1867: The Wright Stuff

Frank Lloyd Wright is born in Richland Center, Wisconsin

In the houses, churches, and museums he designed over his career, architect Frank Lloyd Wright sought more fervently than any architect before him to marry building design with environment—specifically, its land, trees, and bodies of water. Through his “organic architecture,” Wright created harmony between building materials and a structure’s natural surroundings. For example, when hired to design a home in the Southwest, he used rock in the design and let the desert vistas inspire the property’s lines.

A fine example of Wright’s “Prairie School” style with its low, horizontal lines is Westcott House in Ohio. And Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania, seems to spring forth from the rocks on which it’s built—the very same rocks where a waterfall runs. And Wright’s most iconic building, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, with its curved, rounded lines, stands in stark contrast with the hard-edged skyscrapers that surround it.