I've long been a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright. He was prolific. More than 500 buildings completed in his lifespan. Some of them the most admired structures in the world (not always the case when they were first completed). Like any great story Mr Wright's had a number of acts. Phillip Johnson, the critic-turned architect, said Wright was the finest architect of the 19th Century and would sleight Wright's organic designs as inferior or less relevant than the modernism that he espoused. Far from being a spent, irrelevant force Wright responded with the design of Falling Water - the Kaufman residence in rural Pennsylvania - a tour de force of design and engineering and a paean to its natural environment. Aged 90 he was supervising the building of The Solomon R Guggenheim Memorial Museum, another utterly original and iconic structure that was and is unlike any other. He died just months before its completion. Then of course, there is the man himself. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. His ideas and ideals preempted the contemporary urge towards sustainable architecture. He was an iconoclastic polymath - engineer, draughtsman, architect, furniture and lighting designer, author and philosopher - and he defied the idea that a person's contribution is spent by their middle years. I made these little clips to experiment with lo-fi video. See also Iris Apfel
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AuthorDavid MacGregor is the founder of ThinkingCats. He writes it and makes the pictures. It's a lonely life - comments and contributions make it all worthwhile. Archives
October 2016
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