Europe and Japan

By 1909 Wright’s estrangement from his wife and his relationship with Mamah Cheney, the wife of one of his former clients, were damaging his ability to obtain architectural commissions. In that year Wright began work on his own house near Spring Green, Wisconsin, which he named Taliesin, before he left for Europe that September. Abroad, Wright set to work on two books, both first published in Germany, which became famous; a grand double portfolio of his drawings (Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, 1910; Studies and Executed Buildings) and a smaller but full photographic record of his buildings (Ausgeführte Bauten, 1911; “Executed Buildings”). With a draftsman, Taylor Willey, and his eldest son, Lloyd Wright, the architect produced the numerous beautiful drawings published in these portfolios by reworking renderings brought from Chicago, Oak Park, and Wisconsin.

By 1911 Wright and Cheney, still unmarried since Wright could not get a divorce, were living at Taliesin. Wright’s career suffered from unfavourable publicity generated by his relationship with Cheney, but he found a few loyal clients like the Avery Coonleys, whose suburban estate, west of Chicago, the grand masterwork of the Prairie style, he had designed in 1908. In 1912 Wright designed his first skyscraper, a slender concrete slab, prophetic but unbuilt.

At this time the Japanese began to consider Wright as architect for a new Tokyo hotel where visitors could be officially entertained and housed in Western style. Thus, early in 1913 he and Cheney spent some months in Japan. The following year Wright was occupied in Chicago with the rushed construction of Midway Gardens, a complex planned to include open-air dining, other restaurants, and clubs. Symmetrical in plan, this building was sparklingly decorated with abstract and near-abstract art and ornament. Its initial success was cut short by Prohibition, however, and it was later demolished. Just before Midway Gardens opened, Wright was dealt a crushing blow; Cheney and her children, who were visiting her at Taliesin, and four others were killed by an insane houseman, and the living quarters of the house were devastated by fire.

Stunned by the tragedy, Wright began to rebuild his home and was soon joined by the sculptor Miriam Noel, who became his mistress. In 1916 they went to Japan, which was to be their home for five years.

The Imperial Hotel (1915–22, dismantled 1967) in Tokyo was one of Wright’s most significant works in its lavish comfort, splendid spaces, and unprecedented construction. Because of its revolutionary, floating cantilever construction, it was one of the only large buildings that safely withstood the devastating earthquake that struck Tokyo in 1923. No one still doubted Wright’s complete mastery of his art, but he continued to experience difficulty in acquiring major commissions because of his egocentric and unconventional behaviour and the scandals that surrounded his private life.

The 1920s and ’30s

Wright’s transpacific journeys took him to California, where he met a wealthy, demanding client, Aline Barnsdall, who about 1920 built to Wright’s designs a complex of houses and studios amid gardens on an estate called Olive Hill; these now serve as the Municipal Art Gallery in Hollywood. In 1923 and 1924 Wright built four houses in California, using textured concrete blocks with a fresh sense of form.

Late in 1922 Wright’s wife Catherine divorced him at last. His relationship with Miriam Noel ended, and in 1925 Taliesin again burned, struck by lightning, and again Wright rebuilt it. That same year a Dutch publication, Wendingen, presented Wright’s newer work fully and handsomely, with praise from Europeans. In 1924 Wright had met Olgivanna Hinzenberg; soon she came to live with Wright permanently, and they married in 1928. Meanwhile, Wright’s finances had fallen into a catastrophic state; in 1926–27 he sold a great collection of Japanese prints but could not rescue Taliesin from the bank that seized it. Amid these debacles, Wright began to write An Autobiography, as well as a series of articles on architecture, which appeared in 1927 and 1928. Finally, some of Wright’s admirers set up Wright, Incorporated—a firm that owned his talents, his properties, and his debts—that effectively shielded him. In 1929 Wright designed a tower of studios cantilevered from a concrete core, to be built in New York City; in various permutations it appeared as one of his best concepts. (In 1956 the St. Mark’s Tower project was finally realized as the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.)

The stock market crash of 1929 ended all architectural activity in the United States, and Wright spent the next years lecturing at Chicago, New York City, and Princeton, New Jersey. Meanwhile an exhibition of his architecture toured Europe and the United States. In 1932 An Autobiography and the first of Wright’s books on urban problems, The Disappearing City, were published. In the same year the Wrights opened the Taliesin Fellowship, a training program for architects and related artists who lived in and operated Taliesin, its buildings, and further school structures as they built or remodeled them. From 20 to 60 apprentices worked with Wright each year; a few remained for decades, constituting his main office staff. In the winter Wright and his entourage packed up and drove to Arizona, where Taliesin West was soon to be built. At this time Wright developed an effective system for constructing low-cost homes and, over the years, many were built. Unlike the Prairie houses these “Usonians” were flat roofed, usually of one floor placed on a heated concrete foundation mat; among them were some of Wright’s best works—e.g., the Jacobs house (1937) in Westmorland, Wisconsin, near Madison, and the Winckler-Goetsch house (1939) at Okemos, Michigan.