Frank Lloyd Wright: A Personal Perspective

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

I first met Frank Lloyd Wright in the fall of 1956 at Taliesin, his home and studio in the hills of Spring Green, Wisconsin. I was 17 years old. Against their better judgment, my parents had driven me from Chicago to be interviewed as a potential Taliesin apprentice.

My mother and father didn't much like the thought of their son's disappearing into a place that seemed to them to be shrouded in mystery. For all his fame, Wright was to most of the public a remote and rather forbidding figure. The name Taliesin-Welsh for "shining brow"only added to the mystique; Wright called his unconventional group of followers the Taliesin Fellowship. In this exotic setting, my parents clung to my halfhearted assurances that being accepted into the "Fellowship" was quite unlikely.

Ever since high school, I had dreamt of one day studying with Wright. Now, about to complete my first year in architecture at the University of Illinois, here I was in his presence. I was too nervous to be able to remember much of what transpired, but at one point he asked why I wanted to leave the university. He showed such genuine interest that it helped me to think through my own uncertain feelings. 1 remember answering that, rather than conducting any genuine exploration, my teachers seemed to be passing on pat, preconceived notions. He looked approvingly toward my mother, then my father, and asked, "Where does he get it-from you or you?" By "it" I presume he meant some unexpected insight regarding conventional education. In any event, it was clear to all of us that I had just been accepted as an apprentice.

I finished the term and in January, 1957,boarded a train for Arizona and the winter home of the Taliesin Fellowship. Two days later, I arrived in Phoenix and was driven the 25 miles to Taliesin West, at that time well beyond Scottsdale's city limits in the open desert of Paradise Valley. Today's Shea Boulevard was a narrow dirt road that bobbed up and down at every dry wash.

As a teenager, I had spent hours looking at black-and-white pictures of the Wright compound in Arizona's Sonoran Desert. In comparison with my Chicago neighbor hood of conventional Midwestern houses and shady streets, the scenes revealed in the moody photographs might as well have been on another planet.

Now I was riding up the winding road that led to an expansive view Wright had called "a look over the rim of the world." It was evening as we approached Taliesin West. The McDowell Mountains were outlined by a slightly lighter sky, and I could just make out the curious, sprawling shapes of buildings made of stone and concrete, wood, glass, and fabric. Warm light shone through canvas roofs and glowed against the dark mountain back drop. As we walked toward the tent-like structures, everything seemed strange, yet somehow perfect. The effect of the night desert air and anticipation of what lay ahead were almost hypnotic.

I thought of the counsel offered by one of my university professors. While he had encouraged my going to Taliesin, he urged that I be careful not to get "stuck"— and I had agreed to leave after one year. Already, in these first few moments after my arrival, I wasn't so sure.

As it turned out, it would be some time before I felt the need to face up to that issue again. The first year passed, and

another, then 19 more before I came to the wrenching decision that it was necessary to leave what had become my home, my work, and my family. The professor's well-intentioned advice was easily forgotten in the aura of the Taliesin sense of commitment. During the first few months, I heard Wright say that architecture is not a trade but rather “a gray-haired man's profession,” a true “calling” to be fulfilled only after something extraordinary had begun to develop in the life of the individual concerned. My apprenticeship became an unfoldBeing of experiences that suited me so well that to go elsewhere was unthinkable. Even though Wright's death early in my third year deprived me of what had become an inspiring personal association, the contageous enthusiasm of the Fellow ship continued to motivate me. It is difficult to explain the intensity of those early years. In some sense, the apprentice lived the master's life. There was an almost immediate gratification in the effort to learn and to grow. In part it was a process of osmosis, but there was also an intoxicating effect a kind of undeserved “high” from the reflected glory of Frank Lloyd Wright. I remember being introduced by one Taliesin guest to another as a “distinguished architect.” I was 19 years old and had never designed a building! Any “distinction” was conferred simply by proximity to the master architect. It was pretty heady stuff, from which some apprentices never recovered. I have often wondered about the underI lying reasons for the Frank Lloyd Wright preeminence-the dominant position he achieved in the consciousness of the general public as well as that of the architectural profession. It is a powerful phenomenon that still seems inexhaustible. In January, 1981, the editors of a leading architectural journal asked a sampling of students and professionals to name their favorite architects of all time. Wright received nearly twice as many votes as the second-ranked candidate. Twentyfive years after his death, The New York Times, in a story headlined “Frank Lloyd Wright... Man of the Year,” called him “America's most famous architect and, by most measures, its greatest.” I am convinced that if you were to go anywhere in the world and ask people to name an architect, the most frequent response would be to identify this man who divided his life between rural Wisconsin and what was for many years a remote Arizona setting without even a telephone. The obvious question is, “What did he do, how was he so different from other architects, to achieve this astonishing position?” A little more than a year after his death, Architectural Forum magazine published a tribute that included these words: “...but how to begin? Try to catch him. He still eludes us in spite of the tons of print and pictures.” Elusive he certainly is. But having spent more than 30 years trying to make sense out of my own experience and observations of the man and the architect, and at the obvious risk of over-simplification, I am willing to venture an answer. It falls into four parts.

“One of his dominant ideas concerned how he dealt with space, providing shelter without imposing a sense of confinement.”

The first reason for Wright's acknowledged preeminence, I suggest, is that he had so little competition. Great architecture requires not only philosophic insight but also an ability to marshal the strategy required to implement the resulting design; in other words, the ability to get the structure built.

Unfortunately, those gifted architects possessing poetic vision have rarely been able to attract a steady flow of high-image, high-volume work. Le Corbusier, for example, one of the most venerated architects of Wright's generation, actually built comparatively few buildings, and only one in this country.

Wright, because he was both innovative and prolific, increasingly influenced the work of other architects. When he was designing his first houses, he described what existed all around him as "stifling little colonial hot boxes." Today almost every suburban house includes features that can be attributed to some aspect of his early work.

The depth of Wright's philosophic explorations, when coupled with the fact that he designed more than a thousand projects and succeeded in getting nearly half of them built during his lifetime, places him in a class by himself.

The second reason for Wright's unrivaled recognition lies in the originality and timelessness of his ideas.

Wright's special vision was more universal than personal. While his buildings seemed to bear his unmistakable imprint, he had no single style. The coherence came more from ideas than from form.

One of those dominant ideas concerned how he dealt with space, providing shelter without imposing a sense of confinement. Thus he devised corner windows and bands of clerestory glasswork, and found many ways to provide open, airy spaces with a variety of indooroutdoor rooms and terraces.

Another fundamental Wright idea is that structures should blend with their surroundings or draw inspiration from the nature of their settings. A dramatic illustration is found in the difference between Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Arizona. Even though both were designed by Wright to serve the same function for the same group of people, it would be hard to imagine two less similar works. Each responds fully to its location. Taliesin in Wisconsin suggests the soft, nurturing quality of its lush pastoral countryside; Taliesin West is a celebration of the bold geology of the Arizona desert.

It was also his personal expression of the exuberance he felt about his adopted state.

Still another basic idea is that good architecture must express the methods and materials involved in its execution. An obvious example is classical Roman architecture, the look of which is inseparable from its structural dependence on the arch, the vault, and the dome. In like manner, the character of Gothic cathedrals is shaped by the structural provisions of the pointed arch and flying buttress. One of Wright's more dramatic illustrations of this idea was his revolutionary use of the cantilever, permitting structures that seem to float without the customary exterior supports.

A subtle but pervasive Wright idea relates to the freedom of choice implied by a democratic society. Wright insisted that this freedom should inspire an architecture of its own.

A good deal of Wright's work was accomplished for people of modest means. The democratic ideal in his architecture was that the citizenry would be ennobled by individually created houses that generated pride on the residents' own honest terms.

My third reason for Wright's prominent position in the world's consciousness was his genius for self-promotion. His distinctive costume of porkpie hat, cape, and cane became a kind of personal trademark. Early in his career, he experimented with photography and took numerous pictures of himself in poses that cultivated the image he fancied.

I was once given the original print of a photograph of the two of us that appeared in Esquire magazine. Before relinquishing it, Wright had retouched the profile of his hair.

His son, John Lloyd Wright, said that his father "left no stone unturned in his voluminous writings to include his own monumental tribute to himself." A biographical sketch bearing the handwritten notation "O.K., FLLW" starts out, "No living architect today nor probably any who ever lived at any time has attained so high a degree of fame or gained such international renown as Frank Lloyd Wright."

I don't believe that he was motivated to seek status as much as he was realistic in recognizing that if his innovative ideas were to have any impact, it would be up to him. He also realized that images-both of people and of buildings are easier to communicate than abstract concepts, so he devised symbols that he thought could be more readily understood. Both Taliesins became such symbols.

COMING YOUR WAY

Coincidental with the arrival of the holiday season is Arizona Highways' mailing of its annual "Greeting Card to the World." This year we'll get nostalgic over toys and decorations of the past and reminisce about celebrations in Indian country and at a Depression cabin on the Mogollon Rim. And we'll explore the particulars of that timeless worldwide custom, the giving of gifts. In December.

Welcome the New Year with a visit to the Seri Indians and their homeland on the shore of the Sea of Cortes. Then it's northward to observe the arrival of Confederate cavalry in Tucson during the Civil War. Also on our travel schedule is the winding, scenic Apache Trail. And we'll see how desert creatures manage to withstand summer's fierce heat and winter's bitter cold. In January.

Share adventures of the Navajo code talkers of World War II; then join us as we visit the Cocopah Indians along the Colorado River. We go underground at Bisbee to meet yesterday's men of the mines. Next we head for Tucson for its internationally known gem and mineral show. While in the Old Pueblo, we'll watch with the rodeo crowd while the ladies of the Quadrille de Mujeres go through their paces. In February.

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(OPPOSITE PAGE) The Arizona Biltmore Resort Hotel, designed by Albert Chase McArthur, carries Wright's obvious touch. McArthur asked Wright to collaborate. One result is the design of the concrete blocks (cast on site) that make up the building's complex geometric forms and produce rich textures. (ABOVE) "Sprites," originally cast by Wright for Chicago's Midway Gardens, now grace the Biltmore grounds. The basic geometry of the hotel's masonry blocks is repeated in walkway lamps.

■ "Wright's special vision was more universal than personal. While his buildings seemed to bear his unmistakable imprint, he had no single style."

The same reasoning applied to the procedures and traditions of what ultimately became his school. One of his biographers likened the Taliesin Fellowship to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The gathering of his faithful apprentices was another symbol, in this case of solidarity and power.

For many winters at Taliesin West, I lived in a tent. Far from suffering any sense of hardship or even of "roughing it," I remember feeling that few monarchs of the past could have lived so grandly. In the Wright orbit there was an air of prestige in which everything seemed fashioned more by choice than by need.

Wright frequently said that he learned early in life that he could get along without the necessities, if only he could have the luxuries. Everything surrounding Mr. and Mrs. Wright seemed to take on a sort of elegance that money couldn't buy-and that was fortunate, because often there wasn't much money. Time magazine, in a 1938 cover story about Wright and Taliesin, said, "Guests always feel a distinct sense of translation to a better world."

Part of Wright's promotional skill lay in his unrestrained vocabulary. In A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Shakespeare has one of his characters say, "...the poet's pen ... gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name." Wright knew the strength of words, and he infused his work with potent phrases. Architecture was "a great spirit" and the "mother of the arts." It would be the basis of America's "having a culture of its own." His work was designed for "his majesty, the American citizen." Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, became "the first architect." Great buildings were the "by-product of an eternal living force," and the architect was "the seeing eye for society."

His ability to communicate was so effective that he could design a modest single-family residence and have it attract more worldwide attention than any Manhattan skyscraper. Full-length books have been written about his individual houses, many of them located in out-of-the-way places for what he called "our typical best citizens." I heard at first hand a testimonial to Wright's promotional abilities from one who ought to know.

Many readers will remember Mike Todd as the flamboyant impresario of the extravagant motion picture Around the World in 80 Days. A consummate promoter, Todd once gave a party at Madison Square Garden at which airplanes were given away as door prizes. In covering the event, the New York press observed that "Elizabeth Taylor was being a perfect wife, entertaining three or four thousand of her husband's most intimate friends."

I spent an unusual afternoon at Taliesin West with Wright, Todd, Miss Taylor, and her former husband, Michael Wilding. After exchanging stories to their mutual enjoyment, Todd put his hand on Wright's shoulder and said, "Hell, Frank, you're the greatest showman of us all!"

The final reason I offer to explain Wright's special place is that, in a business-management sense, he never permitted himself to become a "professional." He was determined not to become preoccupied with what he considered nonessentials (to the frustration and occasional despair of his associates). It is fascinating to me that a man who had received honors from King George VI, the American Institute of Architects, and countless academies and universities would be so insistent on remaining an "amateur."

Professionals, I now know, discuss things like project administration, liability, Amateurs are free to live in a world of ideas, excitement, and service.

On my very first day in the Taliesin West drafting room, I laid out a collection of colored pencils. Upon seeing them, Wright paused beside my desk and said, "Doesn't that just make you want to draw?" I'll never forget the feeling that gave me. I was a youthful apprentice, just starting my studies. He was in his 80s and had received every praise that could be granted an architect. Yet he was more enthusiastic than I was! At that moment, I understood something I couldn't have learned from a textbook. I experienced the gift of having a master.

Only in later life have I begun to appreciate the words and impressions absorbed during those formative years. I remember Wright's saying, "For every 10,000 persons Nature makes who can withstand failure, she perhaps makes one who can withstand success.

Two thousand years ago Jesus told us, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." The legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright is the story of a dedicated life in the service of ideas. Harry Emerson Fosdick once said, "Nobody has a chance in a billion of being thought really great after a century has passed, except those who have been the servants of all." Amidst both adversity and fanfare, Wright remained a servant.

His grave site was marked with his own words: "Love of an Idea is Love of God."

The legacy of a master is that his life becomes a telescope to increase the vision of others. His achievements provide a mountaintop from which to gain a wider perspective. His example strengthens one's own appetite for performance. In the end, the follower must still be himself, but he has had an uncommon opportunity to prepare.

When one has been taught by a master, he has been given tools and techniques he would not otherwise have known. He has learned to have faith in himself as well as in the future. For me, it was impossible to share in Wright's life without wanting to go and do likewise.

For the frontispiece of his last book, A Testament, Wright chose a quotation from Tennyson's poem "The Flower" that reflected his own sense of his legacy: "Most can raise the flowers now / For all have got the seed."

One of the last things I remember his telling us was that he had succeeded in interesting the world in "a thought-built architecture."

"That is where you begin," he said. "The rest is up to you."

The author is president of Vernon Swaback Associates, an architectural and planning firm in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Richard Maack does architectural, landscape, and fine art photography in Phoenix.

"Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas," an exhibit demonstrating Wright's basic architectural principles, is presently on a three-year national tour. It is scheduled to arrive at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts in 1991.