ew American personalities have risen as quickly and controversially as Frank Lloyd Wright did during the first half of the twentieth century. As the new century dawned, architectural design in America found itself lacking a real direction. The neo-classical revival had begun to play itself out and it seemed no one had really given the domestic home the attention it deserved. After working with Louis Sullivan at the end of the 1800s, Wright ventured out into the Mid-West landscape to design what would eventually come to be known as the Prairie Style. Strong horizontal rooflines mirrored the vast expanse of the prairies, while intermittent vertical elements combined with a massive chimney to anchor the house firmly in the soil. Commissions soon flowed into Wright's office as Prairie Style homes came to dot the map in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The interior of these homes was also unique in that it combined the Arts and Crafts movement that had begun decades earlier in England with Wright's new conception of space. Rooms filled with Wright designed furniture and light fixtures seemed to flow into each other as one's movement within the house was almost completely unrestricted.

A critical underpinning of Wright's architecture was his emphasis on nature. Organic forms in architecture helped the building enhance its natural surroundings and avoided the common clash between site and structure. In the office area of the Johnson Wax Building (above left) occupants feel almost submerged underwater amongst the columns and diffuse lighting from above. But despite his overwhelming success, everything Wright did up until 1934 was mere evidence for the legitimacy of organic architecture. Proof came in the form of the Kaufmann House (Fallingwater) in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. The seamless integration of house and site solidified Wright's place among the greatest architects and is one of the few instances in which concrete and glass could be said to have fused with rock and flowing water. The house is both an engineering feat in the sense that it seemingly hovers over water, and a profound accomplishment in American home design.

Interestingly, the hard straight lines that characterize so much of Wright's work eventually gave way to a presence of curves that culminated in his final commission. The Guggenheim Museum in New York City remains one of Wright's most identifiable structures and one's opinion of Wright as an architect is often derived directly from one's opinion of this building. Despite the fact that it wasn't completed until after his death in 1959, the design for the Guggenheim is entirely Wright's. The prominent exterior spiral form translates into a winding ramp of galleries in the interior that were meant to subtley change the way modern art is viewed. Visitors to the museum walk in a continuous path taking in each piece of art in succession until reaching the top where light pours in through an elegant glass skylight. The concept caused quite a commotion within the art world when the plan was unveiled. Wright himself was quoted as saying, "if the paintings are too big for the winding galleries, then cut them in half." He made it clear that the building itself was as much a piece of artistic expression as the works it was designed to display. In that sense, Wright was not about to let someone else's art infringe on the integrity of his own. This integrity displays itself through the organic nature of the composition - the structure spirals upward in a kind of soft rotation towards pieces of glass that resemble bubbles on the surface. In a way, Wright puts us in an open atrium that is seemingly submerged underwater - much like he does in the Johnson Wax Building years earlier. Finally, with the construction of the Anderton Court shopping mall in Los Angeles just before the Guggenheim, Wright gives us a brief insight into the future of architecture. Walls collide at all angles, planes intersect and penetrate until all our traditional notions of architecture gradually slip away.