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Written by Kat Murrell, Contributing writer
Feb 10, 2011
Frank Lloyd Wright’s rendering of the Edgar J. Kaufmann House “Fallingwater” (1934-37). – Photo: 2010 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation/Scottsdale, Ariz.
Frank Lloyd Wright looms large in Wisconsin art history. He was an unabashed genius, a bigger-than-life personality and an icon who created iconic structures. A new exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum revisits the master architect’s career from some interesting angles, with more than 150 works that bring out the many facets of his creative practice.
Born in Richland Center, Wis., Wright was a rural boy who showed an interest in engineering and architecture. One of his first projects was Unity Chapel in Spring Green, Wis., built in 1886 and still extant. Wright left the bucolic countryside to seek his fortune in the big city of Chicago.
Some of Wright’s buildings remain architectural landmarks today. Unity Temple in Oak Park, Ill., was completed in 1905 and remains a functioning building. It’s one focus of this exhibition. Wisconsin has a fair share of Wright designs as well, including the 1936 Johnson Wax Building (known today as the SC Johnson Administration Building), and Wright’s workshop near Spring Green, called Taliesin.
So if Wright’s major works are buildings that occupy their own place in the world, what can one expect to see in the confines of a museum gallery? In this case, plenty.
“Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century” is a joint effort between the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., the location of Wright’s later wintertime studio. The exhibition offers a range of objects, including drawings, photographs, models and even home movies. Viewing these objects in an independent environment, apart from their architectural contexts, could prove eye opening. His buildings often feature broad, powerful lines and close ties to their organic environments. But smaller design elements are crucial players in his overall concepts. Not only did he create the floors and walls and ceilings of his buildings, but in many cases, the lights, the furniture and other fixtures, too.
An excellent example of this is Unity Temple. The sense of harmony that flows from exterior to interior is apparent even in photographs. The repetitious geometry – the reiterations of rectangles and perfect squares – is enlivened by the bold round globes in his light fixtures. It’s all Wright, not just a fortuitous fluke of multiple creative designers at work.
What may be especially interesting in this grouping of Wright artifacts is the juxtaposition of the architect’s drawings with images of the finished project. A rendering of the Edgar J. Kaufmann House in Bear Run, Penn., (most commonly known as “Fallingwater”) suggests the lofty visions of Wright’s imagination. The drawing shows the house, cantilevered as it would be in its final state, over the water. Environments for living, both man-made and natural, meld together as one. Wright’s drawing shows the house perched high atop a steep, dramatic wall of water. In reality, the home does sit over a waterfall and a spritely stream, true to Wright’s vision, and is deeply impressive. Nonetheless, it doesn’t have quite the same death-defying grandiosity of vision on paper.
Wright was inventive, but a practical man as well. The clarity of his designs and use of natural materials is very au courant. Milwaukee Art Museum’s chief curator Brady Roberts notes, “Wright was a prophetic thinker, decades ahead of his peers. In many ways, key aspects of his career relate to issues and practices of architecture today, including sustainability and efficiency. In examining Wright’s concern with material and space efficiency, economical use of manufactured materials, attention to local environment and use of natural light, we see his profound contribution as a visionary for architectural practice in the 21st century.”
This year is an appropriate one in which to look back at Wright’s work as a reflection of his own day and for its relevance to our day. It’s been a century since he established his studio at Taliesin, and this year marks the first decade of the Calatrava addition to the art museum. It is a fitting exhibition for considering the aesthetic and practical applications of architecture as art that shapes the spaces of our lives.
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