Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing architects worldwide through his works and mentoring hundreds of apprentices in his Taliesin Fellowship. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture".
Wright was a pioneer of what came to be called the Prairie School movement of architecture and also developed the concept of the Usonian home within Broadacre City, his vision for urban planning in the United States. Wright also designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums, and other commercial projects. Wright-designed interior elements (including leaded glass windows, floors, furniture and even tableware) were integrated into these structures. He wrote several books and numerous articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time". In 2019, a selection of his work became a listed World Heritage Site under the name The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Raised in rural Wisconsin, Wright studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin and later apprenticed in Chicago, first briefly with Joseph Lyman Silsbee, and then with Louis Sullivan at Adler & Sullivan. Wright opened his own successful Chicago practice in 1893 and established a studio in his Oak Park, Illinois, home in 1898. His fame increased, and his personal life sometimes made headlines: leaving his first wife Catherine "Kitty" Tobin for Mamah Cheney in 1909; the murder of Mamah, her children, and others at his Taliesin estate by a staff member in 1914; his tempestuous marriage with second wife Miriam Noel (m. 1923–1927); and his courtship and marriage to Olgivanna Lazović (m. 1928–1959).
Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin, though he claimed throughout his life that he was born in 1869. In 1987, Brendan Gill's biography of Wright suggested that his full name was "Frank Lincoln Wright", chosen by his father, but the middle name was soon changed to Lloyd by his mother. There are no references to "Frank Lincoln Wright" prior to Gill's book and the earliest official documentation of his full name was in an 1880 United States census that listed a Frank Loyd Wright (sic) working as a hired hand for his uncle, James Lloyd Jones.
Wright's father, William Cary Wright (1825–1904), was a gifted musician, orator, and occasional preacher who had been admitted to the bar in 1857. He was also a published composer. Originally from Massachusetts, William Wright had served as a Baptist minister, but he later joined the Unitarian faith through his wife's family.
Wright's mother, Anna Lloyd Jones (1838/39–1923), was a teacher and a member of the Lloyd Jones clan, whose Welsh parents had emigrated to Wisconsin from the United Kingdom. One of her brothers, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, was a prominent figure in promoting the Unitarian faith in the Midwest.
According to Wright's autobiography, his mother believed her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings. She decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals torn from periodicals to nurture the child's ambition.
Wright had two younger sisters: Maginel Wright Enright (1880–1966), a successful children's book illustrator and the mother of the writer and illustrator Elizabeth Enright, and Jane Wright (1869–1953).
Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that Wright grew up in an unstable household marked by a constant lack of resources, poverty, and anxiety, which resulted in what she described as a deeply disturbed and obviously unhappy childhood. His father held pastorates in McGregor, Iowa (1869), Pawtucket, Rhode Island (1871), and Weymouth, Massachusetts (1874). When financial hardship followed them to Weymouth, the family returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones family could help William find employment. In 1877, they had moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where William gave music lessons and served as the secretary to the newly formed Unitarian society. Though William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music with his children.
In 1876, Anna discovered an exhibit of educational blocks called the Froebel Gifts, the foundation of an innovative kindergarten curriculum. As a trained teacher, she was excited by the program and bought a set, which the 9-year old young Wright spent much time playing. The blocks in the set were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form two- and three-dimensional compositions. In his autobiography, Wright described the influence of these exercises on his approach to design: "For several years, I sat at the little kindergarten table-top... and played... with the cube, the sphere and the triangle – these smooth wooden maple blocks... All are in my fingers to this day... "
In 1881, shortly after Wright turned 14, his parents separated. In 1884, his father filed for divorce from Anna on the grounds of "... emotional cruelty and physical violence and spousal abandonment". Wright attended Madison High School. His father left Wisconsin after the divorce was granted in 1885. Wright said that he never saw his father again.
In 1886, at age 19, Wright was admitted to the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a special student. He studied civil engineering under professor Allan D. Conover before leaving the school without taking a degree; in 1955, the university presented him with an honorary doctorate of fine arts at the age of 88.
Wright's uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, had hired the Chicago architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee to design the All Souls Church in Chicago in 1885. The following year, Jones commissioned Silsbee to design the Unity Chapel, a private family chapel in Wyoming, Wisconsin.
Although not officially employed by Silsbee, Wright was a skilled draftsman and "looked after the interior [drawings and construction]" in Wisconsin. This chapel is considered his earliest known work.
After the chapel was completed, Wright moved to Chicago.
Silsbee and other early work experience (1887–1888)
In 1887, Wright arrived in Chicago in search of employment. Following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and a population boom, new construction was widespread. In his autobiography, Wright described his first impression of Chicago as an ugly and chaotic city. Within days of arriving and after interviewing with several prominent firms, he was hired as a draftsman by Joseph Lyman Silsbee. While at the firm, he also worked on two other family projects: All Souls Church in Chicago for his uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and the Hillside Home School I in Spring Green for two of his aunts. Others working in Silsbee's office at the time included Cecil S. Corwin (1860–1941), George W. Maher (1864–1926), and George G. Elmslie (1869–1952). Corwin, who was seven years older than Wright, soon took his young colleague under his wing and the two became close friends.
Feeling underpaid and seeking to earn more, Wright briefly left Silsbee to work for architect William W. Clay (1849–1926). However, he soon felt overwhelmed by his new level of responsibility and returned to Silsbee, but this time with a raise in salary. Although Silsbee mainly followed Victorian and Revivalist styles, Wright considered his designs more "gracefully picturesque" than the other "brutalities" of the period. Wright stayed with Silsbee for just under a year before leaving to join Adler & Sullivan around November 1887.