Selected Readings from
In the Cause of Architecture
by Frank Lloyd Wright
Historical Essays for The Architectural Record, 1908-1952
Discussion Led by Scott Hildreth
Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul. - Ernest Dimnet, What We Live By, 1932
Harmony
"Go to nature, thou builder of houses, consider her ways... Let your house appear to grow easily from its site and shape it to sympathize with the surroundings."
"The good building makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built."
Light
"Light diffused, light reflected, light refracted - light for its own sake... More and more, light began to become the beautifuer of the building -- the blessing of the occupants. "
Space
"The essences of organic building is space, space flowing outward, space flowing inward... you catch no sense of enclosure whatever at any angle, top or sides. Interior space becomes free."
Nature
"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you."
Materials
"But in this land of ours, richest on earth, in old and new materials, the architect must exercise well-trained imagination to see in each material...its own inherent style. All materials may be beautiful, their beauty depending much or entirely on how well they are used by the architect."
Shapes
"Eventually I was to construct designs in other mediums. But the smooth cardboard triangles and maplewood blocks were most important... All are in my fingers to this day."
Creativity
"The architect must be a prophet...a prophet in the true sense of the term...if he can't see at least ten years ahead, don't call him an architect."
Beauty
"Whether people are conscious of it or not, they actually derive countenance and sustenance from the 'atmosphere' of the things they live in or with. They are rooted in them just as a plant is in the soil in which it is planted."
