Frank Lloyd Wright and the “Gift” of Genius

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) is probably the most famous architect in the world. He is author of undoubtedly the most famous private home in the world, Fallingwater, which perches so dramatically on the cliff overhanging the eponymous waterfall near Pittsburgh. How did this acknowledged masterpiece, this work of such singular genius, come to be? The story of Fallingwater's inception serves as a perfect introduction to the persona that Wright, and to an extent those who knew him, fashioned for popular media consumption. It is related by one of his Taliesin fellows, Edgar Tafel: Fall 1935. Taliesin, Wisconsin: “Come along, E.J. We're ready for you,” boomed Mr. Wright into the hand-cranked telephone. The call was from Pittsburgh and E.J. was Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., department store president. Mr. Wright was to show him the first sketches for his new house, “Fallingwater.” I looked across my drafting table at the apprentice in front of me, Bob Mosher, whose back had stiffened at the words. Ready? There wasn't one line drawn. Kaufmann, an important client, coming to see plans for his house, and was Mr. Wright still carrying the design confidently around in his head? … He hung up the phone, briskly emerged from his office, some twelve steps from the drafting room, sat down at the table set with the plot plan, and started to draw. First floor plan. Second floor. Section, elevation. Side sketches of details, talking sotto voce all the while. The design just poured out of him. … Poetry in form, line, color, textures and materials, all for a greater glory: a reality to live in! Mr. Wright at his eloquent and romantic best—he had done it before and would often do it again—genius through an organic growth along with nature. If we are to believe Tafel's report, the complex interlocking forms of the home—its cream-colored, cantilevered horizontals piled rhythmically atop one another and anchored by the dark, striated masonry, the interstices filled with diaphanous glass channels—all this was disgorged in one creative torrent onto a blank piece of paper, much as Beethoven's symphonies were reportedly “heard” in their entirety before being written unhesitatingly down by the maestro in a fair hand (Steffensen, “Wright and Beethoven” 24). Or, perhaps even more succinctly, as the ninety-year-old Wright himself was later to say of his designs in a 1957 television interview with Mike Wallace, “It's quite easy for me to shake them out of my sleeve” (“Wright Television Interview with Wallace”). Frank Lloyd Wright, who shook Fallingwater out of his sleeve, who designed the world-famous careering spiral of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, who launched a thousand quips—“I think Ms. [Marilyn] Monroe as architecture is extremely good architecture” (“Wright Television Interview with Wallace”)—is the granddaddy of the so-called celebrity “starchitect” of the twentieth century.1 1. In addition to his reputation as an architect, Wright is famous simply for being famous, and famous, too, for his arrogance and image manipulation. See Martin and Kahn. He got that way not merely by dint of his revolutionary ideas, Herculean output, and sheer, undeniable talent, but also because he was one of the first architects to harness the modern media machine for his own purposes. Wright created an image of himself as the modern architect-hero so potent that he remains today, nearly half a century after his death, a figure that looms even larger than the actual influence of his work (overshadowed in terms of widespread popular adoption by the practitioners of Bauhaus- or International-Style modernism). He accomplished this feat through the canny manipulation of his image via a prodigious output in print, as well as photographs, radio, and even the nascent medium of television. His popularity in his own lifetime may be epitomized by his appearance on the cover of Time magazine in 1938. It may be that Wright's greatest creation was, ultimately, Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, genius, hero. How was this creature born? How Wright fashioned this image of himself is one of the most fascinating case studies in an American tradition of self-fashioning. He drew upon older traditions of the birth of genius but also fashioned a new model for the genius of the twentieth century, and probably the most important document in this creation was An Autobiography, first published in 1932 during the Depression-enforced lull in the architect's career. So popular was this book that thirty years later (1962) it went into its eighth printing (it was also translated into French); in 2005 it was again resurrected and sold as a facsimile edition.2 2. An Autobiography was first published in 1932 by Longmans, Green and Company (London, New York and Toronto); the first printing was only 500 copies. Longmans, Green and Company published a second edition of 2,000 in 1933 and a third edition of 2,000 copies in 1938. In 1943 the book was taken up by Duell Sloan and Pearce (New York), which released 3,000 more copies in that year (the edition referred to here). Further printings occurred in 1945, 1946, 1947, and 1962. Pomegranate Publishers (San Francisco) released the facsimile of the 1943 edition in 2005. As an act of modernist self-fashioning, An Autobiography sets out to create a mythology of the architect as savior of the modern world. The book is a lengthy and complex document that deals with the architect's entire career to date and a complete analysis of it would in itself require a book. Rather, it is the stories of inception, birth, and childhood that shed an interesting light on Wright's act of self-creation, particularly on the much-loved trope of the famous Froebel “Gifts,” the childhood playthings of the boy genius. In his writing, Wright draws upon older traditions of genius in the stories of his infancy, boyhood, and youth in Wisconsin. Although Wright did not claim to have been hand-selected by God before his birth, as, say, Leonardo or Michelangelo purportedly were, or to be a product of the fickle forces of nature, as Mozart or Beethoven were, yet in his Autobiography, Wright cannot resist harnessing both religion and nature for his own origin story. Religion played an important role in Wright's family background, as his Welsh grandfather Richard Lloyd-Jones was a “firebrand” preacher, “an impassioned, unpopular Unitarian” (An Autobiography 105). His father, William Wright, was also a sometime preacher—thus it comes as no surprise that a certain prophetic tone infuses many of Wright's writings, including the poetically woven strains of the Autobiography. In the following passage, for example, Wright bows to the nineteenth-century Romantic and Emersonian tradition, as he describes himself as a boy becoming a disciple of the outdoors: As a listening ear, a seeing eye, and a sensitive touch had been given naturally to him, his spirit was now becoming familiar with this marvelous book-of-books, experience, the only known reading—The Book of Creation. (An Autobiography 121) Of importance to the emergence of his genius from this milieu is the admission of his sensitivities to nature having “been given naturally to him.” The “gift” here is his sensual receptivity and not his genius itself, whose mysterious origins lie elsewhere in the paradigm Wright creates for his personal evolution. That “gift” comes packaged in a different story, told later, in which Wright gift-wraps himself for presentation as the architectural genius of the twentieth century. Wright's An Autobiography is a document rife with stylistic quirks and inventive literary peculiarities, some of which constitute its unique charm, and many of which add to the interpretive possibilities lurking within the text. Wright himself invited such close inspection and interpretation, when in the second edition of the Autobiography (1943) he excused the many glaring omissions and inconsistencies in the text with the rationale: “I said at the beginning that the real book was between the lines. It is true of any serious book concerned with culture” (An Autobiography 161). Wright thereby his to into the possibilities by his own text. He the book into in which his childhood and youth are and the with his youth is He between the of and the architectural of a house, An Autobiography of his his nature, and the those of his the of literary Wright into the of the but also the literary of a youth who would on to be Frank Lloyd Wright, As a literary at the of the Wright the third in his Autobiography from its beginning only he the of he only for one and for he himself as an architect and as an in the with his he to himself as and to his as and to the to him by his third who had a literary background, as well as a close in the of the I as a boy on That was such an important of my Wright to as and when are done with that of and and in to in the to As in the to the Autobiography. It is an literary which to the Wright himself from and the of and He the the of this he is through the story of his the is into the of he the to the he is to when he in just as he the he to that of in the of The the for having the of in a is to … are ready to the at as he by with to … say to on my I Wright even the to to the of the which this from to the for having the of in a It is a that to a certain extent the of by out the between and he in to lull the into an of all that come comes is the of the infancy, and childhood of the greatest as by Wright Wright this in a when his it is a Wright and many The literary of the Autobiography the role as for the who the of the in the twentieth century. his his book is not in a but the and often around from to to to is a related to the of the in the of the book to his more would have referred to his and himself in the first as and or in the to the as and or and Wright to to the of his youth as and of his and or out of nineteenth-century and the prophetic tone the boy who would be an It also to or the author from his with his his for his If Wright all his to create a genius persona for the twentieth century, he still with as as the some as as his own many Wright to his own from birth and it is particularly in the of birth and childhood Wright's story draws upon older literary traditions of genius. In such childhood a the the of most important are and not much is the of the genius in childhood is to the by which popular and the author of the persona of the to Frank Lloyd the image of the genius as a singular and If the genius is a the too, be in certain The of literary or itself in when with the childhood of its as even are of their the actual of the childhood are to lie within the of the childhood of the genius is and may have upon it any interpretation, or of the that the It too, that is a for many to their own in an that the of the is that it is to for example, the of many to their new for their own or of the of birth from the of and them to The stories of birth, infancy, and youth but the of their The the origins of genius within different of The to is with but even the of birth into the literary of the genius, often on a story of birth that is in some to have created for or have had create for a not in with actual example, a for the his that he his origin from the of piece of was by who acknowledged the as his much later in his In the century, Beethoven also in a of in and up the of his had it that Beethoven was the of the of his Beethoven himself to this In a private written before his death, the this his say that I have been as being the of the of the was said to me a I have the of to written Beethoven in this for a to be but he to the The on this was nearly as good not claim to and was by both popular and of the Beethoven's in the story him a of his own one that his own to and genius. In the American Wright not claim with or he a for himself more but also with greater and of the to the literary of Wright's childhood is the he to his it is a for an not to that the was Wright his through the of and his before his own appearance in the the of upon Wright with an as a who also with the as of He was … this family was with the of as … the of He describes knew the by the along the As Wright with the of the have given to (An Autobiography The is from created a of a with the and of a to both and nature and in Wright's own Wright on to his own himself before his own into the The boy of this story was first by him as the with a who of The inventive Wright to his appearance in this by him as the his from any by it in the more is the the which the of William Wright may have been to the but not in its set such a persona for his Wright on to in the of his role on as savior to modern his him no but now created out of own of and to The was to in was in this on the for which and looked after There was a in the but that was to have a by of the from a to which the had had them simply in and hung upon the of the that was to be he was said him to be an is a to Wright's he was not merely to be an architect, but a As a to any the date of the birth would to be an and of The birth stories of and Wright not only of or but also the of their that the act of creation from the to the and their and that of for example, to his own birth via the on to to he stories and Although we now that Michelangelo was in his in the of the of birth, that he was the year of on the of at in the on a the with the of the birth, no for If we that birth occurred on a at in the the author cannot be so much more as the Beethoven a his own birth by one of the Beethoven his the himself and to the he was in than Beethoven with copies of his he to believe that the birth of his also who was in and after his my this first be as I that in this a been by and I have been said to be older than I I for a my Beethoven's of an birth that he was years than he was, would not have him a He into his own only as he thirty and Rather, Beethoven's of a birth that of Frank Lloyd Wright, him to his own it from an and and the of his own birth for The of that many of the of is also by Wright his own birth and As of that self-creation, Wright, too, the of his In An Autobiography, Wright is and in the year of his own Wright had to on the of his birth In Wright's case the was his third who in the to of The Frank Lloyd the beginning of a new for the the date a was upon and the the birth of Frank Lloyd the birth Although in this to be a case of the the its it is as it was and the of a at a birth it would no half to the Wright's actual year of birth years in was within a of his in author of the of Frank Lloyd Wright, was a of Wright who his personal with the architect with a and a for He in the of his book that he had Wright the year of his that he no to his that the year was who of the was, I have come to not nearly so as he may have me to it Wright's have known the year of own birth, and have given at to the that Lloyd-Jones Wright was in no to on this having a birth date for that was years to As on Wright's may have been more than the one of to be than one by himself out to be than he was, Wright's all the more not by His first the he for his in to Wright was but would have been in his inventive this was no or of and the of the which were Wright's to the in and were the of his in in the of his his Wright was no is no such as a who may or are not given the to all the Wright his the was not one he the childhood he creates is more a literary which into some of the stories that his and which him to claim to the of If the of birth are too, is the of the in the twentieth century. The act of to a popularity a of come to for example, is a near of Wright with a mythology of his childhood and a of As was given was but in act of his the to his in of his was as a as was an and most have this as of a to the of the but it also a act of creative As much as Wright his the figure who comes to when architects and of is more than Wright or an act of that would even a was in but to in and in at the of his new was a on the architect's The of the is to that it as because is in Although was of an the of is perhaps even more with the of and to the is with the of the family and an of his own It may also be Wright's on the of the to his childhood in An Autobiography, the of a with the before it and the of a which celebrity and and come to and their for the with Wright did his but he did in an act of Wright was and his given from to his upon his it even to the architect as he this in Wright even himself and this is the his also in the famous he to his The in a to and a So did he this during his lifetime that one simply cannot say when to the is an of the he had Wright's first Frank Lloyd Wright, was and his second Wright, his to as when he to himself as an architect when Wright his third Lloyd and this is in and Wright his own is more than It also the of from the of and it with the the act of is one of the of An Autobiography, Wright some of the most of the father, the to him an architect, and the of on his too, Wright his childhood that with the of at told by or written at or to before he whose first was, Wright also created of The most and of is undoubtedly the Froebel or “Gifts,” a story that Wright's influence upon the by the of the the were a of sets designed to and story Wright's childhood had more in the in the and than that of the Froebel It remains an beginning for any introduction to Wright, in addition to any of the architect's and it a good introduction and for Wright's architectural and a good to Wright's revolutionary the of American of the Froebel one of his a to the of forms Wright accomplished in such as the in or In because of the of the architect's childhood have of the tradition by which we and Wright, an of the of It a and is as a most this only in the of this of the the creation of the genius. The of the Froebel been much and have a trope of Wright and for into the nature of of the in which childhood was during the and the emergence of the and the origins for Wright's architectural There be no that such are both and given the family in childhood particularly by Wright's and and even the that his first architectural design was for their The of the Froebel perhaps even more in the of the paradigm of Wright's genius. So important is this that he a of the Autobiography to them are first through and their to a The as a of his to the which in again the manipulation of the architect's birth date would for the for Wright, in would have been years at the his the are the of with had Wright been in as he the would have a much more for a as today, the Froebel were to and on Froebel be in is in his The of and of the a of the see the with the story of Wright forms a of the There is no but that Wright is an of and As the Autobiography a had the in the The of paper, and the of those The to be with and the by the The with which to the of which the so the with a to set up on on which to with the and and them to the with and in with which to designs on the naturally only would of and now within of and in the in the that the all was for to and to into the in and to live that had In Wright to the to had been this ultimately, the of the “Gifts,” for the is on It most that had Wright's at the of his The is also of the and creative of the his to not been Wright is of a in the modern architecture and The architect as literary and is a modernist The twentieth century the architect as no of Wright, or Frank is to in any is the architect as genius so of the twentieth It is perhaps the of of the and the growth and of the as well as the of private Or, perhaps it is because the of so and so in and more in than in the of the the architect as a genius in the of is a creation of the modern too, the of the new of There be no that in his canny manipulation of another to create the modern image of the have as a of as architects have as and a with a of Lloyd Wright's on or Lloyd Wright's Wright much of the for himself in An Autobiography, and it is particularly the story of that is of this creation The of in both the popular and the to the that it because its literary is through the of is a figure of It as a literary in which a of a larger or more complex is for the we say when we to the or when we to the of is a so that it is in writing, and nearly in That is the literary genius Wright's of this in the story. The Froebel quite as in Wright's story as a for creative architectural genius. the of the In the many in which we to or the of or talent, the serves as for that is an or creative The of is an on one by another and or that is or his story, Wright the of his of creative and thereby his genius for his own and the “gift” of genius into that was within his own act of is in itself a for the creation of the image of the genius for the twentieth century. Wright may have created some of the most and architectural of modern but the creation of his persona may be his most of

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