Myth has it that Frank Lloyd Wright was destined to become an architect because his mother hung prints of European cathedrals over his crib in their small home in Wisconsin. She also invested in special, educational building blocks, known as Froebel Gifts, which were geometrically-shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. Wright credited the Froebel Gifts as influential in how he approached spacial reasoning, which is evident in the design of his buildings. Although he briefly attended the University of Wisconsin and left without a degree, he was fortunate enough to find work as an apprentice in the firm of Adler & Sullivan where he first met Louis Sullivan in Chicago. It was Sullivan who taught Wright that the form of a building should express its underlying function - "Form follows Function." Just as influential to the development of Wright's subsequent style was the Unitarian church and its teachings about simplicity and gracefulness. Japanese architecture, which he became aware of at the World’s Columbian Exposition where the Ho-oden Palace was on display, made a lasting impression. After becoming aware of the use of natural materials in rare and beautiful ways, Wright made it a necessity to visit Japan, which he did in 1905. Like Sullivan before him, Wright realized that America needed a new distinctive style of architecture, not Greco or Roman, nor Classical or Neo-Classical, but American. So Wright fashioned an indigenous style that became known as the Prairie School. It featured an openness, instead of a boxiness; wide doorways and freely circulating rooms; windows that were large and let in natural sunlight, and low over hanging eaves projecting from a gently sloping roof, which provided the privacy from the outside world. The "horizontal line" is also of great importance to the "Prairie Style" because it eliminated the turrets and towers, and pseudo-romantic creations of the nineteenth century, and brought the American home down to earth, and reflected his desire to integrate home and nature, as did his use of earth tones within the home. He also insisted on using native materials wherever possible so that his home would blend esthetically within its environment. Three of Wright's most spectacular accomplishments are the Robie House (1907) located in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago; "Fallingwater" the Edgar Kaufmann residence in Bear Run, Pa., and the Guggenheim Museum in New York city.
This collection of fabrics is from our Transition 2010 issue of Vogue Fabrics By Mail, a color coordinated catalog of fashion fabric swatches for wardrobe building.
This collection of fabrics is from our Transition 2010 issue of Vogue Fabrics By Mail, a color coordinated catalog of fashion fabric swatches for wardrobe building.
