Ornamentation and the Organic Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright
Author(s): James M. Dennis and Lu B. Wenneker
Source: Art Journal , Autumn, 1965, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 2-14
Published by: CAA
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/774862
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James M. Dennis and Lu B. Wenneker
Ornamentation and the Organic Architecture
of Frank Lloyd Wright
In examining the architecture of Frank Lloyd
Wright it is only natural to concentrate on the three
dimensional, on the masterful articulation of solids and
voids. After all, as one of his early students put it,
Wright's main concern was obviously not mechanical delineation,
but "that immeasurably greater thing, the
large scale manipulation of spaces and masses into a vital,
intrinsic architecture."' With this observation in mind it
is not surprising to learn that much of the detailed drawing
and drafting was left to student-assistants. It is also
not unusual for those who analyze Wright's architecture
to become preoccupied with the dynamics of a plan or
elevation. To describe spatial continuity writers search
for adjectives suggesting constant movement: "hovering
roofs," "embracing rooms," "rhythmic patterns of sliding
lines and planes," and so on.
In spite of the movement inherent in Wright's architecture,
however, none of his buildings is extremely
mobile in spirit. They are in fact substantially monumental
in their earth-bound stability. Among the houses
the one possible exception, Falling Water, is securely
entrenched in its hillside and only the dramatic downslope
view, so often photographed, gives the impression
of cantilevered mobility. Thus, as a significant adjunct to
a balanced combination of mobility and monumentality,
an ornamental effect, including in the first half of his
career surface patterns, was of main concern to Wright. It
is to this comparatively neglected aspect of his work that
the following paragraphs are devoted.
Wright undoubtedly learned much about Sullivan's
notion of "organic ornament" during his years in the
offices of Adler and Sullivan. The importance of "living
structure" as a phrase in his discussions of architecture is
equivalent in emphasis to that which Sullivan places on
the term "growth" in explaining the organic principle. In
his Kindergarten Chats the older man points out the lack
of growth or change in the ornament of contemporaneous
architecture. One solution is to remove all ornament
momentarily in order to allow the "decayed" matter to
be forgotten. Then architects could start anew with a
fresh ornament of the times, for a building without any
ornament was as unthinkable to Sullivan as a summer
tree without leaves.2 In his Autobiography, Wright seems
to agree with this conclusion and goes so far as to state
the meaning of ornament as the "imagination giving
natural pattern to structure itself.'"' In order to be "natural"
a pattern must be as integrated to the structure as
spots are to a leopard, or a patterned shell is to
turtle. These are the identifying characteristics of na
In a similar way a building would not be fulfille
identifiable as an individual structure without its ornament,
something particularly suited to itself-its "natur
pattern."4
Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. suggests that there were a
least four main forces at work in Sullivan's personal ap
proach to ornamentation. The first was a "conventiona
ized botanical ornament" inspired by Frank Furness an
Christopher Dresser in the 1870's; the second, a "poetic
expression of structure" similar in approach to that of
Mackintosh or Gaudi; the third, Eastlake's "Queen
Anne" style; and the fourth, Symbolism, revealed mainly
in his literary reflection on architectural ornament.5 The
first two forces are of primary importance in establishing
the effect Sullivan had on Wright's invention of a personal
style of ornamentation.
Sullivan's ornament was usually either flower or
vinelike. At times it reminds one of the sinuous curves
of the Art Nouveau. Yet, if one compares the wrough
iron ornament in Horta's Rue de Turin with the Carson,
Pirie and Scott store front, one discovers that Sullivan's
relief panels are more integrally architectural. Sullivan
arrived at his forms by laying out geometric shapes, usually
circles and squares, which were elaborated and enlarged
with compass and rule until the desired complex
emerged. Although his approach was one of "mobile
geometry" and the forms used were mathematical, or
"inorganic," he believed that he could create "organic" or
"live" ornament by following "nature's method of liberat-
1 Barry Byrne, Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, XXII, No. 2 (May, 1963), 108-109. A book
review of The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright by
Arthur Drexler (New York: Horizon Press for the Museum
of Modern Art, 1962).
' Quoted in Hugh Morrison, Louis Sullivan, Prophet of
Modern Architecture (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,
Inc., 1935), p. 254.
"Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York:
Longmans, Green and Company, 1932), p. 142.
" Frank Lloyd Wright, A Testament (New York: Horizon
Press, 1957), p. 157.
rEdgar Kaufmann, Jr., ed., Louis Sullivan and the Architecture
of Free Enterprise (Chicago: The Art Institute of
Chicago, 1956), p. 15.
ART JOURNAL XXV 1 2
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ing energy."'6 He constantly refers to the opening seed,
not only as symbolic of growth, but as one form becoming
two, then four, eight, and on up, doubling as it goes.
Thus the term "organic" may intimate a process in
nature, with flowers, vines, and ferns remaining in the
abstract without being imitated in detail.
Wright also employed plant life abstractions in ornamentation,
but his methods of arriving at these forms
were to become quite different. Sullivan began with
simple geometric shapes, adding to them as he went
along until he arrived at a foliation. Under his employer's
guidance Wright followed this "synthetic" approach.
After a few years of independence, however, he
started to reverse the process by taking an actual flower
or fern, breaking it down into its component abstract
shapes, thereby arriving at a design composed of geometric
figures much like those with which Sullivan began.
Thus, Wright's system was to develop into an "analytical"
one. Both owed a debt to Christopher Dresser, the
nineteenth-century ornamentalist, who states: "If plants
are employed as ornaments they must not be treated imitatively,
but must be conventionally treated, or rendered
into ornaments."7 But, it was Wright who carried the last
phase of Dresser's admonition to its logical conclusion.
The second force suggested by Kaufmann, the
"poetic expression of structure," is expressed in Sullivan's
classification of his ornament as "integral," that is, evolving
out of the individual structure. Although Wright was
employed by Adler and Sullivan with a portfolio of
drawings containing historical architectural devices, he,
too, became disenchanted with the "surface ornament" of
his academic contemporaries. Late in his career he attacks
ancient architecture as a false "pilaster art" of applied
ornament and dismisses the classical entablature
as "carpentry work done in stone."8 As an antidote to
classicism, Sullivan's concept of "structural ornament"
was absorbed into Wright's artistic creed to such an extent
that it was to assume an importance beyond ornamentation
as such. As will be demonstrated, many of his
final designs are so much determined by the integration
of structure and ornamentation that they result in what
might be termed "ornament buildings."
Apart from influences directly attributable to Sullivan,
there was at least one more experience at the beginning
of Wright's independent career that left its mark
on his design methods. The Transportation Building had
been on the drawing board for some time when Wright
left Sullivan in 1893, thus he had had ample opportunity
to visit the grounds of the Columbian Exposition. Most
of what he saw there disgusted him, but he was favorably
impressed with the Japanese exhibits, especially the Tea
House and the Ho-o-Den.9 Although steadfast to the end
in denying any oriental influence, he finally conceded in
his Autobiography that Japanese architecture "really did
have organic character.'"'10 The East Indian Building,
with its round arch and square frieze resembling the
facade of Sullivan's Transportation Building, also must
have been of interest. Finally, the Turkish Building, a
copy of the famous fountain in Constantinople, the
Hunkhar Casque, had little ornament; but, the strong
simple lines of its clerestory windows and its heavy overhanging
roof anticipated the Prairie Houses."
A much earlier source of long-lasting inspiration for
architectural design and decoration was Wright's childhood
encounter with the Froebel Kindergarten methods.
He and his mother discovered the Froebel "Gifts" and
"Occupations" at the Centennial Fair in Philade
Seventy-five years later Wright still praised them
"basis for design and the elementary geometry be
all natural birth of form."12 The "Gifts" consisted of a
series of geometric forms, including spheres, cubes, a
cylinders. These were divided and subdivided into
alogous forms and arranged in complex patterns. T
"Occupations" were more intricately comprised of pap
sticks, thread, yarn, and cloth.13 Of all these material
set of combined glazed and matte paper strips seemed
remain in Wright's memory more vividly than any oth
The object was to weave them into "colorful check
ings," a scheme to which Wright returns for such orn
mental accessories as theater curtains, screens, and
carpeting.14
In the long run, however, the more substantial wood
"Gifts" were of greatest significance. Wright reminisces
about them in his Testament, describing the blocks of
maple that were moved about a table top ruled with a
grid of four-inch squares. He even assigns the square,
circle, and triangle with qualities of integrity, infinity,
and aspiration, in that order.'5 As for the table-top grid,
it is easily likened to an engineer's graph paper, or the
Louis Sullivan, A System of Architectural Ornament
(New York: Press of the American Institute of Architects,
Inc., 1924), Plate 2.
' Christopher Dresser, Principles of Decorative Design
(London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., no date), p. 24.
8 Wright, Testament, pp. 133-134.
SJames Marston Fitch, "Frank Lloyd Wright's War On
the Fine Arts," Horizon, III, No. 1 (September, 1960)
127.
'o Wright, Autobiography, p. 194.
11 See 1. B. Campbell, Campbell's Illustrated History of
the World's Columbian Exposition, Vol. II (Philadelphia,
1894), p. 417.
12 Wright, Testament, p. 19.
" Evelyn M. Lawrence, Friedrich Froebel and English
Education (London: University of London Press, 1952)
pp. 238-239.
14 See Frank Lloyd Wright, Drawings For a Living Architecture
(New York: Horizon Press, 1959), pp. 160-161.
" Wright, Testament, p. 19.
3 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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..........
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Fig. 1. Larkin Company Administration Building, Buffalo, N.Y. 1904.
modular sheets used by Wright for drawing his plans. Of
more importance here, however, is the use he made of
the Froebel "Gifts" for creating architectural ornamentation.
They are a key to the low-relief patterns on several
major buildings, including the Coonley House and the
Midway Gardens. Furthermore, they remain a basis for
the last of Wright's increasingly ornamental ground
plans.
In discussing Wright as an ornamentalist, it is convenient
to deal with his works in three major periods:
the early buildings in which ornament remains applied
or at least oriented to a surface, a brief middle period in
which the ornament becomes more of a structural
module, and then the late designs in which a total structure
is often conceived as a full-scaled ornament in its
own right. The first of the three periods begins in the
late 1890's and lasts until approximately 1920, the second
extends into the late 1920's, and the third emerges by the
early 1930's to remain until Wright's death.
EARLY PERIOD
In 1893 Wright left Adler and Sullivan in order to
develop independently, but this intention is only gradually
revealed in the ornamentation of his early residential
architecture. For example, the second story frieze
on the W. H. Winslow House built in River Forest,
Illinois in 1893 combines geometric forms with foliation
in the Sullivan manner. Delicate foliage is set into a
latticework of diamond shapes with little relationship
to the heavy blockish masses of the hip roofed house.
However, the band of textured terra-cotta covers the full
height of the slightly projected story and is thus integrated
in general with the total structure. The ornamental
texture also helps to relieve an otherwise cartonlike
appearance, and its intricate pattern tends to soften
..... .. ...
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Fig. 2. Larkin Company Administration Building, Buffalo, N.Y. 1904. Fourth Floor View.
the meeting of the walls with the heavy horizontal of the
overhanging eaves. The repetition of a similar pattern
inside the house, for instance the decorative spandrels of
the reception hall arcade, is also a Sullivan trait. In short,
Wright had yet to assert his own imagination completely.
Sullivanesque ornamentation remained stock-intrade
for him throughout the 1890's. The austere brick
exterior of the Francis Apartments, constructed in Chicago
soon after the Winslow House, was relieved in that
idiom by an ornate cornice and a basement-course. For
the latter Wright borrowed the familiar interlocking
rings of stylized foliation, sending them around the two
wings as five friezes. Even the iron gates at the entrance
to the court were obviously based on Sullivan's motives.
This same dependence is witnessed in the two major
residences of the late nineties, the Isidor Heller House of
1897 and the Joseph W. Husser House of 1899. Both were
complicated designs, including big bays, projecting eaves,
pronounced string courses, and Romanesque arcades for
windows and loggias. The sprawling plans and heavy
horizontals anticipated the later low-lying Prairie Houses.
But wide friezes in decorative relief were retained
around the upper story of each.
The eaves of the Heller House also sheltered nude
figures executed under Wright's supervision by R
Bock, a local sculptor who was to provide reli
free standing figures for the young architect for a
fifteen years. The first collaboration had taken p
1895 when Wright set up shop for himself and
helped him dramatize the entrance portal of th
Park studio with terra-cotta and stone. Heavy ped
ART JOURNAL XXV 1 4
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..............
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awl:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.................
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Fig. 3. Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, III. 1903. French Doors.
were attached to its corners for no other apparent reason
than to elevate two crouching male nudes, resembling
atlantes. The four square piers of the entrance way must
have been decorated by both men. Each side was faced
with terra-cotta foliage from the files of Sullivan and
uninscribed scrolls were flanked by whimsical water
birds standing at attention in high relief.
From the preliminary drawings to its completion, the
Larkin Building of 1904 called for decorative sculpture,
both freestanding and relief. At first the latter was automatically
conceived as Sullivanesque, but by the time of
construction the amount of applied ornamentation was
considerably reduced, and stylized foliation was eliminated
altogether. Carved relief panels were used on the
piers of the top-floor loggias while square plaques were
incised with pairs of heroic, allegorical figures for the
bases of the two corner stair-towers. The most pronounced
sculpture, however, was placed on top of the
paired buttresses at either end of the building (Fig. 1). A
Bock-designed group, consisting of a large globe supported
by two nude figures, was duplicated in stone for
each. Directly beneath the sculpture Wright built an
architectural motive of five louvered strips held between
string courses and drawn together on the sides by wide
vertical bands.
Of Wright's ornamentation inside the Larkin Building
the most advanced was reserved for the top of the
brick piers rising uninterrupted from the floor of the
large central well (Fig. 2). This height corresponded with
the fourth, or last, balcony which was designed as a
restaurant beneath a skylight, thus encouraging elaboration.
In this case, however, real vines and ferns were
actually grown in planting boxes for foliage while the
applied ornamentation became strictly geometric. Six
uniform bands were worked out as an intricate play of
blocks. These included small vertical rectangles arranged
in rows above and below a horizontal axis which was
punctuated at either end by still another block in
relief. The idea for such a design might very we
been suggested to Wright by his boyhood experien
the Froebel "Gifts." This could also be claimed for the
spherical glass lamps hung in open rectilinear bracke
on each side of the corner piers.
The ornamentation of the balcony restaurant as w
as the exterior form of the Larkin Building as a who
anticipated the Unity Church which was begun durin
the same year. The auditorium and parish house interi
of the Oak Park structure share rectilinear borders and
bands illuminated by a skylight and glass globes. W
reinforced concrete permitted cantilevered cornices
replace classical molding, the new material resulted i
exterior wall surface that is much harsher than the uniform
pattern of brick. Something was needed to enlive
an inert building-block appearance and in order to com
plement the overall design Wright once again produced
a geometric ornament instead of literal foliation. H
capped the piers of the clerestory with a plain vertica
strip that starts in the middle of each, ending on top i
a design of alternating indented and projected panelin
As in the decorative blocks of the Larkin Building balcony,
a long central axis is flanked by small oblongs a
tached to the center strip by tiny stems. The notion of
plant, however, is now a matter of inference. That is,
Wright has adopted a means of abstracting nature into
geometric ornaments as opposed to the nature-bound ap
proach continued by Sullivan.
The decorative casement windows of the Unity
Church clerestory are also strictly geometric in pattern.
They consist of vertical and horizontal panels concentrated
along the top half as a sequence of clear and
opaque rectangles. This kind of paneling was not new
for Wright, since leaded windows had already become
an outlet for ornamentation in his residential architecture
at the turn of the century. As a consequence
view from inside a Prairie House was often interrupt
by casement designs that were extremely intricate an
sometimes more distracting as surfaces than the terr
cotta reliefs of the late nineties (Fig. 3). For examp
in 1903, the lavish interior decoration for the Dana
House in Springfield, Illinois included the most elaborate
designs of paneled glazing that Wright ever used. The
sumac motives in the dining hall and the breakfast alcove
demanded so much leading that the windows as clear
5 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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rii~iiiiii ii i i......
Fig. 4. Avery Coonley House, Riverside, III. 1908. Terrace.
openings were sacrificed to a prismatic translucence.16
A work that ranks with the Dana House in its
ornamental elaboration is the Avery Coonley House of
1908 in Riverside, Illinois. The obtuse angles of the
Dana House casements now appear as a decorative arrangement
of open beams on the dining room ceiling.
Otherwise, the geometric ornamentation of the Coonley
House is held to the rectilinear. This is witnessed on the
second floor exterior where large patterned areas alternate
with smooth stuccoed surfaces and fenestration. A
tulip served as a point of departure for the motive duplicated
from wing to wing (Fig. 4). The flower is actually
generalized beyond identification, becoming instead a
purely mathematical reflection of the basic forms of the
house (Fig. 5). Four pink squares represent the blossom
while a vertical row of much smaller white squares projects
as a segmented stem flanked by two white horizontal
rectangles suggesting leaves. The "tulips" are drawn together
by incisures in the stucco representing the roots of
each plant. Here again an "analytical" process of
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...........
INS
............
.......................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............
Fig. 5. Drawing for exterior wall decoration of Avery
Coonley House, Riverside, Ill. 1908.
starting with actual plant forms and abstracting them
into geometric components was applied. These components
were also separated from their original abstraction
and seemingly scattered throughout the house on French
doors, casement windows, skylights, rugs and even into
the garden as a formal ground plan. Such profusion alone
gives the structure and its setting a sense of unity and
coherence as an architectural composition. Furthermore,
by allowing its placement to be determined by the planes,
projections, and indentations of the building, ornamentation
looses much of its earlier applied appearance and
is consequently strengthened as an integral part of the
house. The pergola on the garden facade demonstrates in
a modest manner this changing role for an ornament.
The wooden beam ends of the later addition are covered
by bronze caps of indented rectangles. Each reflects the
rectangular complex as a whole in addition to punctuating
the profile of an individual beam.
Profusion and punctuation remain characteristics of
the multiple ornamentation lavished by Wright on his
two major structures of the teens. The first, the Midway
Gardens, was intended to be a collection of architectural
novelties conducive to band music, sauerkraut, and
beer. The second, the Imperial Hotel, was engineered
a novel structure with equally unique materials encrus
upon its surface as applied decoration. As with those
the Larkin Building and the Unity Church, most of
Midway Gardens's ornaments were purely geomet
Along with brick the building was constructed of gr
ART JOURNAL XXV 7 6
"For additional examples see the window panes of the
Harley Bradley House, constructed in Kankakee, Illinois
in 1900. They were designed with double diagonals
to match the roof lines of the overhanging eaves. A year
later windows in the Ward W. Willets House of Highland
Park were bordered with a rectilinear pattern of
slender glass strips. Immediately following the Dana
House, casement windows were repeated in the Darwin
D. Martin residence, constructed in Buffalo in 1904. In
this house, however, leaded glass could hardly hold its
own as a decorative attraction with the other built-in
appointments. Much more eye-catching were the florid
Art Nouveau mosaics of wisteria blossoms on the chimney
breast of the main fireplace.
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. . .. ........
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. . . . . . . . . . . . .... ........ ... . ... ..
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Fig. 6. Midway Gardens, Chicago, Ill. 1914.
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Fig. 7. Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan. 1922.
quantities of patterned concrete blocks, especially on
the upper levels. Four large towers, called "welcoming
features" by Wright, dominated the central pavilion of
the restaurant (Fig. 6). Projecting from them, rectangular
slabs of masonry edged in decorative concrete were condensations
of the Gardens as a whole in their shape,
scale, and direction. Trellises for vines and flowers, accompanied
by "electric needles," tall poles perforated
with light bulbs, rose up from the top of each tower.
Most of these devices had been anticipated by Wright as
early as 1895 in the Wolf Lake Amusement Park Project,
and now were to have an ephemeral existence of ten
years.
In addition to the fanciful towers, two flanking roof
terraces transformed the restaurant into a cantilevered
adventure. Inside these clusters of soaring rectangles
Wright emphasized the circle and the sphere. A mural
decoration in the Tavern Room was composed entirely
of overlapping and intersecting circles, similar to
Kandinsky's painting of the 1920's. Bunches of different
sized colored globes served as interior light fixtures, while
the furniture and linen, both Wright-designed, we
patterned with circles as well as with triangles an
squares. Returning outside, the crowning touch wo
have been giant balloons attached to the "welcom
features" and "electric needles."
Sculpture was used more generously in the for
freestanding ornaments for the Midway Gardens t
in any other structure by Wright. Designed from s
of a nude model, the famous female figures were f
extremely stylized, with only the head remaining g
ally naturalistic. Wright referred to them as h
figures encased in "geometric shells."'17 From the
down they were essentially rectangular posts, but
cubistic facets carved in angular relationships. Ther
a revealing similarity in their bowed heads and sq
off generalization to a series of figures at the Vienn
Exhibit of 1908.18 In fact, the central figure over
main entrance of the Exhibition Building, a drape
hooded female, could have been seen by Wright du
his trip to Europe in 1910-1911.
Because of their Japanese look, the female figur
the Midway Gardens could just as well have bee
corporated into the scheme of ornament employed
Imperial Hotel. However, at that point the human f
was eliminated forever from Wright's ornamentatio
this is dramatized in the abstract lava sculpture tha
looks his garden courts in Tokyo (Fig. 7). Cube
spheres rise up in stacks that are clustered togeth
finials along terrace balustrades. Larger spheres, q
tered by penetrating slabs of lava on the vertic
embraced horizontally by still another projecting w
are installed among the shrubs and above the refl
pools.19
More conventional forms and locations were chosen
for ornamentation on and in the hotel building proper
Although the material is lava; cornices, coins, strin
courses, and moldings retain a generally academic appea
ance. Upon close inspection, however, the initial im
pression of classicism is overcome by the intricate syncopation
of various interlocking shapes. The greatest elabora
tion of all is concentrated in the ballroom where the
trusses are covered with complex patterns in color.
as part of a peculiar arch-order, eight low-relief pan
lava, carved as geometricized peacocks, are distri
around the walls of this large central room. Throug
the ornament lies primarily upon the surface
"' Wright, Autobiography, p. 183.
18 For photographs of the figures in Vienna see thos
companying article by Josef August Lux, "The Vie
Art Exhibit-1908," Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration,
XXIII (1908-1909), 33 and 58.
1 There is some semblance of a human figure remaining
in the decorative, freestanding posts along a reflecting
pool in front of the "Emperor's Entrance." Each is topped
with a highly geometricized head.
7 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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.......... .....
............ .
..... ......................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.. ............
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... .. ... ..
....... .....
Fig. 8. A. D. German Warehouse, Richland Center, Wisconsin.
Detail of exterior wall. 1915.
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7T.,
P, 7
... . .. ...
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fig. 9. Hollyhock House, Olive Hill, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif. 1920.
addition to the structure, rather than functioning as an
organic determinant to the whole. In other words, while
decorative devices complement each other and even reflect
the basic character of the building, they remain,
upon final analysis, applied. For this reason the Imperial
Hotel may be considered a culmination of Wright's early
approach to ornamentation generated by Sullivan in the
1890's.
MIDDLE PERIOD
A further advance in the integration of ornament
with structure was underway in Wright's architecture
while the Imperial Hotel was under construction. The
move forward was instrumented by molded concrete,
already heralded in the patterned blocks crowning the
A. D. German Warehouse in Richland Center, Wisconsin
(Fig. 8). There, instead of remaining a flat
uniform pattern, similar to the upper exterior walls of
the Midway Gardens, the concrete blocks project forth in
registers of relief to become the most pronounced factor
of a building that is otherwise relatively commonplace.
Nevertheless, they correspond to Wright's definition of
integral ornament: a "third mathematical element" used
for modifying or emphasizing the straight line and the
flat plane "to allow suggestion, proper scope, and appropriate
rhythms to enter.'"20
Such dynamic integration of ornament over a
against structure is fully demonstrated in the concr
Hollyhock House, completed for Aline Barnsdall of L
Angeles in 1920, (Fig. 9). Although similar in pattern
the abstract ornaments used by Wright in the Lar
Building and for the piers of the Unity Church clerestory
the highly geometricized hollyhocks are arranged in
almost freestanding row along the cornice line, or th
are scattered as finials above the roof line. In either
location they exist without seriously disrupting the lo
unbroken contours of the temple-like structure, nor
they disturb the overall smoothness of its broad exter
surfaces. In any case surface patterning in bands
textured terra-cotta, stucco panels, or wall-bound bloc
have vanished in favor of an energetic fringe of thr
dimensional devices.
In spite of this delicate touch of ornament, pour
concrete is not easily associated with domestic ar
tecture and Wright returned to the building bloc
a basis for the textile, concrete-slab houses constructe
around Los Angeles in 1923 and 1924. Not only w
the block now molded and perforated into a variety
geometric patterns from house to house, but it also
came a modular factor in the devising of ground pla
and elevations for each. The Millard House is compos
primarily from one ornamental block which, when du
cated throughout, creates an overall impression of g
metricized foliation (Fig. 10). Indeed, Wright speaks o
as being "textured like the trees." The blocks, he say
would make the building "a kind of tree itself stand
at home among the other trees of its own native lan
From a distance the pattern looks flat, but a clos
view reveals a complex of rectangles that are built u
layers to project from a lower surface of deep inden
tions (Fig. 11). Highlights and shadows alterna
outline and soften the rectilinearity of a full sectio
the design.
Following the Millard House, the handful of text
concrete-slab structures designed by Wright as Calif
homes retain a modular application of mass-prod
blocks.22 However, the patterned concrete section
the later examples are combined with plain unmo
surfaces that function visually as a smooth ground
the highly textured areas. In final form the conc
block house was deprived of molded textures entire
Thus, the austerity of plain concrete returned to qua
the domesticity of the Richard Lloyd Jones Hous
Tulsa, Oklahoma. In this example, erected in 1929,
only decorativeness involved is that managing to eme
from the abrupt alternation of vertical openings
2o Wright, Autobiography, pp. 227-228.
21 Ibid., p. 241.
" See the Storer, Ennis, and Freeman Houses illustrat
in Henry-Russell Hitchcock, In the Nature of Mater
(New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942), Figs.
262.
ART JOURNAL XXV 1 8
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Am
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Fig. 10. La Miniatura, Mrs. George Madison Millard House, Pasadena, Calif. 1923.
uniform upright pillars, uncapped by a cornice. If by the
phrase, "imagination giving natural pattern to structure
itself," Wright considered ornamentation to be a surface
addition or even a structural adjunct, the Jones House
would be disqualified as ornamental architecture. At any
rate, it marks the end of a short-lived phase of ornamentation
in which a decorative block functioned as a
module throughout a rectangular structure. From the
Jones House on, the ornamental in Wright's buildings
became increasingly pure architecture. That is, an element
of decoration was achieved, but through the manipulation
of spaces and masses without the aid of surface
additions, inside or out.
LATE PERIOD
The word ornament is commonly defined as "a part
that contributes to the beauty or elegance of a thing,
an embellishment." Accordingly, a building, if it is to
be an ornament, must embellish its site. But this notion
tends to shift the emphasis over to the site as a dominant
whole rather than allowing it to remain specifically on
the building. What is more, the very definition of "organic
architecture" ultimately demands a total unity
between the two. A typical Wright ground plan during
the last thirty years of his career reveals that much care
and attention was given to the planning and rendering
of a site in conjunction with a structure. In fact, the two
are often so integrated that it is difficult to determine in
reading the plan just where a house ends and a patio
or garden begins.
In elevation as well as plan a house or a public building
by Wright might well become extremely fanciful in
form, with spirals, hemispheres, and hexagons as its main
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Fig. 11. La Miniatura, Mrs. George M. Millard House, Pasadena, Calif. 1923.
Detail of exterior.
geometric components. The immediate surroundings
the meantime become absorbed into the design a
completely controlled site. In reverse of the topograph
organicism basic to the Prairie Houses, in which t
structural form was largely determined by the regio
landscape, the relationship between structure and sett
in Wright's late works develops into what might
called an ornamental organicism. Large or small, alon
or in a group, a structure opens out with a decorativ
force that implicates its immediate surroundings as p
of an overall design. Furthermore, the large buildings
longer turn inward with elaborate courts shut off fro
the outside by plain solid walls.
The ornament-building began to take definite form
during the twenties in the "teepee" designs for the La
Tahoe Summer Colony and the Nakoma Country C
projects. But, as already suggested, the key year in t
new development seems to have been 1929, a yea
strengthened in that respect by the St. Mark's Tow
project (Fig. 12). This New York apartment tower w
not to be simply rectangular in plan but a virtual pin
wheel "rotating" clockwise. Such an ornamental sensat
resulted from an ingenious arrangement of split-leve
apartments around a central core containing the elev
9 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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MIMIi
UNIDOiii
Fig. 12. St. Marks Tower, Project, 1929.
tors, ducts, plumbing lines, and other utilities. Contributing
to the appearance of a self-assertive ornament, broad
curtains of paneled glass were designated to cage the
apartment wings, except for their very tips which were
allowed to break through as concrete balconies. These
polygonal projections established an horizontality continued
by the concrete floor slabs all the way around the
building. This action helped to check the strong vertical
emphasis established by the continuous linear frames
holding the glass in place.
Almost identical towers were clustered together as
an apartment complex projected for Chicago in 1930,
only to be repeated for the Crystal Heights Hotel Towers
project in Washington, D. C. ten years later. But it was
not until the early fifties that H. C. Price provided
Wright the opportunity to erect a modified version of
the tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Wright
contemplated much more elaborate high-rise ornaments
in the upward expanding multiple towers on top of the
projected Rogers Lacy Hotel for Dallas in 1946, and
"The Golden Beacon" for Chicago in 1956. Finally, the
imposing mile-high skyscraper, a contradiction to
Wright's earlier theme of urban decentralization, was
proposed to rise up as a jagged needle to command the
Chicago Lakefront and take in the entire Loop as its site
(Fig. 13).23
r ,
!ii
I;
Fig. 13. Drawing for Mile-High
Skyscraper Project, The Illinois,"
Chicago, III. 1956.
ART JOURNAL XXV 1 10
" The mile-high skyscraper design was anticipated as early
as 1903, in a work of sculpture by Richard Bock. For
the vestibule of the Dana House in Springfield, Illinois he
modeled a nude female figure constructing what appears
to be a model for a decorative tower. The similarity
between this small-scaled tower and the "Illinois Building"
Project seems too close to be completely coincidental.
For a photograph of the terracotta figure in the Dana
House vestibule see C. R. Ashbee, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Ausgeffihrte Bauten (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1911), p. 5.
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Yjiip.
Fig. 14. S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., Administration Building, Racine, Wis. 1936-39.
The Research Laboratory Tower erected in 1947 for
S. C. Johnson and Son in Racine, Wisconsin is more
modest than those towers merely projected. But it must
be kept in mind that it was designed to complement the
Administration Building completed ten years earlier. Altogether,
the brick and glass complex stands as an ornament-building,
in that its decorativeness and functional
form are integrated as one and the same. The Johnson
Administration Building is composed of sweeping curves
which wrap loosely around the first story, pull in and
tighten about the upper stories, and culminate in the
two circular "nostrils" on top of the building (Fig. 14).
A use of contrasting materials, brick and glass tubing, is
as important as the dynamics of motion in establishing
this building as an ornament. At night continuous lighting
causes the glass tubing to glow like luminous icing
on a many-layered cake. In the Midway Gardens the
lighting had been "applied" in much the same way as
its sculptural ornament. Clusters of globes were hung
throughout the interior for decorative purposes as well
as for light. The "electric needles," with their bare
bulbs, penetrated the night sky like so many Christmas
tree ornaments. As such the lighting attracted attention
to itself more than to the building it illuminated. In
contrast, the lighting of the Johnson Building is carefully
integrated within the architectural form. The glass
tubing carrying the light follows the shell-like spiral of
the building, emphasizing and enhancing its ornamental
quality.
More elaborate ornament-buildings were erected in
the 1940's and 1950's, some of them spiral in form. The
spiral shell as a full-scale structural motive in Wright's
architecture can actually be traced back to 1925 where it
appears in the initial sketches for the proposed Gordon
Strong Automobile Objective and Planetarium.24 This
! iiiiiili.............
Fig. 15. Drawing for Solom
peculiar building
Loaf Mountain,
established Autom
finally resembled
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have been elimin
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eliminated in the
was able to comp
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label "ziggurat,"
age of structural
of Babel could be
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disappeared with
ramps and the fi
flat dome. The gr
curved concrete
structure with a
Administration B
The interior of the museum is more ornate as a
structure than the smooth surfaced exterior. From
the balustrades of the descending ramps have a sli
undulating effect resulting from the one convexity ne
sitated by building struts and other internal necess
The dome is a lacy spider web of glass. Six para
arches intrude a central hexagon surrounding a bull
circle in the middle. The panes of thinly framed gla
fairly large throughout and mainly trapezoidal in s
" See Arthur Drexler, The Drawings of Frank Lloyd
Wright (New York: Horizon Press, 1962), Plates 106 and
107.
11 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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.................
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Fig. 16. David Wright House, Phoenix, Arizona. 1952.
The dome, in fact, consists of the only details in the
building that might be approached as applied decoration.
Outside, the Guggenheim Museum looks like a colossal
version of the capitals in the Johnson Wax Building
entrance and office. In general, this effect is as sculptural
as a de Stijl plaster construction and from that point of
view it gives the impression of being an overscaled
museum piece, enlarged far beyond the dimensions of its
original pedestal. Situated on a city sidewalk, however,
it does not shut out the passerby but opens up to channel
him into its spiral shell.
An audacious accommodation for automobiles was
contemplated as a comprehensive community center projected
for Point Park, Pittsburgh, in 1947. Including
everything from governmental offices to the standard
municipal entertainment facilities, it presented a problem
in traffic and the spiral was sought as a solution.
Fed by two bridges plus the river roadways and a main
downtown thoroughfare, a ramp, supported by inward
leaning piers, was designed to wind its way ten times
to the top. Covering the entire triangular area from river
to river the huge centripetal structure was to be topped
with a fountain, punctuated by a fanciful tower, and
accompanied by a circular boat pavilion at the very point
where the rivers join. If constructed, the Community
Center with its bridges would have been attached to the
so-called "Golden Triangle" of Pittsburgh as an ornamental
clasp drawing the main sections of the waterdivided
city together.
On a modest scale Wright incorporated the spiral
for the interior of the V. C. Morris Gift Shop of San
Francisco in 1949, and three years later repeated it as a
basic form for the David Wright house in Phoenix, Arizona
(Fig. 16). Once again, concrete block was used for
most of the house with mahogany built in as trellises,
window frames, ceilings, and furniture. Outside walls
are plain, rough-textured concrete except for an ornamental
band of blocks that begins with the entrance
ramp, encircles the bottom of the cantilevered house, and
winds along an upper ramp leading to a roof garden.
The pattern of the band is comprised of half circles that
MTV*
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Fig. 17. Drawing for Ralph Jester House, Project, Palos Verdes, Calif. 1938.
curve into interlocking relief. This produces an inverted
likeness of the opening seed favored by Louis Sullivan as
an ornamental motive. In this case, however, the seed
pattern is utilitarian in that its projections are drip
points from which water runs off, helping to prevent
weather stain. Although a slight return to applied ornamentation,
the utility of the border adds a reason for its
being. By no means does it distract from the overall unity
of the structure. An initial glance may suggest the
ancient egg and dart, but closer inspection reveals no
connection with the classical. The egg and dart along
a lintel halts the eye and helps it adjust from a vertical
to a horizontal. The "seed" patterned border is so much
a part of the circular scheme that the eye accepts it as a
small scaled repetition of the building's basic shape. The
circle appears throughout the plan as a pattern for a
sidewalk, a rug, a pool, and a utility stack. The border
simply contributes to the variation of this geometric
theme.
In contrast to other structural motives employed by
Wright in his late ornament-buildings the spiral is rather
subdued in effect. A much more daring extension of
reinforced concrete is the shallow bowl which at times
becomes a flying saucer motive. It was first projected in
1947 for a somewhat bizarre building, the Huntington
Hartford Play Resort planned for a site in Hollywood
Hills, California. This would have been an elaborate
ornament crowning a hill in trefoil formation with
saucers hovering above a climbing series of three large
bowls which were to be used for parking, tennis, and
swimming respectively. On top, another saucer, sheltered
by a flat dome, was to perch near the peak of a pyramidal
structure to which all the bowls and saucers were to be
attached. As in the case of so many of Wright's elaborate
conceptions, the saucer theme was brought out of the
clouds when finally incorporated into a completed buildART
JOURNAL XXV 1 12
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. ... . ...lliiiiii~lliiiliiiiiiii
....... . .....i~~iii~iii~iiiiiiiii...............................iiiiiiiiiii
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Fig. 18. Drawing for Tavern Room mural, Midway Gardens, Chicago, III. 1913.
ing. The Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
thus consists of one disc covered by another. These
are then connected by a border of arches and supported
by gracefully curved piers that cross in the center as an
open vault on the ground level.
An older structural motive in Wright's quest for the
ornament-building is the polygonal tent. It first appeared
as an appropriate idea for the Lake Tahoe and Nakoma
Country Club projects in the mid-twenties. Then the
tent was greatly enlarged to become a proposed Steel
Cathedral conceived for a New York City site in 1926.
This fantastic device was to include what were termed
"minor Cathedrals" and was meant to accommodate a
congregation of a million people. When finally constructed
in 1959, as the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins
Park, Pennsylvania, Wright's steel and glass tent was
diminished and altered until it suggests Noah's Ark, if
not Mount Sinai. This image succeeded the implication
of a boat in the "prow" of the Unitarian Church constructed
in Madison, Wisconsin in 1947.
CULMINATION
The last large dream projects of Wright's long career
became increasingly incredible as large-scale ornaments
spread out upon the landscape. The Arizona State Capital
"Oasis," for example, was projected as an hexagonal
pyramid with a glassed-in honeycomb roof and a matching
segmented spire. Equally exotic is the plan for
greater Baghdad laid out in 1957, the same year as the
Tucson project. Similar to the Pittsburgh Point project
in that the site is bound by rivers, the adjoining university
and opera house complexes are also circular. Spiral
roadways wind around each and the buildings enclosed
consist of domes, discs, and decorative spires. A similar
kind of site absorption with interlaced roads, domes, and
arcaded buildings that bridge three hills is being
achieved in the Marin County Civic Center in Cali-
fornia.
That much of Wright's final architecture is characterized
by an ornamental organicism in opposition to
his early topographical designs is further demonstrated
in his late ground plans. While in most domestic architecture
the shapes of a house and its loggia, garden, pool,
or planted areas evolve as practical parts of the plan,
they could be applied as positive determinants to the
composition in the abstract. In Wright's ornament-buildings
they do become clearly pronounced squares, circles,
and triangles carefully composed in the spirit of the
Froebel "Gifts." Thus, ground plans are consciously composed
as decorative patterns as well as functional divisions
of space. In fact, some of the most important plans
of the last thirty years bear an amazing resemblance to
certain geometric wall panels from the first half of
Wright's career. Comparisons suggest that he may even
have used examples of such early ornamentation in laying
out some of his last ground plans.
This association is witnessed in the original plan for
the projected Ralph Jester House of Palos Verdes, California
in 1938 (Fig. 17). Placed on a lightly drawn grid
of squares, the major portions of three large concentric
circles indicate terraces. From a common center a segment
of a still smaller circle describes a planting bed.
The main portion of the house proper forms a secant
which cuts across the circle slightly above its center.
Interrupting the three outer terrace circles is the lounge,
also a circle with the same radius as that of the planting
bed. Three scattered circles for dining, sleeping, and servants
quarters are the next smaller in size, while clustered
to them are even smaller circles for cooking and bathing
All are joined together by rows of round shapes indicating
piers placed along a right angle of roof squares. The
whole geometric pattern may have lead to the statement
by A. Hyatt Mayor that "Wright's drawings catch and
hold one by their acrobatic geometry. 25
The decorativeness of the Jester House plan is easily
emphasized by comparing it with a preparatory study
for the Tavern Room mural in the Midway Gardens
(Fig. 18). A similar design was used for the final version
and could well have inspired the ground plan of the
late thirties, if only indirectly, as a decorative device
lodged in the architect's memory. Both schemes are composed
of various sized circles which overlap and intersect
each other. Both are dominated by one large circle, but
have small circles arranged in rows and centered over
the corners of adjoining squares. While the study for
the mural is heavily rendered with intense colors, the
Jester House plan is done in very light watercolor washes.
25A. Hyatt Mayor, Introduction, Frank Lloyd Wright's,
Drawings For A Living Architecture (New York: Horizon
Press, 1959), p. 21.
13 Dennis and Wenneker: Ornamentation of Frank Lloyd Wright
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m: Amu SRI
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Fig. 19. David Wright House, Phoenix, Ariz. Groundfloor plan. 1952.
However, if the earlier colors were applied to the ground
plan drawing, it would appear to be a piece cut out of the
Tavern Room mural.
Wright's 1952 design of the spiral house for his son,
David, at Phoenix, Arizona includes a color drawing of
the plan beautiful enough to be displayed as a pictorial
composition (Fig. 19). This is not just a diagram for
construction but it assumes a self-contained ornamental
quality. One might ask why the architect bothered to
make such an elaborate drawing for his son. This was
not a house which had to be sold to a client. Nor was
it necessary to indicate ornamentally the planting of the
garden or to elaborate the shadows cast by the house.
After all, his son, working closely with him, was well acquainted
with the possibilities of the site. The only
masonry indicated on this plan is the beginning of the
ramp to the elevated living quarters, the utility room, the
tool closet, plus the seven supporting piers. The rest of
the structure is indicated as shadows, with dark green
for those over grassy areas, and lavender for those over
the motor court. The primary reason for the rendering
seems to lie in the lyrical beauty of the pattern, which
results from Wright's aesthetic pleasure in reproducing
the plan for its ornamental effect.
Circles multiply in Wright's decorative ground plans
during the forties and fifties, fulfilling his requirement
for a "continual becoming." Clusters of full and segmented
circles, varied in size and combined with rectangles
into designs similar to that of the Tavern Room
mural, were used for the Elizabeth Arden Resort Hotel
projected in 1945, and for the plan of a concrete house
in Arizona composed two years later for Mrs. Paul
Palmer. The latter was obviously based on the Jester
House plan. Also, beginning in 1938 with the Civic
Center plan for the proposed Monona Terrace in Madison,
Wisconsin, complexes of circles came into play for
public projects. The Community Center for Pittsburgh's
/
.. . ... . . . . . . .
.... I I I ...
.ii~ii ... .. .. . . .. ..
Fig. 20. Arizona State Capitol Pio
Point Park is prominen
heim Museum is the concrete culmination.
Circular plans, however, are not the only patterns
that may be traced back to early surface decorations in
Wright's architecture. The same could be done with the
projected plan for the Arizona State Capitol building and
grounds, and it is composed entirely of angular shapes,
including triangles, parallelograms, hexagons, squares,
and oblongs (Fig. 20). The entire scheme resembles the
plywood paneling designed for the office of Edgar Kaufmann,
Sr. in 1937. But, as a symmetrical arrangement of
parallel diagonals turning toward a central axis, it resembles
even more a design of 1903 for a fanlight window
in the Susan L. Dana House in Springfield, Illinois.
Wright called this design a "butterfly wreath" and with
the aid of a little imagination basic butterfly shapes do
emerge from the pattern. Similarities between the 1903
decoration and the large ground plan of the late fifties
are found in the extended or overlapping triangles, and
the combination of several shapes to create new ones, for
example, two triangles become a diamond shape.
Thus, in the end early surface decorations are, in
effect, taken down from the old walls and windows to
become extended spatial determinants of Wright's last
ornament-buildings. Consequently, a continuity can be
traced through the lasting ornamental effect of Wright's
architecture. Initiated by Sullivanesque relief decorations
and then personalized in the Froebel-inspired geometric
patterns, his constant concern with creating ornament for
an organic structure is finally asserted through and
beyond these early applied means toward a culminating
ornamental organicism. U
JAMES DENNIS is in the Department of
the University of Wisconsin, Madison, W
doing research on Wright for many mon
neker who assisted him is at the University
ART JOURNAL XXV 1 14
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