Special Sub-Topic: The Wright Stuff Authored by: tjoebigham Sub-topic of: Art World Figures

What nationality was Wright?

Welsh. Wright was of Welsh descent.

Where was Wright born?

Wisconsin. He shared his native state with Orson Welles, another larger-than-life American.

True or false: after the birth of a brother and sister, Wright's parents divorced.

true & t. After their divorce, Wright lived with his uncle.

Who was the first architect Wright worked for?

J.L. Silsbee. Over his uncle's objections, Wright quit college and worked in Silsbee's Chicago firm. Morgan made William Randolph Hearst San Simeon. White is best known for his murder at the hands of Harry Thaw over the affair White had with Thaw's wife Evelyn Nesbit.

What axiom of Louis Sullivan, Wright's prime influence, guided Wright in his early career?

Form Follows Function. 'Less Is More' is the credo of Mies van der Rohe, German architect Adolf Loos hated ornament, and I got the last from a certain baseball movie...

What was the first building Wright designed by himself?

The Winslow House. The Winslow House was the one that started him on his long and often controversial career.

What was the style of this and Wright's other early buildings called?

Prairie. The style's horizontality was perfectly suited for the midwest's flatness.

What building of Wright's was the first to be totally made of poured concrete?

Unity Temple. Wright loved experimenting with different materials. The Temple's inside is mostly of wood and glass, though! He didn't design the Monadnock Building in Chicago or a Catholic church, but he did build a Greek Orthodox church and synogogue.

What name did Wright give the private residence he designed for himself?

Taliesin. In Wright's ancestral tongue Taliesin means 'shining brow'; it was the name of King Arthur's legendary Welsh bard. Taliesin burned down twice. There was also Taliesin West, the studio he built in Scotsdale, Arizona.

Where did Wright build the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel?

Tokyo. In his only work outside the U.S., Wright designed the hotel to withstand earthquakes. It did survive a devastating 1913 quake.

What Central American civilization influenced the buildings Wright made in 1920s California, Mayan or Incan?

Mayan. Many of those 20's building look as though they were made by the Mayan.

What house did Wright build over a waterfall?

Fallingwater. After tough times in the Depression, this project for publisher Edgar Kaufman revived Wright's career. It still stands in rural Pennsylvania, an icon of modern American architecture. (and it contains all of Wright's initials!)

For what company did Wright create an office building with mushroom-shaped columns?

Johnson Wax. In his native Wisconsin, Wright's building blazed a new path for office architecture.

What building of Wright's was completed nine years after his death?

Norman Lykes House. Though designed in 1959, the year of his death, Wright's house for Norman Lykes, in Phoenix, Arizona, wasn't built until 1968. The Synogogue and Guggenheim Museum were built shortly after Wright's death, and the Civic Center was completed two years later, in 1962.

What author based a fictional architect on Wright?

Ayn Rand. Wright was the inspiration for Rand's Howard Roark in her 1940's bestseller 'The Fountainhead'. Gary Cooper played Roark in the movie version, scripted by Rand (who personally chose Cooper to play her character).