This book connects Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic theory with his pursuit of beauty, presenting a path for the recovery of beauty in architecture.
While there has been a resurgence of interest in beauty in architecture recently, the modern uglification of our built environment means there is no clear pathway to define or find it. In this study, Wright’s organic theory provides such a path to reclaim this beauty. Tracing the evolution of Wright’s concept of organic architecture, author Kenneth Dahlin explores Wright’s “middle way”—a route mediating between traditional historical precedents and today’s novelty-driven architectural culture, often detached from deeper notions of harmony and beauty. Chapters explore Wright’s romanticist roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the House Beautiful movement, the centrality of Japanese aesthetics, and his concept of the integrated whole. Two chapters on Aristotle and Hegel ground Wright’s pursuit of beauty in philosophical aesthetics, setting the stage for a concluding synthesis that unites the various strands of Wright’s theory into a model theory of organic architecture for the future.
This book will be of interest to Frank Lloyd Wright scholars and enthusiasts, as well as postgraduate and advanced undergraduate architecture students.
Table of Contents:
List of figures
Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Foundations
Chicago Awakening
Louis Sullivan
Viollet-le-Duc
A Philosophy of Fine Art
The House Beautiful
Chapter 2: The Middle Way
Wright’s Early Influence on Modernism
Bourdieu’s Model of Cultural Competence
E.M. Zemach’s Perspective on Taste
Gasset’s Modernist Rupture
International Style as Avant-garde
Wright’s Rootedness in Nature and History
Leo Marx’s American Machine in the Garden
Defining the Machine
The Robie House
Fallingwater and Villa Savoye
Price Tower and Lake Shore Drive Apartments
Chapter 3: The Centrality of Japan in Wright’s Philosophy Of Art
Ernest Fenollosa
Spatial Character of the Japanese Print
Wright’s Exposure to Japanese Art
What Wright Saw in Japanese Art
The Influence on Wright’s Drawings
The Influence on Wright’s Architecture
Arnheim and Gestalt Theory
Examples of Spatial Construction in Japanese Prints
Unity Temple
The Imperial Hotel
The Schwartz House
Chapter 4: The Integrated Whole and What it Implies
Wright’s Conception of Unity and the Integrated Whole
Philosophical Implications
The Golden Mean
Dialectical Nature of Wright’s Integrated Whole
Analysis of Wright’s Organic Floor Plans
Chapter 5: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Why Hegel?
Is Architecture an Art?
Essence, Entity, and the Intrinsic Nature of Beauty in Hegel’s System
Hegel’s Dialectic and Wright’s Organic Resolution of Form
A Comparison of Hegel’s and Wright’s Theories
Some Differences Between Hegel and Wright
Hegel’s End of Art and Architecture Revisited
Chapter 6: The Ancient Path
The Premodern Perspective
The Four Causes
Hylemorphism
Essentialism
Teleology
Beauty
Aristotle, Quantum Physics, and Frank Lloyd Wright
Chapter 7: A Way Forward
The Organic Reconsidered
The Core of the Organic
A Model Theory of Organic Architecture
Importance and Relevance for Today and Tomorrow
Potential for Further Exploration and Application
Index
About the Author :
Kenneth Dahlin, PhD, is Principal Architect and CEO of Genesis Architecture. He earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning, focusing on Frank Lloyd Wright’s theory of organic architecture. In addition to leading his firm, he has served as an adjunct professor at UW—Milwaukee.
