Frank Lloyd Wright - In the Cause of Architecture - Lecture Notes - Scott Hildreth - Chabot College

Interdisciplinary Studies in Letters & Science

Chabot College - Spring 2006

Selected Readings from

In the Cause of Architecture

by Frank Lloyd Wright

Essay 1: "In the Cause of Architecture" - March 1908

"Radical though it be, the work here illustrated is dedicated to a cause conservative in the best sense of the word. At no point does it involve denial of the elemental law and order inherent in all great architecture; rather, is it a declaration of love for the spirit of that law and order, and a reverential recognition of the elements that made its ancient letter in its time vital and beautiful." Wright has been working for about 20 years by now, and his building credits are significant. Starting under Louis Sullivan's vision and teaching, he has evolved his first characteristic "style", which some called radical.

"Primarily, Nature furnished the materials for architectural motifs out of which the architectural forms as we know them today have been developed, and, although our practice for centuries has been for the most part to turn from her, seeking inspiration in books and adhering slavishly to dead formulae, her wealth of suggestion is inexhaustible; her riches greater than any man's desire."

"But given inherent vision there is no source so fertile, so suggestive so helpful aesthetically for the architect as a comprehension of natural law."
Wright's thesis is clear - use Nature as our guide, rather than cling to past practice without understanding the organic nature of the building, site, people, and intended use.

"A sense of the organic is indispensable to an architect..." How does Wright use "organic" in the architectural sense?

"Japanese art knows this school more intimately than that of any people. In common use in their language there are many words like the word "edaburi,", which, translated as near as may be, means the formative arrangement of the branches of a tree. We have no work in English, we are not yet sufficiently civilized to think in such terms, but the architect must not only learn to think in such terms but he must learn in this school to fashion his vocabulary for himself and furnish it in a comprehensive way with useful words as significant as this one." Wright apparently began to learn of Japanese and Asian architectures under Sullivan; he visited Japan numerous times before moving their to construct houses and his most famous of Japanese buildings, the Imperial Hotel.

Wright's Propositions:

1. Simplicity & Repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art. But simplicity is not in itself an end nor is it a matter of the side of a barn but rather an entity with a graceful beauty in its integrity from which discord, and all that is meaningless, has been eliminated.

Few rooms, comfort, utility, and beauty
Doors, windows are integral with structure and form
Excess detail & ornament are vulgar "Merely that it looks rich is no justification for the use of ornament."
Assimilate fixtures into design
Pictures deface what should be decorative
Furniture should be integral

2. Individualism: As many styles of house as kinds of people "A man who has individuality (and what man lacks it?) has a right to its expression in his own environment."

3. Building should grow from its site

Nature is quiet, substantial, organic
The Prairie is quiet, level
Roofs should have gentle slopes, low proportions, quiet sky lines
Heavy set chimneys
Sheltering Overhangs, low terraces, outreaching walls

4. Colors: Go to the woods and fields for soft, warm optimistic tones of earths and autumn leaves

5. Bring out the nature of materials

Strip wood of varnish and stain it
Reveal the nature of wood, plaster, brick or stone: friendly and beautiful

6. House of character, not of fashion, grows in value

Above all, Integrity.

"From the beginning of my practice the question uppermost in my mind has been not "what style" but "what is style?" and it is my belief that the chief value of the work illustrated here will be found in the fact that if in the face of our present day conditions any given type may be treated independently and imbued with the quality of style, then a truly noble architecture is a definite possibility, so soon as Americans really demand it of the architects of the rising generation."

"A study of the illustrations will show that the buildings presented fall readily into three groups having a family resemblance;

1) the low-pitched roofs, heaped together in pyramidal fashion, or presenting quiet, unbroken skylines,

2) the low roofs with simple pediments countering on long ridges; and

3) those topped with a simple slab.

1) Wright's "Prairie Style" has produced notable buildings including many of the houses noted for this essay. In comparison to Victorian Architecture, the Prairie style emphasized open spaces, rather than boxes within boxes characteristic of Victorian rooms. See also the Hillside Home School

2) Dana House

3) Unity Temple

"The architecture is not 'thrown up' as an artistic exercise, a matter of evlevation from a preconceived ground plan. The schemes are conceived in three dimensions as organic entities..."

"In a fine art sense these designs have grown as natural plants grow, the individuality of each is integral and as complete as skil, time, strength, and circumstances would permit."

"The method in itself does not of necessity produce a beautiful building, but it does provide a framework as a basis which has an organic integrity, susceptible to the architect's imagination and at once opening to him Nature's wealth of artistic suggestion, ensuring him a guiding principle within which he can never be wholly false, out of tune, or lacking in rational motif."

Essay 2: "In the Cause of Architecture" - May 1914

"I still believe that the sense of an organic architecture, once grasped, carries with it in its very nature the discipline of an ideal at whatever cost to self interest or the established order. [By organic architecture I mean an architecture that develops from within outward in harmony with the conditions of its being as distinguished from one that is applied from without.]" Look at the incarnations of Taliesin (destroyed by fire in 1914 and once more before being rebuilt in 1925.)

"These forms were the result of a conscientious study of materials and of the machine which is the real tool, whether we like it or not, that we must use to give shape to our ideals - a tool which at that time had received no such artistic consideration from artists or architect....The principles, however, underlying the fundamental ideal of an organic architecture... are common to all work that ever rang true in the architecture of the world, and free as air to any pair of honest young lungs that will breathe deeply enough." What is Wright's style in this essay, and how does it differ from the first, written some 6 years earlier? Why?

"As for the vital principles of an organic architecture, that has been lost to sight, even by pupils. But I still believe as firmly as ever that without artist integrity and this consequent individuality manifesting itself in multifarious forms, there can be no great architecture, no great artists, no great civilization, no worthy life." Can you detect a change in the man's perception of his place in the world?

"This is Art, then, in a sentimental Democracy, which seems to be only another form of the self-same hypocrisy?"

"The 'Democracy' of the man in the American street is no more than the Gospel of Mediocrity. When it is understood that a great Democracy is the highest form of Aristocracy conceivable, not of birth or place or weatlh, but of those qualities that give distinction to the man as a man, and that as a social state it must be characteriszed by the honesty and responsibility of the absolute individualist as the unit of its structure, then only can we have an Art worthy the name."

"'The letter killeth'; yes, but the more deadly still is the undertow of false democracy that poses the man as a creative artist and starves him to death unless he fakes his goddess or persuades himself, with 'language,' that the cow is really she."
For those interested in an extension of this philosophy, read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead".

"And this thing that eludes the disciple... what is it?

"First, a study of the nature of materials you elect to use and the tools you must use with them, searching to find the characteristic qualities in both that are suited to your purpose.

"Second, with an ideal of organic nature as a guide, so to unite these qualities to serve that purpose, that the fashion of what you do has integrity or is natively fit, regardlss of preceived notions of style. Style is a byproduct of the process and comes of the man or the mind in the process. The style of the thing, therefore, will be the man - it is his."

Essay 3: "Part III. Steel" - August 1927

"Steel is the epic of this age."

"Now, ductile and tensile, dense to any degree, uniform and calculable to any standard, steel is a known quantity to be dealt with mathematically to a certainty to the last pound: a miracle of strength to be counted upon!"

"Mathematics in the flesh - at work for man!"
By 1927, at age 60, Wright was in debt, and the coming of the Depression would shrink his commissions to almost nothing. He was considered washed up as an architect, and yet he was metamorphosizing into his third-generation style, and his most spectactular. Look at the writing in this essay - the command of material, his knowledge of engineering, his enthusiasm for the capabilities.

"In itself it has little beauty, neither grain nor texture of surface."

"But the weaknesses of steel are not fatal to beautiful use, nor is the lack of individuality in texture other than an opportunity for the imagination."
What does Wright think of the buildings made from steel thusfar?

"Here we have reinforced concrete, a new dispensation. A new medium for the new world of thought and feeling that seems ideal: a new world that must follow freedom from the imprisonment in the abstract in which tradition binds us. Democracy means liberation from those abstractions, and therefore life, more abundantly in the concrete. This is not intended as a pun. It happens to be so literally, for concrete combined with steel strands will probably become the physical body of the modern civilized world." Remember this is 1927, almost 80 years ago, and Wright was entirely correct. Today all buildings and bridges, roadways and walkways, are made of reinforced concrete.

"The limitation of the human imagination is all that ties the hands of the modern architect except the poison in his veins fostered by "good taste" for dead forms."

"And again, easier to comprehend are the new forms brought to ahnd by reinforced concrete. First among them is the slab - next the cantilever-then the splay." Do you see the seeds of Fallingwater and Taliesin and what Wright is about to create over the next 30 years here?

"Here, 'young men in architecture', is your palette. The 'foyer' of your new world."

"And never lose sight of the fact that all in this new world is no longer in two dimensions. That was the old world. We are capable of a world now in three dimensions; the third, as I have said before, interpreted as a spirtual matter that makes all integral - "at one."

"How life may be blessed by the release this simple development of its viewpoint will bring to mankind.

"The trace of human imagination as the poetic language of line and color must now live in the thing so far as it is natural to it. And that is very far."

Last Updated: 3/31/06 - SH

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Essay 1: "In the Cause of Architecture" - March 1908
"Radical though it be, the work here illustrated is dedicated to a cause conservative in the best sense of the word. At no point does it involve denial of the elemental law and order inherent in all great architecture; rather, is it a declaration of love for the spirit of that law and order, and a reverential recognition of the elements that made its ancient letter in its time vital and beautiful."	Wright has been working for about 20 years by now, and his building credits are significant. Starting under Louis Sullivan's vision and teaching, he has evolved his first characteristic "style", which some called radical.
"Primarily, Nature furnished the materials for architectural motifs out of which the architectural forms as we know them today have been developed, and, although our practice for centuries has been for the most part to turn from her, seeking inspiration in books and adhering slavishly to dead formulae, her wealth of suggestion is inexhaustible; her riches greater than any man's desire." "But given inherent vision there is no source so fertile, so suggestive so helpful aesthetically for the architect as a comprehension of natural law."	Wright's thesis is clear - use Nature as our guide, rather than cling to past practice without understanding the organic nature of the building, site, people, and intended use.
"A sense of the organic is indispensable to an architect..."	How does Wright use "organic" in the architectural sense?
"Japanese art knows this school more intimately than that of any people. In common use in their language there are many words like the word "edaburi,", which, translated as near as may be, means the formative arrangement of the branches of a tree. We have no work in English, we are not yet sufficiently civilized to think in such terms, but the architect must not only learn to think in such terms but he must learn in this school to fashion his vocabulary for himself and furnish it in a comprehensive way with useful words as significant as this one."	Wright apparently began to learn of Japanese and Asian architectures under Sullivan; he visited Japan numerous times before moving their to construct houses and his most famous of Japanese buildings, the Imperial Hotel.
Wright's Propositions: 1. Simplicity & Repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art. But simplicity is not in itself an end nor is it a matter of the side of a barn but rather an entity with a graceful beauty in its integrity from which discord, and all that is meaningless, has been eliminated. Few rooms, comfort, utility, and beauty Doors, windows are integral with structure and form Excess detail & ornament are vulgar "Merely that it looks rich is no justification for the use of ornament." Assimilate fixtures into design Pictures deface what should be decorative Furniture should be integral 2. Individualism: As many styles of house as kinds of people "A man who has individuality (and what man lacks it?) has a right to its expression in his own environment." 3. Building should grow from its site Nature is quiet, substantial, organic The Prairie is quiet, level Roofs should have gentle slopes, low proportions, quiet sky lines Heavy set chimneys Sheltering Overhangs, low terraces, outreaching walls 4. Colors: Go to the woods and fields for soft, warm optimistic tones of earths and autumn leaves 5. Bring out the nature of materials Strip wood of varnish and stain it Reveal the nature of wood, plaster, brick or stone: friendly and beautiful 6. House of character, not of fashion, grows in value Above all, Integrity.
"From the beginning of my practice the question uppermost in my mind has been not "what style" but "what is style?" and it is my belief that the chief value of the work illustrated here will be found in the fact that if in the face of our present day conditions any given type may be treated independently and imbued with the quality of style, then a truly noble architecture is a definite possibility, so soon as Americans really demand it of the architects of the rising generation."
"A study of the illustrations will show that the buildings presented fall readily into three groups having a family resemblance; 1) the low-pitched roofs, heaped together in pyramidal fashion, or presenting quiet, unbroken skylines, 2) the low roofs with simple pediments countering on long ridges; and 3) those topped with a simple slab.	1) Wright's "Prairie Style" has produced notable buildings including many of the houses noted for this essay. In comparison to Victorian Architecture, the Prairie style emphasized open spaces, rather than boxes within boxes characteristic of Victorian rooms. See also the Hillside Home School 2) Dana House 3) Unity Temple
"The architecture is not 'thrown up' as an artistic exercise, a matter of evlevation from a preconceived ground plan. The schemes are conceived in three dimensions as organic entities..." "In a fine art sense these designs have grown as natural plants grow, the individuality of each is integral and as complete as skil, time, strength, and circumstances would permit."
"The method in itself does not of necessity produce a beautiful building, but it does provide a framework as a basis which has an organic integrity, susceptible to the architect's imagination and at once opening to him Nature's wealth of artistic suggestion, ensuring him a guiding principle within which he can never be wholly false, out of tune, or lacking in rational motif."
Essay 2: "In the Cause of Architecture" - May 1914
"I still believe that the sense of an organic architecture, once grasped, carries with it in its very nature the discipline of an ideal at whatever cost to self interest or the established order. [By organic architecture I mean an architecture that develops from within outward in harmony with the conditions of its being as distinguished from one that is applied from without.]"	Look at the incarnations of Taliesin (destroyed by fire in 1914 and once more before being rebuilt in 1925.)
"These forms were the result of a conscientious study of materials and of the machine which is the real tool, whether we like it or not, that we must use to give shape to our ideals - a tool which at that time had received no such artistic consideration from artists or architect....The principles, however, underlying the fundamental ideal of an organic architecture... are common to all work that ever rang true in the architecture of the world, and free as air to any pair of honest young lungs that will breathe deeply enough."	What is Wright's style in this essay, and how does it differ from the first, written some 6 years earlier? Why?
"As for the vital principles of an organic architecture, that has been lost to sight, even by pupils. But I still believe as firmly as ever that without artist integrity and this consequent individuality manifesting itself in multifarious forms, there can be no great architecture, no great artists, no great civilization, no worthy life."	Can you detect a change in the man's perception of his place in the world?
"This is Art, then, in a sentimental Democracy, which seems to be only another form of the self-same hypocrisy?" "The 'Democracy' of the man in the American street is no more than the Gospel of Mediocrity. When it is understood that a great Democracy is the highest form of Aristocracy conceivable, not of birth or place or weatlh, but of those qualities that give distinction to the man as a man, and that as a social state it must be characteriszed by the honesty and responsibility of the absolute individualist as the unit of its structure, then only can we have an Art worthy the name." "'The letter killeth'; yes, but the more deadly still is the undertow of false democracy that poses the man as a creative artist and starves him to death unless he fakes his goddess or persuades himself, with 'language,' that the cow is really she."	For those interested in an extension of this philosophy, read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead".
"And this thing that eludes the disciple... what is it? "First, a study of the nature of materials you elect to use and the tools you must use with them, searching to find the characteristic qualities in both that are suited to your purpose. "Second, with an ideal of organic nature as a guide, so to unite these qualities to serve that purpose, that the fashion of what you do has integrity or is natively fit, regardlss of preceived notions of style. Style is a byproduct of the process and comes of the man or the mind in the process. The style of the thing, therefore, will be the man - it is his."
Essay 3: "Part III. Steel" - August 1927
"Steel is the epic of this age." "Now, ductile and tensile, dense to any degree, uniform and calculable to any standard, steel is a known quantity to be dealt with mathematically to a certainty to the last pound: a miracle of strength to be counted upon!" "Mathematics in the flesh - at work for man!"	By 1927, at age 60, Wright was in debt, and the coming of the Depression would shrink his commissions to almost nothing. He was considered washed up as an architect, and yet he was metamorphosizing into his third-generation style, and his most spectactular. Look at the writing in this essay - the command of material, his knowledge of engineering, his enthusiasm for the capabilities.
"In itself it has little beauty, neither grain nor texture of surface." "But the weaknesses of steel are not fatal to beautiful use, nor is the lack of individuality in texture other than an opportunity for the imagination."	What does Wright think of the buildings made from steel thusfar?
"Here we have reinforced concrete, a new dispensation. A new medium for the new world of thought and feeling that seems ideal: a new world that must follow freedom from the imprisonment in the abstract in which tradition binds us. Democracy means liberation from those abstractions, and therefore life, more abundantly in the concrete. This is not intended as a pun. It happens to be so literally, for concrete combined with steel strands will probably become the physical body of the modern civilized world."	Remember this is 1927, almost 80 years ago, and Wright was entirely correct. Today all buildings and bridges, roadways and walkways, are made of reinforced concrete.
"The limitation of the human imagination is all that ties the hands of the modern architect except the poison in his veins fostered by "good taste" for dead forms."
"And again, easier to comprehend are the new forms brought to ahnd by reinforced concrete. First among them is the slab - next the cantilever-then the splay."	Do you see the seeds of Fallingwater and Taliesin and what Wright is about to create over the next 30 years here?
"Here, 'young men in architecture', is your palette. The 'foyer' of your new world." "And never lose sight of the fact that all in this new world is no longer in two dimensions. That was the old world. We are capable of a world now in three dimensions; the third, as I have said before, interpreted as a spirtual matter that makes all integral - "at one." "How life may be blessed by the release this simple development of its viewpoint will bring to mankind.
"The trace of human imagination as the poetic language of line and color must now live in the thing so far as it is natural to it. And that is very far."