In Praise of Frank Lloyd Wright's House Plans
Years ago, a professor I held in high regard used to say: "Architecture is about how to divide a space or place spaces alongside one another" (Image 1). The sincerity and wisdom embedded in this statement was so pleasing to me that I have recalled it many times and repeated it to others. While preparing an article about the characteristics of the Dana House plan — one of Frank Lloyd Wright's early works — written by Robert McCarter in the book Interior Space, which contained references to Wright's ideas about the arrangement and experience of movement through rooms, that professor's description of the importance of how space is divided in architecture was once again recalled to me. Due to the unavailability of this house's drawings, after much searching, I decided to write about the common methods of delimiting (bounding) or dividing architectural space and the experiences of modern architects in organizing the plan, including Frank Lloyd Wright's methods of creating plans. During architectural studies in the early 1370s solar (the 1990s), the rising waves of formalism in Western architecture had not yet reached Iran to the degree they have today, and digital form-generating design tools were not available as they are now. At that time, a considerable part of the criteria for architectural education and the evaluation of our work was still the residue of functionalist architecture, which gradually became mixed with postmodern, historicist, and traditionalist tendencies, and little by little the voices of newer currents from the West (and sometimes from the East, for instance Japan) reached the architectural education sphere in Iran. For our generation, the sole design tools in those years were pencil, ruler, set square, and drafting table, which easily facilitated flat, right-angled, and occasionally oblique drawings in Cartesian space, and using them, we typically designed plans in the space of Euclidean geometry, which was more familiar to us. The beginning of our design work predominantly involved drawing the plan, aimed at regulating and delimiting exterior space from interior, and also at the usually logical division of interior space into programmatic components. At that time, attention to the diagram of programmatic area dimensions and functional relationships between them for regulating the manner of movement and circulation in space was impressed upon us. In the next stage, we would give the plan dimension to arrive at volumes emerging from the plan, and so on, until we gradually attained higher vision and skill and greater power of choice for trying new design methods was created for us. It may be interesting that the starting point of design in many important architectural works, especially during the modern era, began from the flat space, and the vehicle for their development was the design of the plan. The most prominent example is the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. Beyond the careless and aimless common methods of delimiting and dividing space, this subject has fundamentally been the origin of architectural theorizing, especially in the heat of the revisionism of the modern era, and has led to the presentation of definitions, descriptions, or the emergence of aphorisms reflecting the thoughts arising from the practice or architectural inquiries of these architects. Perhaps one of the most dominant views on this subject during the last century belongs to Louis Sullivan. In his famous statement "form follows function," he reflects the essence of the dominant modern-era view about how mechanical and
rationalist division of space occurs to create correspondence with the functional system and program. At the other pole, Louis Kahn, among the late modern architects, in his brilliant statement "architecture is the thoughtful making of space," strives to recover the psychological and sociological dimensions (human experiences and collective relationships) of space. In his view, "the room is the beginning of architecture," and he regards the plan as "a society of independent spaces or rooms possessing individual character" that provide the possibility of chance encounter and dialogue. He always pays special attention in his works to "nameless space" — that is, space that does not exist in the program — an example being the central courtyard in the Salk Institute. Adolf Loos, in his effort to create spaces referred to as the "Raumplan" or "space plan," by establishing a special proportion and position between rooms or diverse spaces, and reinforcing the connection between them through breaking floor levels in the plan and creating height variations to establish visual continuity in section, gives form to a special kind of so-called topographic, multiple, and layered spatial ecosystem within houses. Le Corbusier, in the "free plan" — which is the result of the wall's independence from the structure — through the benefit of the free shape and movement of the wall in the plan, achieves special spatial divisions that constantly change and fluctuate in the reciprocal relationship between spaces as the observer moves within them. Fluidity within and outside space, through the non-definitive divisions created in the plan by means of perpendicular and minimal walls within the spatial envelope, is an idea that Mies van der Rohe pursues in his most notable works, including the Glass House through the idea of transparency, or in other works such as the Brick Country House through extending walls outward. He, who acknowledged the vagueness of the free plan concept for himself and European architects prior to seeing an exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright's plans — and the influence of this American architect's plans on a period of his work is evident — describes Wright's plans by saying: "These plans grow from the inside out, like a plant" (Image 3). Wright's numerous houses, while they do not have one hundred percent identical plans and spatial qualities in the manner of delimiting interior from exterior space and dividing interior space, nevertheless certain of his early works from the final decades of the nineteenth century to the sixth decade of the twentieth century show significant and meaningful changes and an evolutionary trajectory in their plans. At the same time, Wright's plans, across all periods or within each period, display particular similarities that are the product of the firm yet evolving foundations of his thinking about space, time, place, landscape, lifestyle, emerging classes and particular American users, possibilities, materials, and ultimately his perceptions of developments in architecture and the art of the new age, as well as the prevailing traditions of vernacular and modern house-building common in the era before him in America, and finally, the culture and architectural tradition of the Far East, even the ancient civilizations of the Middle East and the Aegean. The resonance of Wright's unique individuality and inventiveness, together with his sensitivity and activism in America's social transformations, should not be overlooked in the formation and evolution of his ideas about space and their reflection in his architecture and plans. In recent years, views have been published regarding the influence of games and geometric forms
employed in early childhood educational methods on the shape and manner of spatial subdivision in the early plans of pioneering modern architects, including Wright, which can be of interest in understanding the genesis of designs from this period of his work (Images 1 and 2). Wright's first house, designed in 1892, the George Blossom House, is a design with a square plan and definitive, single-core geometry arising approximately from the repetition of nine squares in a nearly symmetrical form, becoming an object of certainty from the exterior (Image 4). This characteristic — that is, symmetrical and definitive geometry — recurs in some of his later works, including the Larkin administration building in 1902, that is, ten years later. Five houses by Wright between 1890 and 1903, in their plan organization, display a kind of gradual change in the organization of interior space, in the manner of development toward the exterior, and in the direction of creating a more complex and freer intermixture in terms of the use of geometry and the type of reciprocal combination between spaces, or rather rooms. These plans gradually lose their symmetry and change into geometries in the shape of rectangles, the English T, and the cross; interior spaces become more unified and interconnected; the spaces between interior and exterior become manifest in them; and an expansive, multi-core quality gradually appears in these plans (Images 5 through 8). Along this evolutionary path, in Louis Kahn's terms, a kind of "nameless space" in Wright's plans appears at the outer edge of the building or in the area between the design's cores. This quality is not exclusive to the building's exterior; within Wright's spaces too, it appears in the form of atriums — for instance in the Larkin administration building — and even in the form of central courtyards or patios in some of his later houses. These characteristics and the movement toward creating a kind of natural freedom in the expansion and arrangement, or delimitation and division, of space continue in the Susan Lawrence Dana House of 1902 and reach their culmination in the Frederick C. Robie House (Image 9). The Robie House contains within itself the principles and the DNA of many of Wright's subsequent houses until the end of his life, and shows an enriching and evolutionary path in
interior organization, relationship with the exterior, blending with the landscape, and in the manner and use of materials, while at the same time demonstrating an instance of "surprising inventions" in Wright's architecture, proportionate to each situation. Such plans were not common in Europe at that time; rather, the prevailing mode was the design of predominantly symmetrical and classical Beaux-Arts plans with an axial structure in terms of exterior view, movement inward, and circulation through space, except for a few innovative architects who sought to experiment in pursuit of new methods of rearrangement and movement in space, as well as new modes of perceiving and experiencing spaces, inside or outside the building. One should not overlook the fact that the architecture preceding Wright in America — that is, the common house-building of the nineteenth century — was distinct from Europe and was based on a kind of tradition relying on indeterminacy and freedom in plan organization, allowing for the expansion and even removal of parts of the house appropriate to the changing needs of subsequent generations, with each house designed to suit the specific needs of its user. This, in a way, contained within itself the concept of the free plan, to which he gave continuity and enrichment. The types of plans that Wright would later experiment with had previously taken shape in house-building experiences and many architects' plans, including the model of cruciform plans. Wright's design experiences are directed toward interior space, and his designs typically feature a unified space within, generally lit from above, with only the kitchen, servants' quarters, and rooms placed in separate cores. Perhaps this is the very origin of primitive human thought in constructing a room or architectural space, which Wright refers to as "interior space." Many of Wright's works are in reality one large room connected to complementary and supporting cores. The Robie House, the Larkin Building, the Johnson Wax Building, and even the Guggenheim Museum are full-length examples and mirrors of the idea of "interior space." As previously noted, most of these spaces receive light from upper windows or from the ceiling. Gradually, in Wright's other spatial experiments, especially in houses with natural landscapes, the building gains openness of view toward the exterior, and
Drawing of Friedrich Froebel's designed educational games with wooden volumes for children's education and entertainment in kindergarten - 1
Brick Country House, Mies van der Rohe, 1923 - 3. George Blossom House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago, Illinois, 1892 - 4
Drawing of symmetrical compositions in Friedrich Froebel's educational games for children - 2
the manner of spatial development outward is a special effort toward becoming one with the landscape. The term "organic architecture," which Wright never succeeded in articulating clearly in words, is truly discernible and comprehensible in his experiments and designs. If this expression were translated as "living architecture," it might illuminate for us a state of natural coexistence of space or architecture with the land, with the landscape, and the manner of employing natural materials in Wright's buildings. Furthermore, other terms have also been employed to explain the manner of delimiting and dividing space in Wright's works. One of these terms is the "woven plan," inspired by the spatial and interior experience in his works. This concept, which shows part of Wright's influence from Far Eastern architecture, refers to the manner of space formation amid a special layering of floor, ceiling, and their sliding, which is evident in many of Wright's horizontal works, including the Robie House. Robert McCarter, in the book Interior Space, provides diverse accounts in the interpretation of interior spaces in Wright's works — an architect who is truly the originator and developer of this fundamental and generative concept in modern architecture — parts of which I shall quote due to their importance: "Sociologist Gill Settler, in his book Frank Lloyd Wright's Living Space, argues that the always-separate viewpoints of sociology and architectural history have failed to recognize the fundamentally social structure of Wright's interior spaces. Wright understood that 'architecture is a living expression,' and Settler believes 'interior space — in which we live' is realized only in this manner: 'from an appropriate viewpoint rooted in the reality of life. Meaning to see and work from within, and not to adopt a position from outside and separated from shared experience.' He believes that in Wright's architecture 'this concept is embedded: that space is more than the physical. It is intensely and inherently social.' He expresses his understanding of 'Wright's living space' thus: 'What gives space life is an aspect of the building that exists only because people use it and experience it.' Settler argues that Wright's work is experienced as a place in which inhabitants are permitted to adopt their own position and determine their own direction: '"Interior space, in which life is lived." It takes us to a place where the greatest inclusion, interaction, and sociality become possible.' He reminds us: architecture is practically defined when it is related to people's needs and desires and their changing positions in space. Freedom and simultaneously a sense of shelter is what Wright truly strove to achieve and convey to the inhabitants of his buildings. In Settler's view, Wright's social and central concept in design is the transformation of spatial 'enclosure' into experiential 'shelter,' which, in his opinion, has a close relationship with
Wright's emphasis on the inherent horizontality of interior space: what was created was a place that accommodated unlimited possibilities of responding to needs — in which the limitations were determined by the inhabitants... In horizontal structures, solutions originate from the interaction and coexistence of differences. The solution is derived from a kind of interaction... and not from the imposition of one person's view. Settler placed unlimited possibilities and social interaction alongside the imposition of limitations and social hierarchies that are usually associated with vertical structures. The Larkin Building, a work from 1904, though an office building on multiple floors, is nonetheless composed of expansive and horizontal spaces of the kind Settler described: spaces that provide a sense of shelter and freedom of movement. The shared experience within the building was centered on a vertical atrium that, instead of imposing a hierarchical spatial and social structure, was employed in such a way that it allowed employees working on the spacious intermediate floors to overlook the managers who occupied the ground floor. The highest floor, which in a typical office building is usually assigned to managers, was given over to the employees' restaurant, where Wright designed dining tables with protrusions at their narrow ends, such that it was impossible for anyone — including the managers who ate in the same restaurant alongside the employees — to sit at the 'head' of the table. The precision with which Wright coordinated people's movements and interactions within his spaces — within the experiential encounters that the structure of interior space gave rise to and encouraged — is indicative of something that might be called erotic space, as architectural critic and historian Robin Evans defined it in his classic 1978 essay 'Figures, Doors, and Passages.' Evans begins his essay with a section titled 'The Map and Its Inhabitants,' and reminds us: if an architectural plan describes anything, it is the nature of human relationships, because the elements whose traces it records — walls, doors, windows, and stairs — are first employed to divide and then selectively to reunite the space of habitation. Evans proposes another reading of architectural history from the Renaissance onward as the evolution of methods by which the plan encourages and fosters encounter among inhabitants, or discourages and restricts it... Evans notes that, prior to the last two centuries, interconnected rooms in
Isidore Heller House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago, Illinois, 1897 - 5. Joseph W. Husser House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago, Illinois, 1899 - 6
buildings were always connected through multiple doorways, either in a labyrinthine entanglement like a patchwork covering, or in a line called an enfilade, in which rooms were strung together like beads on a thread. These plans, in which one had to pass through rooms to reach other rooms, all demonstrate 'an interest in group, proximity, and incident' on the part of the inhabitants — the interest in 'incident' being that very encounter with other inhabitants that Louis Kahn called 'unexpected encounters.' Evans notes how these plans 'displayed a physical attraction that had no cause other than people's desire to come closer.' The opposite of these interconnected rooms was the kind of floor plan that first appeared some 200 years ago, which employed a corridor so that each room opened onto it through a single door: it was no longer necessary to pass through the untamed and occupied territory of rooms, with all the diversions, incidents, and accidents they could harbor. Instead, each room delivered you to a network of pathways from which the adjacent room and the farthest end of the house were equally accessible. In other words, these corridors could bring distant rooms closer together, but only by separating them from those that were accessible... The corridor, by facilitating communication, reduced contact. According to Evans, the prototype of Alexander Klein's house from 1928, upon which Klein bestowed the name 'the functional house for frictionless living,' was the apex of this tendency, and he notes that in it 'the paths [of inhabitants] practically never intersect.' The domestic friction, the name Klein gave to his early modern prototype, 'implied that all chance encounters caused friction and were therefore a threat to the smooth operation of the domestic machine.' Following the later developments of those floor plans organized with corridors and single-door rooms, emphasizing functional separation and individual privacy, Evans concludes: 'The corridor plan is worthy of a society that finds physical desire distasteful, recognizes the body as a vessel for mind and spirit, and in which privacy is considered normal.' He contrasts this type of plan, about which he says it 'limits the horizon of experience,' with floor plans, both ancient and modern, whose characteristic is what might be called the familial relationship of interconnected rooms that are open to one another, and that welcome and give wings to chance encounters and embodied experiences: the matrix of interconnected rooms is worthy of a society that
gives wings to physical desire, that regards the body as the person, and in which sociality is normal. Although Evans found that the general tendency over the last two centuries has been the increasing dominance of the corridor plan, he is also aware of its opposite type — the floor plan that provides a place for encounter — as an example of the 'free plan' of Le Corbusier, the 'room plan' of Loos, and the 'woven plan' of Wright. In the Dana House, including the master bedroom, Wright builds no corridor, and for all rooms he builds more than one door, and opens all rooms to one another, such that to reach any room one must pass through other rooms. Evans considers this type of plan to belong to a kind of architecture that arises from a profound fascination that draws people toward one another; a kind of architecture that recognizes passion, physical desire, and sociality. The matrix of interconnected rooms is perhaps the inseparable manifestation of such buildings."
Interior Space: The Interior Experience Is the Origin of Architecture, Robert McCarter, translated by Reza Amirrahimi, Institute
See: Space, Time, and Architecture, Sigfried Giedion, translated by Manouchehr Mozayeni, Scientific and Cultural Publications - 6
McCarter, Robert. Interior Space: The Interior Experience Is the Origin of Architecture, translated by Reza Amirrahimi, Institute -
Giedion, Sigfried. Space, Time, and Architecture, translated by Manouchehr Mozayeni, Scientific and Cultural Publications, edition -
Ward Willits House, Highland Park, Frank Lloyd Wright, Illinois, 1902–1903 - 8. Robie House, site, Frank Lloyd Wright - 9
A. C. McAfee House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kenilworth, Illinois, 1894 - 7