Posted on August 12, 2018 by Lisa Tate
The Artist: Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright is likely the best-known American architect in the history of the profession.
Wright was born in 1867 in Wisconsin, the son of a preacher whose job took him and his family to several towns. When he was 18 his parents divorced, and Wright began working at the University of Wisconsin’s engineering department to help with family finances, all while taking classes there. Having always known he wanted to be an architect, he later worked with various firms before being hired by Adler and Sullivan.
In 1889 when he married his first wife, he negotiated a contract with the company for a loan to build them a home in Oak Park, near Chicago, IL. This home was considered modest, but it started to reflect what would be Wright’s new experimental styles with geometric shapes and overhanging gables.
His first independent contract, after departing from the firm, was the William H. Winslow Home. That drew much attention for its modern design. Over the next several years, Wright worked to hone a style that would become the organic architecture known as “Prairie Style.” The style is described by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation as homes reflecting the “long, low horizontal prairie on which they…
