Despite having always been interested in architecture, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright has pretty much escaped me. In fact, I thought his iconic (early 1900′s) prairie homes were a prime example of mid-century design.

Until I read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

Loving Frank is a historical novel about the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. The couple ran off to Europe together leaving both their families and a scandal in their wake.

I found Mamah’s character to be infinitely compelling. In her diary on August 20, 1907, Mamah wrote “I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.” Her words perfectly capture so many moments in my life.

The story of Frank and Mamah’s relationship, as well as her struggle to establish her own identity, were both powerful. But I was also struck by the vivid descriptions of Frank’s architecture littered throughout the book.

I don’t have the knowledge or authority to cover the work of Frank Lloyd Wright in one meager posting. But I have been reading more about prairie style architecture, and thought I’d share some of my findings from the book Understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture by Donald Hoffman, intertwined with the beautiful descriptions from Loving Frank.

‘Of course, the horizon isn’t a perfectly straight line, but I wasn’t out to imitate it, anyway. I wanted to abstract it in a way that expressed the essence of it. When I began stacking one horizontal plane on top of another — parallel to the prairie…– the homes I designed began to look and feel grounded, like they belonged in this place.’

- Frank in Loving Frank

Fredic C. Robie house in Chicago, Photo © Kenneth C. Zirkel / iStockphoto.com

There are a couple of signature elements associated with the prairie lands Wright attempted to abstract in his work, the low slung roof being one of them. Like how a prairie “extends horizontally without a tree in sight…”, the roof of Wright’s prairie home is similarly horizontal. He described the importance of the roof meant to survive “life in the Middle West (where) alternate extremes of heat and cold, of sun and storm, have also to be considered” (Hoffman)

When I first saw it, the Huertleys’ house looked like a heavy rectangular box to me. Once inside, though, I felt my lungs expand. It was all open space, with one room flowing into the next. Unpainted beams and woodwork the color of tree trunks gleamed softly, and the most glorious light poured through the green and red stained-glass windows. It felts sacred inside, like a woodland chapel.

- Mamah in Loving Frank

Huertley House (photo: dividendsky808's Flickr)

The continuous set of casement windows could protect interior space, and if pattered with geometric lines in leaded glass, could guard privacy as well. (Hoffman)

If you stood out on the front sidewalk, you wouldn’t be able to see into the house because of the wall. But from inside, up high, you’d have a fine prospect for viewing the world outside; in fact, you’d feel part of nature, because Frank Wright had designed the house around existing trees on the lot…

- Mamah describing the Cheney house in Loving Frank

Edwin Cheney house in Oak Park

What is described in the novel as a wall, is detailed as “an opened enlivened entablature that rested not on a column but directly on the grand table of the prairie” in Hoffman’s work.  Whereas it was common to place entablature above a window or a door, here Wright interpreted an element that he felt was “the common refuge of a growing impotence,” in a manner he could find pleasing.

This house — the word seemed somehow wrong — was like nothing else she had ever seen. It looked so modern, so architected. Yet it was harmonious with the hills, its overhanging roofs echoing the pitch of the ridge. Elevated and isolated, away from other houses and set into this great golden vista… She could picture how guests would walk through the entryway with the low ceiling that compressed down the space, making them feel a kind of tension. How they would suddenly, physically feel the tension lift and joy replace it as they entered he expansive living room with its wide-open vistas of sky and green land as far as the eye could see.

- description of Taliesin in Loving Frank

Frank Lloyd Wright built Taliesin for Mamah.  It stands today, surviving two fires at the property. The name means “shining brow.”

I can’t stop thinking about taking a pilgrimage to Wisconsin.