Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) was the friend, disciple, and one-time partner of Louis Sullivan, but it was Wright who moved modern architecture toward what he thought of as an "organic" orientation (Hamilton, 1992). Wright rejected the conventionally symmetrical plan of rooms arranged along either side of the hall for one in which the principal rooms were placed on cross-axes extending from a central space. In both his public and private structures, Wright employed a specific philosophy of how man and his environment were two halves of the same coin, sharing a common identity and reinforcing the existence of each other (Hamilton, 1992). Wright was influenced not only by the ideas of Sullivan and other "modern" architects of the so-called Chicago school. He was also enormously influenced by Japanese architecture. It is this influence, specifically as reflected in Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo that will be discussed in this brief report.

Wright is known to have admired the Hoo-Den, the Japanese pavilion at the World's Fair of 1893. Japanese prints, along with Oriental sculpture and ceramics, were the only works of art which he allowed in his own home (Hamilton, 1992). The Japanese influence in Wright's early "Prairie" and other houses should not therefore be surprising. According to Hamilton (1992), the Japanese influence is particularly visible in Wright's interiors, where he employed wall design reminiscent of the sliding screens of Japan and where the continui

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Japanese style, but also by observation of the ways in which effective structures interact with their surroundings (Bruckner, 1994). Wright employed a reinforced concrete base for the stucco-clad structure of both the Imperial Hotel and the Yamamura House, itself located in Ashiya, Japan (Webb, 1993). He used textured oya stone to create the ornamentation found on both these buildings. This particular stone is indigenous to the rocky slopes of Japan and has long been employed in decorating Japanese public and private structures. As he did in his American buildings, Wright insisted on using materials found locally in Japan to emphasize the linkage between his structures and their environment. As Michael Webb (1993) has noted, this was a very important aspect of Wright's style and one of the ways in which his genius is most visibly reflected. The goal of this particular architect was to ensure that any building which he designed, regardless of its geographic location, was a logical and rational part of its environment. Consequently, Wright's buildings have an atmosphere of "belonging" in their settings. Unlike many other "modern" architects who saw public buildings as having a form and a structure that transcended place

Category: Arts - F