Prairie School Revolution
"Leaving Sullivan in the 1890s, Wright rapidly evolved a style of his own, a spacious, low-slung type of building, whose simple planes and monolithic unity of design were to remain constant features of Wright houses for many years . . . . By 1910, his new ideas had spread from suburban Oak Park, Illinois, where he lived, to Holland and Germany, where a whole school of modern architecture grew up from seeds Architect Wright had planted." Time Magazne, Usonian Evolution, May 4, 1942
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“Wright’s desire to make everything open and flowing was a revolution at that time. It just exploded the whole idea of what the house had been." Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic, Frank Lloyd Wright, A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Wright's design became known as the "Prairie School". He believed that this architecture was "organic", or rooted in
nature. "We of the Middle West are living on the prairie. The prairie has a beauty of its own, and we should recognize and accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet level. Hence, gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet skylines suppressed heavyset chimneys and sheltering overhangs, low terraces and outreaching walls sequestering private gardens." (Wright, In the Cause of Architecture, p. 35) Even though life on the frontier at this time was very different (Perspective), Wright's idealized version inspired his design.
Wright began creating Prairie School homes for wealthy clients like the Robies. The revolutionary design reflected the Prairie - clean horizontal lines without ornamentation, and a sense of spaciousness connected to the natural world. To Wright, this design was truly American.
nature. "We of the Middle West are living on the prairie. The prairie has a beauty of its own, and we should recognize and accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet level. Hence, gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet skylines suppressed heavyset chimneys and sheltering overhangs, low terraces and outreaching walls sequestering private gardens." (Wright, In the Cause of Architecture, p. 35) Even though life on the frontier at this time was very different (Perspective), Wright's idealized version inspired his design.
Wright began creating Prairie School homes for wealthy clients like the Robies. The revolutionary design reflected the Prairie - clean horizontal lines without ornamentation, and a sense of spaciousness connected to the natural world. To Wright, this design was truly American.
The Small Home
At this time, affordable housing was still limited for moderate and low income families. Wright thought deeply about their needs. "From the first publication of his work in 1901, a model middle-class home for a prairie town . . . everything that was wrapped up in this single fundamental problem: How to house every working American family in an efficient, economical, and life-enhancing work of art, and how to seize new technologies and production techniques . . . . to realize that goal." (Nicholas Olsber, American System Built Homes Quarterly, p. 4.)
In 1911, Wright designed a series of "American System-Built" homes. The open-concept design, with a moveable dining table in the living room, and walls of windows, created a feeling of spaciousness. "By breaking the box, it was [Wright's] idea to bring the indoors out, and the outdoors in. He broke the box with walls of windows." (Eric Lloyd Wright, Personal Interview)
In 1911, Wright designed a series of "American System-Built" homes. The open-concept design, with a moveable dining table in the living room, and walls of windows, created a feeling of spaciousness. "By breaking the box, it was [Wright's] idea to bring the indoors out, and the outdoors in. He broke the box with walls of windows." (Eric Lloyd Wright, Personal Interview)
Views of American System-Built Model B1
"Certainly the most sustained architectural investigation of ways to create a sense of space in small houses . . . is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. . . . One of Wright's most important innovations in these houses was not simply to widen interior openings so that one room might be more visible from another, but also to have rooms interpenetrate one another, that is, actually to overlap then so that the corner of a room was no longer a fold in a wall but a spatial hub between two rooms." (Isenstadt, pp. 66-67) .
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Explanation of interpenetrating rooms in Model B1
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Only a small number of these homes were built. "Notwithstanding all efforts to improve the product, the American 'small house' problem [was] still a pressing, needy, hungry, confused issue." (F. Wright, Architectural Forum) Architectural and economic reforms were necessary to solve this problem.