'An idea is salvation by imagination.'

Frank Lloyd Wright's landscape design relied on abstractions

Wright was interested in finding abstract patterns in nature and attempted to match those patterns through the landscaping on his properties. He also often introduced foreign plants into his gardens, a choice that some experts say was a commentary on American identity and aesthetics.

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

Frank Lloyd Wright is known as a brilliant, prolific architect with a turbulent personality and life

Frank Lloyd Wright’s childhood was colored by Unitarianism, a nomadic lifestyle, his parents’ divorce, and financial difficulties. By his death, Wright was known as one of America’s most influential architects and left behind a legacy of thoughtful writings, modern architectural principles, an esteemed fellowship program, and countless masterpieces.

Frank Lloyd Wright influenced contemporary architecture to have a more holistic approach

Frank Lloyd Wright’s work throughout the 20th century introduced concepts like open plans, floor-to-ceiling windows, and community-focused design. His “organic architecture” philosophy can be seen as a predecessor to today’s sustainable architecture.

See renderings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s unmade buildings

Only about half of Frank Lloyd Wright’s over 1,000 designs were actually built. In 2018, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation commissioned Spanish architect and 3D designer David Romero to make digital models to see what Wright’s unrealized structures would look like.

A quote by Howard Hughes

"Do the impossible, because almost everyone has told me my ideas are merely fantasies."

A quote by Florence Nightingale

"Poetry and imagination begin life."

Taliesin offered Frank Lloyd Wright an oasis away from gossip and scrutiny

After a public affair that damaged his reputation, Frank Lloyd Wright built a hideaway for himself and his mistress. This grand Wisconsin structure is now a National Historic Landmark after experiencing two major fires, each followed by major renovations.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed hundreds of buildings

Frank Lloyd Wright was a prolific architect and built hundreds of structures across America, and even a few in Japan and Canada. From humbler homes in Illinois to sprawling mansions in California, Wright experimented with different styles throughout his career and varied in each of his designs.

Fallingwater revived Frank Lloyd Wright’s career at age 67

A series of scandals and financial setbacks made Wright lose his previous relevance, leaving the public to view him as a “has-been.” Following the creation of Fallingwater, a masterpiece set atop a waterfall, Wright saw an uptick in commissions and continued to produce inspired buildings at an age that many others would retire by.

Usonian design was invented as a response to Americans’ financial struggles

Around the time of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Frank Lloyd Wright sought to create homes that made life easier for those struggling financially. Usonian homes are typically characterized by simple materials, small square footage, and natural light.

The United Nations recognized eight Frank Lloyd Wright works as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Wisconsin left a deep impression on Frank Lloyd Wright and his work

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright openly adored his home state’s “pastoral” landscapes, red barns, and down-to-earth residents. Wright also referenced the state as a huge inspiration for his design style.

A quote by Lauren Bacall

"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly."

Fallingwater is one of the world’s most famous houses

Fallingwater, a country house set atop a waterfall, is arguably Frank Lloyd Wright’s most celebrated work. Legend has it that the initial drawings of the house were hurriedly sketched in just three hours after Wright’s client surprised him with a phone call and announced he wanted to see the plan’s progress.

The first home Frank Lloyd Wright designed alone was bold and geometric

A small residence sitting on the outskirts of Chicago, Wright’s first building, created entirely from his own artistic vision, was a home for his family. He would continue to live and work there for two decades after building it in 1889.

Frank Lloyd Wright was known for his uncompromising personality and visionary architecture

Written the year of his death, this article reflects on Wright’s notorious arrogance and difficult personality that kept him at odds with his contemporaries and the architectural establishment of the time. However, his boldness was an essential trait that helped define his legacy.

Unitarian Frank Lloyd Wright made Unity Temple to honor his own faith

In 1905, a Unitarian church in Frank Lloyd Wright's town was struck by lightning and destroyed. Wright, a Unitarian himself, was commissioned to build the replacement and constructed a simple yet radical concrete sanctuary known as Unity Temple.

Organic architecture marries man-made buildings with the natural context around them

Frank Lloyd Wright’s nebulous concept of organic architecture is one that even he struggled to define. Its basic premise is to make a building look as though it grew from the land it stands on by emphasizing natural materials and incorporating the surrounding environment into the design.

What it’s like to be an apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin

Architect James Walter Schildroth became an apprentice in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship program in 1959, just months after Wright's passing. The invaluable experience taught him how to build as he worked and confronted him with the struggles of living in the space.

Frank Lloyd Wright's SC Johnson Global Headquarters radically challenged common practices in corporate space design and remains a working office today.

'Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.'

- Author James Joyce (1882 -1941)

Many of Wright's buildings used radiant heating

Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings weren’t just radical because of how they looked, but many of them also incorporated stunning technological innovations. Radiant heating is one of Wright’s most popular heating systems, offering the comfort of walking on warm floors on a cold day.

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

'Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.'

- Pablo Picasso

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.'

-Author Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically difficult to sell because they require extensive maintenance and upkeep.

Taliesin’s first fire also involved the tragic murder of seven people

In 1914, while Frank Lloyd Wright was out working in Chicago, one of his servants at Taliesin brutally murdered his mistress, Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney, her two children, and three other people in the home. The massacre left a deep impression on Wright, who spent much of his career restoring the home.

Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright were longtime friends

In the early 1930s, famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright invited Georgia O’Keeffe to become the master artist at the newly formed Taliesin Fellowship. O’Keeffe turned him down, but the letter sparked a decades-long friendship, rooted in their shared love for art and American landscapes, which continued until his death.

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

Several Frank Lloyd Wright properties are on the market

Several of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes are currently for sale, offering buyers the opportunity to own a historic building. Some of these homes could stay on the market for years, as they’re famously a pain to maintain.

'We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.'

- Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury

'Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.'

- Artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world.'

- George Washington (1732-1799)

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'

-Inventor and businessman Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

'Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.'

- President Harry Truman (1884-1972)

'Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.'

- Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

'Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.'

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

'You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it!'

- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg (1946-present)

The front lawn became an American ideal in the 20th century.

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Take a virtual tour of a Usonian home

Wright's Usonian homes might have been more economical, but they didn't lack any of the inventive design of his other projects. That's evident throughout this tour of one of the homes in Pleasantville, New York's Usonia community.

See a collection of mind-bending architecture around the world, including a teapot gas station, a duck home, and a picnic basket building.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed a gas station in Minnesota that's still in operation today.

Read the original, utopian manifesto for the Bauhaus movement

In "Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar," Walter Gropius' 1919 manifesto, the architect imagined his Bauhaus school as a "guild of craftsmen" where architects, painters, and sculptors could be freed from the class-oriented pretensions of the art world and learn to make works that would benefit humanity.

Lincoln Logs, the popular children's toy, was designed by John Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was inspired by his father's foundation of Tokyo's Imperial Hotel.

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."