twentieth century
One critic said Wright's ideas were 50 years ahead of his time.
VOICE ONE:
I'm Phoebe Zimmerman.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program People in America.
Today we tell about the life and work of the greatest American building
designer of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright.
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VOICE ONE:
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings for more than seventy years. He did most
of his work from nineteen hundred through the nineteen fifties. He designed
houses, schools, churches, public buildings, and office buildings.
Critics say Frank Lloyd Wright was one of America's most creative architects.
One critic said his ideas were fifty years ahead of the time in which he
lived.
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VOICE TWO:
Frank Lloyd Wright was born in eighteen- sixty?seven in the middle western
state of Wisconsin. He studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In
eighteen eighty?seven, he went to the city of Chicago. He got a job in the
office of the famous architects, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler.
Several years later, Wright established his own building design business. He
began by designing homes for people living in and near Chicago. These homes
were called "prairie houses."
VOICE ONE:
Prairie houses were long and low. They seemed to grow out of the ground. They
were built of wood and other natural materials. The indoors expanded to the
outdoors by extending the floor. This created what seemed like a room without
walls or a roof.
In nineteen-oh-two, Wright designed one prairie house, called the Willits
House, in the town of Highland Park. The house was shaped like a cross. It was
built around a huge fireplace. The rooms were designed so they seemed to flow
into each other.
VOICE TWO:
Robie House
Visitors to Chicago can see another of Wright's prairie houses. It is called
the Robie House. It looks like a series of long, low rooms on different
levels. The rooms seem to float over the ground. Wright designed everything in
the house, including the furniture and floor coverings.
Wright's prairie houses had a great influence on home design in America. Even
today, one hundred years later, his prairie houses appear very modern.
VOICE ONE:
In the nineteen thirties, Wright developed what he called "Usonian" houses.
Usonia was his name for a perfect, democratic United States of America.
Usonian houses were planned to be low cost. Wright designed them for the
American middle class. These are the majority of Americans who are neither
very rich nor very poor.
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that all middle class families in America should
be able to own a house that was designed well. He believed that the United
States could not be a true democracy if people did not own their own house on
their own piece of land.
VOICE TWO:
Usonian houses were built on a flat base of concrete. The base was level with
the ground. Wright believed that was better and less costly than the common
method of digging a hole in the ground for the base. Low?cost houses based on
the Usonian idea became very popular in America in the nineteen fifties.
Visitors can see one of Wright's Usonian homes near Washington, D. C. It is
the Pope-Leighy House in Alexandria, Virginia.
