Frank Lloyd Wright
She has written several other books on American architecture Including On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change and The unreal America: Architecture and Illusion. Her biography on Frank Lloyd Wright is both informative and entertaining; she not only reveals the long and harrowing Journey and the victories and defeats of the rebellious and egotistical architect, but also gives a clear view at the times in which he was most active and the ways in which the country and the world were reacting to his architecture while adapting with everything from changing architectural tastes and styles to economic depressions and the World
Wars. Beginning with his birth and childhood in Wisconsin all the way to his latter days of work and death in Arizona, Hustle details the journey and evolution of his legacy and the tragedies that failed to hinder his art in coherent chronological fashion. Hustle begins the first chapters of the biography with the birth of Frank Lloyd Wright and his beginnings as a child in Wisconsin. Hustle also Introduces the fact that Wright manipulated some details of his personal information throughout life to suit his ego and create his own elegantly presented persona, beginning with his birthday.
Born truly in 1867, Wright later changed his birth date to 1869 which “made a case for a precocious talent with an impressively youthful, early success in Chicago in the 1 sass,” and more Importantly to Wright it “kept him shy of the dreaded 90-mark during his brilliant late work in the asses” (Hustle 1). In these acts of self- benefit, Hustle revealed the aesthetically egotistical side of Wright that I most certainly never realized was an active force in his life. From his birth, Wright was pampered and directed by his mother, Anna, who believed him to be destined for greatness. On conception, she decided that Frank would be a great architect one day and she was going to do everything in her power to help and guide him in that path, not only for his own benefit but for hers as well. She thought particular crib all to influence the newly born Wright towards a path of architectural nirvana. “He would deliver her from the despair and hardship of her life, make up for her thwarted ambitions; they would have a golden future together” (Hustle 7).
Hustle describes Wright’s childhood as a bittersweet mixture of hard labor on his uncles farm and alienation from his father mixed with glorious Sunday mornings at he Lloyd Jones family Unitarian chapel followed up by emotionally restorative nights spent singing songs while his father played piano. She illuminates how even though he was a small and weakly child, he learned to “pile tired on tired” (Hustle 14) working on his uncle’s farm and how that strength and stamina of mind and body stayed with Wright even up to the final days of his career which was alive and well until his death.
Hustle then begins to describe the evolution of Wright’s Journey to becoming an apprentice architect. He was given his first opportunity at a youthful age to assist in he design and construction of a family chapel and even added a windmill of his own design later which stood the test of time and physical stress against the disbelief of some in his family. Through his early life in the rolling hills of the scenic Helena Valley, Wisconsin, Wright planted the seeds of his ideas and passion for “organic architecture” (Hustle 27) which would be the basis of his unique art in his future works.
Organic architecture makes the lay of land, its environmental atmosphere, and the nature of the construction materials the combined generators of the design f the building. His 1935 masterpiece, Billingsgate, built for Edgar Kaufmann over a waterfall is a perfect example of the mix between nature and architecture that makes it uniquely organic and uniquely Wright. Hustle does an amazing Job at keeping all of Wright’s advancements in chronological order and in a way that is easy to understand how he built his way up to the famous architect that he is.
Through his confidence given to him by his mother, Wright began to understand that he was destined for more than an ordinary mortal life because he had “God-given creativity’ (Hustle 33). When Wright was twenty years of age, he moved to the booming cultural epicenter that was Chicago of the asses. He applied to many different architectural firms but only to the prestigious ones which he believed worthy of his gifts and unique abilities; ultimately reputation and image would be the factors Wright would take into account when choosing a firm to work for.
He began with Joseph Lyman Sessile, moved on to Beers, Clay, and Dutton, went back to Sessile, and then found his first nest egg of architectural growth and education with Louis Sullivan and Dammar Adler of the Adler and Sullivan firm. Hustle describes Wright as being able to absorb and retain every bit of useful information. He would act as a sponge to Louis Sullivan, soaking up every ounce of the architectural knowledge he found interesting or worthy and committing it to memory. Although you would think that Wright would credit Sullivan for his influence, Hustle defines Wright as notoriously self-centered and arrogant.
He would never admit that his ideas or passions for architecture had been influenced by any other human or any culture. His ego made him believe that his forms of architecture were completely ewe and unheard of; it was truly Just a concoction of every bit of influence he had every received through both education and observation Just mixed and manifested biography, Hustle tells how Wright went from sponge-like apprentice to fully accredited and renowned architectural celebrity. As his experience and popularity grew, Wright was approached by clients seeking his work apart from Sullivan influence and he began “moonlighting” (Hustle 70).
With a newly wedded wife and children on the way, Wright needed more money to support them and his notorious self-indulgence into Japanese prints and fine clothing. Moonlight work, which is working on secret drafts without company permission and reaping all the profit, was forbidden in his contract with Adler and Sullivan and he was eventually found out and immediately fired. The blow to Sullivan was disastrous and the master and apprentice lost touch for years. When he had established himself well enough in the Chicago architectural scene, Wright began taking on employees as draftsman in his home-studio in the Oak Park suburb of Chicago.
His Prairie House design and the Larking Administration Building were two of his greatest creations during this period. Wright was Just setting himself up with a good starting out career when Hustle delivers arguably the most controversial and disliked decision that Wright ever made: with children disturbing his concentration and the stresses of marriage and bills weighed together, Wright went through a mental breakdown and “in the fall of 1909, he left, abruptly cutting all ties.
He abandoned a wife and six children and closed his practice, leaving debts and unfinished projects behind” (Hustle 106). Hustle describes how the newspapers and tabloids had a field day with reproving Wright’s deplorable actions. He embarked on a two year Journey to Europe with his mistress Amah Cheney. While she worked as a translator in Germany, Wright worked in Florence with his son Lloyd and draftsman Taylor Woolly observing the Italian and Germanic architecture.
Upon moving back to the United States, his mother Anna purchased the land in Wisconsin that would soon be the birthplace of his completely tailored and architecturally unique home, Totalities. “Wright would survive tragedy and disasters there, the murder of a lover and her children, desperate financial crises, and three destructive fires, rebuilding each time” (Hustle 34) from the ashes f the previous. Shortly after the first Totalities was built, Amah and her children from her previous marriage were brutally murdered and Totalities was burnt to the ground.
Accounts given by survivors of the disaster, gardeners and other Totalities workman, explained that the cook had some dispute with Amah and went ballistic. It took Wright several years, a new and blessedly time-consuming project, a new female companion, and Totalities II to bring him back out from a depressed slump. Wright gained instant international success upon the completion of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. In 1923, the hotel was completed and was one of the only structures that survived the great Kant Earthquake that struck Japan that same year.
