Master in His Own Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright Jr

1890-1978 renderings of his great prairie houses included in the Berlin portfolio Occurring at the time the elder Wright had walked out on his wife and children to live openly with the wife of his latest client, this became just one of many tests of loyalty to his father Acrimonious letters between father and son over the years mark the constant disfunction of their relationship, yet Lloyd never resented his father’s pantheonic place in architecture

Lloyd attended the University of Wisconsin even longer than his father had before dropping out. His first attempt at an independent career led him to Boston and the landscape firm of Olmsted and Olmsted Specializing in botany and horticulture, he continued to pursue the interrelation of landscape to building throughout his life In fact, few western architects, including his father, had such an abiding insight into how a building interfaces with nature.

He settled in S outhern California with his brother John around 1913 L andsc ape design led him to work with Ir ving Gill, another master architect and probable mentor to his later design c areer A stint as a production designer at Paramount S tudios may have injected a fantastic al approach to his later architecture. W hen Frank S r c ame west to create the spectacular Holl yhoc k House for Aline Barnsdall, the father chose his eldest son to super vise constr uction on the house that would transform both as ar tists

In addition to the Barnsdall site, Lloyd also designed the landscaping for the

Ennis, Freeman and Storer houses, the first of the textile block construction methods that marked the elder Wright ’ s 1920 period.

Lloyd designed his first important house in the Hollywood Hills for the mother of his second wife, Helen Taggart. Throughout the 1920s, he utilized a near cinematic approach for the spectacular houses and customized gardens he created in this Eden paradise. Simplified planes and cubes set off flamboyant, sculptural elements using textile or knit blocks of concrete for his own house and studio and his other 20s residences Hammered patinaed copper reliefs formed the primary ornamental motifs in his stark white, hillside hugging Samuel-Novarro house of 1927 ings looked more like wor ld ’ s fair pavilions than we might recognize today.

He also knew the value of conceptual designs used for publicity Newspapers and magazines featured his plan for a Los Angeles Civic Center and a city of the future in lavish spreads for their readers The Great Depression, however, strangled his young firm just when he reached his artistic zenith.

Lloyd Wright designed two successive band shells for the Hollywood Bowl and the ear liest version of what we now call a strip mall, though his drive-up retail build-

Remodelings, rather than total designs, made up much of his 30s output But, like those of another noted architect of the era, and his own father, his designs from the postwar period became more expressionistic and contrarian to previous modernist architecture, using plant forms and other natural motifs in his particular architectural vocabulary. The Wayfarers Chapel of 1946 in Palos Verdes became famous for its indoor/outdoor concept that used its spectacular oceanview site as the dominant element of expression Google searches, however, are mostl y taken over by the name of his famous father But Lloyd ’ s work par ticular l y in Holl ywood The Bollman, The Taggar t, The S owden are now recogniz ed among the architectural treasures of L os Angeles. His render ings remained among the finest architectural drawings e ver produced. And though fe w buildings live up to their presentation drawing, his built results were consistentl y tr ue to their graphic counter par ts.

Lloyd Wright died at eight-eight, never achieving the fame he would certainly have gained from his talents had his name been, perhaps, “Lloyd Smith. D H

David Jameson closed Chicago's A rchiTech Galler y in 2014 Jameson now w orks as a f reelance wr iter and architectural histor ian Upcoming are the f ield guide f or all Br uce Goff st r uctures and a book of architectural essays f ocusing on "why" famous buildings w ere built.