Wright, Oak Park, IL

 

Wright moonlighted on residential projects for his neighbors in the Oak Park suburb of Chicago each house emphasizing simple geometric form, containing the featured horizontal windows, shallow roof and distinctive style. Wright's designs were so recognisable that once discovered by his boss he was subsequently fired for breach of contract. He went on to establish his own practice and in 1889 built his own studio attached to his home. 

 

Frank Lloyd Wright's Studio, Oak Park, IL

 His vision of modern American architecture started to spread and his work was commissioned in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Japan. Some famous sites include his home and studio, Fredrick Robie house, The Rookery, Unity Temple, Falling water, Taliesin,  Imperial Hotel- Tokyo.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/aa/wright/aa_wright_subj_e.jpg

What is architecture anyway? Is it the vast collection of the various buildings which have been built to please the varying tastes of the various lords of mankind? I think not. No, I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived…So, architecture I know to be a Great Spirit. 

— Frank Lloyd Wright