20th Anniversary Exhibition / The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100Frank Lloyd Wright and the WorldClosed

Wright developed his own theory of organic architecture that responds to different landscapes and climates to enrich people’s lives. His early prairie houses were inspired by prairies and indigenous plants that represented the American Midwest. The “Shining Brow,” or Taliesin in Wright’s ancestral language Welsh, was the name of his home and studio. His encounters with the varying landscape of Japan, with its mountains and waterfalls, as well as its native plants, also stimulated his creativity, later culminating in his masterpiece, Fallingwater. In this section, the Coonley House and the Robie House, both eminent examples of the prairie houses, are presented together with his works in Japan such as the Yamamura House (current Yodoko Guest House) and the Odawara Hotel Project. In addition, Taliesin West, his second settlement built in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, is showcased with its rare footage from the archive.

Wright built his own network with women activists who were striving for the reformation of domestic life and education. His early home and studio in Oak Park, outside Chicago, underwent additions and renovations to experiment in architecture, as well as to respond to the modernization of domestic life and working environments, which as a result included a drafting room and a playroom for early childhood education. Marion Mahony was a talented woman who played an important role in this studio as one of Wright’s early staff. Queene Coonley was his client, who adopted Wright’s architecture to establish Coonley Playhouse based on modern educational theories. During his stay in Japan for designing the Imperial Hotel, Wright also worked on Jiyu Gakuen School under the commission of Motoko Hani. This section displays materials such as the clerestory window used in Coonley Playhouse, and educational documents of Jiyu Gakuen School.

In response to the request by Aisaku Hayashi, General Manager, Wright designed the Imperial Hotel (construction period 1913-23) during his stays in Japan that spanned more than three years in total. This mega-project is presented through various materials ranging from drawings, photographs, and furniture, to terra cotta and Oya stone blocks that once constituted parts of the hotel. Furthermore, the drawings of Midway Gardens, a recreational facility in Chicago designed between 1913 and 1914 concurrently with the Imperial Hotel, are exhibited as a comparison. This section lets the visitors explore how Wright’s ideas that had been in gestation for years materialized through this commission of a lifetime, and how they foreshadowed new experiments that would surface later in his other works.

This section showcases Wright’s interest in concrete he embraced throughout his life, his search for universal building systems, and the houses that utilized the systems. Wright invented a unit system that was scalable, capable of evolving from small to large structures. His architectural idea of dynamic relationship between the whole and its parts was grounded in his childhood experience of Froebel wooden blocks. He also maintained a keen interest in materials, using local materials at the same time as focusing on plastic qualities of concrete, which culminated in large-scale buildings such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In this exhibition, the visitors are guided through his captivating drawings, ranging from the Millard House (La Miniatura), which used the textile block system, to its application to the design of the whole community, Doheny Ranch Development. In addition, the actual space can be experienced with a life-sized model of the Usonian House, which is a practical example of the unit system.

While Wright’s architectural design is featured by horizontal extensity as in the prairie houses and the Imperial Hotel, he also expressed an interest in vertical extensity of high-rise buildings from the early time of his career. He continued to work on skyscrapers through his career, pioneering novel engineering and structural techniques. For SC Johnson Administration Building, he invented the dendriform columns whose diameter started at the thinnest of 23 centimeters and spread out as it rose to support the ceiling, a design that was initially deemed unrealistic. For the Research Tower of the same complex, he used tap root structure, a concept developed after the basic structure of a tree, which freed the building of load-bearing interior partitions with its curtain wall facilitating ample natural illumination. He believed that integrating urban functions into high-rise buildings could restrain urban sprawl and bring richness to the natural environment and human life. The desk from the Larkin Company Administration Building and a chair from SC Johnson Administration Building are showcased to present the aesthetic of Wright’s office space design.

It was his encounters and interactions with diverse cultures that formed Wright. This section focuses on his interactions with creators outside the U.S. as well as his works that incorporated elements from multiple cultures. The Nakoma Country Club project brought together the culture of golf with various indigenous building practices. Masieri Memorial student library and residence project on the Grand Canal in Venice is also introduced, which was later realized in a different form by Carlo Scarpa, an Italian architect who was deeply influenced by Wright. His Plan for Greater Baghdad was a beautiful urban concept that rose from his encounters with Islamic culture. The exhibition concludes with a rendering animation by David Romero from Spain, which brings to life Wright’s Broadacre City, a radical reimagining of living and working across the countryside.