Frank Lloyd Wright

(www.seymour.k12.wi.us)

“Conceive the buildings in imagination, not first on paper but in the mind, thoroughly, before touching paper,” Frank Lloyd Wright wrote. “Let the building, living in the imagination; develop gradually . . . before committing it to the drafting board.” Frank Lloyd Wright is known as the most famous architect in the world! Most people do not know any other architects except him. He used his creative and artistic skills to build his famous homes. Wright designed homes and buildings in the past that are common even today. I think Frank Lloyd Wright is an architect hero!

In Frank Lloyd Wright’s early life, he started learning about architects when he was a sixteen year old high schooler; but during his high school years he was going through a hard time. His parents were getting a divorce. Soon after the divorce his mom soon got remarried with a man who had three children; two boys and one girl. Then a little while later Frank’s mom had two more children of her own. Even though Frank Lloyd Wright had six children total in his family, they still had to move a lot because of their dad’s job.

In between his years of school, Frank Lloyd Wright went to his uncle’s farm to help out on the farm work. Working on the farm every summer year after year made Frank Lloyd Wright stronger and to love nature more. At the beginning of his farm years, he did not like the farm at all. Sometimes he got so sick of it he ran away for a couple of days, but he always came back. However, after a couple years of work he got to love the land so much that when he became older he wanted to build a house on it. After the summer was over, he went home for another school year. His grades were average. Every once in a while the teacher would make Frank Lloyd Wright speak in front of the class. Wright did not like that at all. He always got nervous. Frank Lloyd Wright also got nervous when he talked to a girl too. By the time Wright got to college he already knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to take a class for architecture. Frank’s parents did not have the money to send him away to college, so instead he had to go to a school with no architecture. Frank decided to take an engineering class. After a couple of weeks in that class, Frank Lloyd Wright decided that he didn’t want to take that class anymore. So after he made that decision he went off to Chicago hoping to find a job, without a diploma in high school or college. After a couple of weeks in Chicago, he found a man called Silsbee. Silsbee gave Frank a job with his architecture company. Frank's life didn’t end there, but his early life did.

Even at an early age, Frank Lloyd Wright saw many challenges in his life. One challenge was right in front of his eyes. Frank Lloyd Wright was standing there in front of a beautiful building that was in the middle of being built. Then right in front of his eyes, the building just collapsed. He couldn’t believe it. After that terrible tragedy, Frank Lloyd Wright had nightmares for a long time. He said that he never forgot that image. Other challenges Frank Lloyd Wright had in his life is a lot of bills and finances. One time Wright left his family with a lot of bills. For example, one of those bills was a huge grocery bill. A few years after that bill, Frank left. His son remembered that bill with a lot of anger. Another problem Frank had that was with money. That’s because he liked buying unusual clothes, owning horses, getting expensive clothes for his children, and having sports cars. One challenge Frank Lloyd Wright had to work around is building a hotel in Tokyo, but not making it collapse when a hurricane hit. That hotel he had to make was called the Imperial Hotel. One idea Frank Lloyd Wright had to avoid the hotel from collapsing from a hurricane is, he had built the hotel on a slant. To do that, the bottom of the of the Imperial Hotel was wider than the top. When the hurricane finally hit, Frank Lloyd Wright got a phone call saying that his building was one of the only buildings that was still standing. After a couple years in marriage with Frank’s wife Catherine, Frank Lloyd Wright decided he wanted to get a divorce. After Wright asked Catherine, she had refused to get a divorce. After a couple of months of convincing Catherine, she finally agreed to get a divorce. After a couple of months by himself, Wright decided that he wanted to build a house on the farm land. He decided to call it Taliesin. Since Frank was divorced, he started dating a girl named Cheney. Even though they weren’t married, Frank let Cheney stay in Taliesin for a couple of nights while he was on a trip. Cheney brought along her two kids with her too. Frank Lloyd Wright at that time had a lot of workers at his house. One of those workers was named Carlton. After Carlton had done his afternoon chores, he got his hatchet and went out to the back porch, where Cheney and her two kids were. He had hidden some gasoline tanks under the house. A fire had begun and he went and by surprise he killed Cheney and her two kids with his hatchet. The whole house had burned down except one part; Wright's office. As you can see Frank Lloyd Wright had many challenges during his lifetime.

Frank Lloyd Wright had made many contributions. One of them was a new unique style of architecture. A lot of Wright's homes and buildings were very unusual. One of his buildings was all circular. That meant that it had no square corners in the whole building. The most famous house Frank Lloyd Wright ever built was called “Falling Water”. It was called Falling Water because it was built over a waterfall. Some other contributions Wright had made were churches, hotels, office buildings, and homes. Frank Lloyd Wright had made about 500 to 800 contributions and only about 100 to 200 of them got destroyed! As you can tell, Frank Lloyd built a lot of contributions in the world.

Throughout all of Wright’s years being a famous architect, he got many honors, awards, and recognitions. One honor Frank Lloyd Wright got in his early years of being an architect is, having one of his buildings in the World's Fair. Frank also got his autobiography published in 1932 by New York Times. Some other awards Frank Lloyd Wright won are the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture of the Royal Institute of British Architects, American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and Honorary degrees from Princeton, Yale and the University of Wisconsin. Frank Lloyd Wright is a smart architect, who has won a lot of awards.

I could think of more than three character traits about Frank Lloyd Wright, but I don’t want to keep you waiting, so here are three traits about this fine architect. The first trait about Frank is creative. He is creative because he found a solution to keep the Imperial Hotel from crashing when a hurricane hit. Another reason is why Frank Lloyd Wright is creative is that his work is totally different from any other architect’s work. That’s because he had a mind that thought of unusual ways to build buildings and houses. The second trait about Frank Lloyd Wright is his perseverance. Wright showed perseverance because when he was young, he worked very hard as an apprentice for his uncle. Another way Frank Lloyd Wright showed perseverance is that he never gave up even at hard times. For example, when Wright’s girl friend Cheney, and her two kids got killed by Charlton, that did not stop Wright one bit from his work. Another example for his hard times is when Frank had to work on his uncle’s farm. That was a hard time for him because it was work 24-7 and he didn’t get to see his family all summer long! Frank Lloyd Wright’s third character trait is confidence in his abilities. Frank was confident in his abilities because he didn’t copy anybody’s work. That means that every single building he designed was sketched in his hand. Another example is that they were all new ideas. Frank had three great character traits and all of them explained him perfectly.

As you can see, Frank Lloyd Wright was a very brilliant architect. He started working at a young age and retired when he was in the nineties. Frank Lloyd Wright died in the spring of 1959, in April. He was a famous guy even when he was alive and a lot of people remember him today. However, I remember him as an architect hero!