NEWS

Abandoning all symmetry, the architect eliminated a façade, extended the roofs far beyond the walls, and all but concealed the entrance. Wright filled the “wandering” plan of the Robie House with intricately joined spaces (some large and open, others closed), grouped freely around a great central fireplace. (He believed strongly in the hearth’s age-old domestic significance.) Wright designed enclosed patios, overhanging roofs, and strip windows to provide unexpected light sources and glimpses of the outdoors as people move through the interior space. These elements, together with the open ground plan, create a sense of space- in- motion inside and out. He set masses and voids in equilibrium; the flow of interior space determined the exterior wall placement. The exterior’s sharp angular planes meet at apparently odd angles, matching the complex play of interior solids, which function not as inert containing surfaces but as elements equivalent in role to the design’s spaces.
The Robie House is a good example of Wright’s “naturalism”, his adjusting of a building to its site. However, in this particular case, the confines of the city lot constrained the building-to-site relationship more than did the sites of some of Wright’s more expensive suburban and country homes. The Kaufmann House, nicknamed “Fallingwater” and designed as a weekend retreat at BearRun near Pittsburgh, is a prime example of the latter, perched on a rocky hill-side over a small waterfall, this structure extends the Robie House’s Blocky masses in all four directions. The contrast in textures between concrete, painted metal, and natural stones in its walls enliven its shapes, as does Wright’s use of full-length strip windows to create a stunning interweaving of interior and exterior space.
The implied message of Wright’s new architecture was space, not mass- a space designed to fit the patron’s life and enclosed and divided as required. Wright took special pains to meet his client’s requirements, often designing all the accessories of a house. In the late 1930s, he acted on a cherished dream to provide good architectural design for less prosperous people by adapting the ideas of his prairie house to plans for smaller, less expensive dwellings. The publication of Wright’s plans brought him a measure of fame in Europe, especially in Holland and Germany. The issuance in Berlin in 1910 of a portfolio of architects to adopt some of his ideas about open plans. Some forty
Years before his career ended, his work was already of revolutionary significance.

Photo Refrence: Shaghaygeh Naeimabadi’ Post Production Project            About Frank LIoyd Wright Refrence: Barron’s 2009