In this video, the life and philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright is examined. It starts with a speech about Wright about the nature of architecture and his ability to create. The fundamentals of architecture involves knowing and studying life; this is accomplished merely through living it. If you manage to relish life and cherish everyday moments, you will be able to learn more about how things are shaped and created.
Organic architecture is natural; when you create a new structure or building, it has to blend in naturally with the rest of the environment and not stand out against it. Wright believes that monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial demonstrate a “lack of culture,” and is likened to the toga and other old instances of life, mainstays that should be kept around to remind us of our architectural mistakes. This can then allow us to move on to the present and the future; Wright seeks to bring better architecture to America, and he never felt like he could be paid for the work; “he would have to give it.”
The nature of organic architecture is to look at the essence of the thing and its inner beauty, and be sure to construct the building to that specific aim. An organic building should be timeless, never dated. The video ends with a shot of Wright walking toward a tree, a symbol of his ever-constant love affair with nature.
Wright was an amazing individual, and this video is indicative of his wonderful qualities. Throughout the documentary, he is laidback, perpetually at ease, and friendly. His Q&A sessions are met with raucous laughter due to his dry wit, and he seems to have a sense of humor about the work he does. More so than that, he has a passion for architecture and a very specific ethos that he follows; specifically, he feels that the drafting room is not the place where you will have a shining moment of greatness – that is when you are out in nature, experiencing life and understanding what about life is so fantastic.
On the subject of Wright’s standing as “the greatest American architect,” he begrudgingly accepts this title, seeing as he believes there are few, if any, real architects out there in the world. Everything that is not organic architecture is phony and fake in his eyes; the features and attributes of the building must be an indicator of the place that it is in, as well as the time it was built. All of these fundamental things must be known to the architect or else he is not one at all.
Wright, in essence, was a very impassioned and intelligent individual. He has a sly but innate sense of nature and symmetry – he always wished for a close symbiosis of nature and architecture, making sure that the design of a building is never random and whimsical. There must be method to the madness, or else there is no method at all. In this way, Wright was an enigmatic but powerful figure in the American architectural world – he helped shaped the way we think about how buildings are made.
