Born in America in June 1869 as the son of a Baptist shepherd, Wright spent his childhood in full contact with nature, which had a huge impact on his future artistic work.
Wright came into contact with modern architecture, studying materials and their application in practice. However, he has a completely different vision of the relationship between nature and construction, and so he lays the foundation for the theory of organic architecture. Architecture, compared to a living being, must be designed and built according to the natural, biological proposals that arise from a careful vision of reality.
In 1893 he opened his own private studio. Since then, he has worked alone, creating more than three hundred buildings and designing more than twice as many.
Wright does not seem to be sensitive to class problems, for him life is not a social activity (economically conditioned), but an organic activity (subject only to the laws of nature).
Since the first period of Riga's architecture, it has been important to remember, first and foremost, Prairie houses: these are single-family villas, which, despite their name, are almost never built in the open countryside, but rather fit into the orderly urban fabric. Prairie houses resemble bourgeois taste.
The most impressive work of these seventy years of almost uninterrupted career is the so-called Pennsylvania Falls House, built in 1936. The house is immersed in nature, in the forest, on a rocky outcrop, at the point where the Bear Creek falls a few meters, creating a beautiful natural waterfall.
The materials are simple and come from the room itself: stone for the exterior, wood for the interior. The structure does not represent itself as an alien body, on the contrary, it highlights a number of planes that overlap each other, stretching into the void to create an expressive and amazing living organism. Nature and architectural artifact are integrated without ever reaching a collision.
The building, whose organizational center is a huge living room, has neither the front nor the back, just as the top or the bottom does not matter, because each facade has its own motivation and meaning, completely autonomous and different from the rest of the facades, but at the same time associated with them.
What has come to fruition is considered to be architectural ingenuity and remains to this day the most famous creation of the architect Wright. With this work he surpassed himself. This project was a new trend in modern architecture.
Wright's latest works are not home or immersed in nature, but one of his masterpieces is the Guggenheim Museum, built on Fifth Avenue in New York City, opposite Central Park.
But since the museum is an art house and the city is an artificial nature built by people, the theme, dear Wright, is not forgotten.
When designing this museum, between 1943 and 1959, the architect, who died before he saw the end of his work, was inspired by a sink or other natural organism with a spiral shape. The spiral is in fact a simple form, as it is formed on one plane, but at the same time complex, without an exact beginning and end.
The Guggenheim is built around a large helicopter ramp, which, starting from the bottom, is getting closer and closer to the sky, expanding at the same time, until it blooms into an amber glass dome, divided into twelve segments. Light is also provided by the light lanterns that the upper spirals create on the lower spirals that protrude outward. Climbing up the ramp, you feel that you are gradually separating yourself from the ground, it is a completely new format of the museum. We no longer encounter many square and anonymous rooms, but rather an artistic route that can only be seen by following it. Overall, the Guggenheim is an artistic and human testimony to the great architect Wright.
The case of the famous architect was continued by numerous followers, who brought the cottage construction to the rank of a separate industry. However, there are still few architects who can combine simplicity, functionality, comfort, style and reasonable price in one building.
Wright has left a large imprint on the history of architecture, showing the world what architecture can be like when it comes to nature. It is a combination of the power of natural materials and the serenity and tranquillity of nature itself.