Frank Lloyd Wright and Contemporary Architecture

3 units

This graduate seminar employs comparative critical analyses to explore 10 works of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) and works by 10 contemporary architects that share disciplinary ordering principles with the works of Wright, selected from a list including John and Patricia Patkau, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Glenn Murcutt, Brian Healy, Wendell Burnette, Tom Kundig, Peter Stutchbury, Jose Luis Mateu, BAK, and Matthias Klotz. Wright's work was the inspiration for the first generation of Modern architects, including Mies van der Rohe, Jan Duiker, and others, and this course will explore the architectural ordering principles structuring his work and the manner in which these ordering principles have been employed by contemporary architects. Analytical methods employed in the course will cover the full range of contextual, cultural, material, constructive, and experiential attributes of buildings, with particular emphasis on Wright's focus on the manner in which the spaces of a building are ordered by the patterns of occupation and the poetics of use as well as by the poetics of construction (the way in which a building is built), of what materials it is made, and how all these combine to construct the experience of those who inhabit it. Following introductory lectures by the faculty, each of the subsequent 10 class meetings will consist of the presentation of a selected pairing of buildings -- two by Wright (house and public building) and one to three by a contemporary architect -- to be presented by a team of two students. Students will be evaluated on both the quality of their individual presentations and on the quality of their participation in the class discussions. Summary papers and CDs of the PowerPoint presentations will be due at the end of the semester.