When Wright was young, he was always known as creative and inventive, so his aunt let him design her homeschool building, Hillside Home School (1887-1915). When he first got his start, he furnished Schiller Building, which was an office building. He later began his own practice around 1893. During this time, he taught others, who admired him and his work, through lectures and writings. His style began based on his love of prairies. Wright's prairie homes became known as "the Prairie School" by his contemporaries. He soon had his first client, Herman Winslow, for his new styled homes.
Wright's new prairie homes only appealed to certain clients, who had an acquired taste for his style; Herman Winslow was one of them. The lack of clients caused them to not be very popular when he first began. His homes were organic, safe, and integrated, as he wanted them to feel natural. Wright wanted to complete the look of "organic simplicity" of Midway Gardens with furnishings, art, and music. The owners were curious and admiring of his work. Although he always had a goal for his designs of organic simplicity, it often was not fulfilled due to the fact that most clients could only afford the house, not the interior. This caused them to bring use their old furnishings in their new homes, which bothered Wright. He wanted to be able to see "plasticity working as continuity" in his designs.
Wright was hired, by The Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, to design office complexes that stood as a representation of the Larkin culture. The first building, the corporation administration building, was done in 1906. Wright and Larkin worked to create a physical representation of Larkin's abstract culture. Wright wanted to create a new style that was efficient, yet comfortable. While designing, he purposely made access to the annex difficult in order to avoid overuse. A review of Wright's speech, "Wright spoke eloquently about the ideal of domesticity he tried to build into the corporate structure, which he called "this family home": "The family-gathering under conditions ideal for body and mind counts for lessened errors, cheerful alacrity and quickened and sustained intelligence in duties to be performed...", was written to show Wright's goals for this building. After completing the project of The Larkin Administration Building, Wright also built Larkin employee homes. The Larkin Administration Building was a representation of "the Larkin Idea", but was considered "A Shame of Our City" by the Buffalo Evening News, due to the fact that only certain audiences enjoyed his work.
Wright's designs were made up of mainly lines and wide areas, rather than curves and height. Concrete began to be used during this time and became one of his tools in his designs. His style lead to more homes slowly becoming more linear and modern. Between 1880 and 1920, Wright designed at around 200 homes, most of which were in or around Chicago, IL. Wright's career lasted for a long and successful 72 years. During his career, he started the Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and America which included over 300 of his pieces. Wright's influence on American architecture remains to continue today because of how large of an impact he had on the architecture world.
Citations:
Wright, Frank Lloyd, and Donald D. Walker. The Natural House. New York: Horizon, 1954. Print. I used this book for background info on Wright and his start, as well as his style of architecture.
