All language subtitles for Frank Lloyd Wright The Man Who Built America 2017 1080p WEBRip x264-RARBG

(light orchestral music)

- Frank Lloyd Wright is the greatest

ever American architect.

Buildings like the Guggenheim Museum,

the Johnson Wax building,

and Fallingwater are masterpieces

that redefined what was possible

and became famous the world over.

But I think the true nature
of Frank Lloyd Wright's genius

has become lost, buried under
tales of his tempestuous life,

or made into the stuff
of coffee table books.

I'm Jonathan Adams, an
architect from Wales,

and my 30-year career has
taken me all over the world.

Throughout it all,

Frank Lloyd Wright has
been a constant touchstone.

Now, I'm going to travel across America

to get to know Frank Lloyd Wright's

greatest buildings for myself.

I want to understand how they
were conceived, how they work,

and how they make us feel.

Most of all, I want to explore
the underlying philosophy

that all these buildings share.

Frank Lloyd Wright called
it organic architecture.

And today, 150 years after his birth,

I think it puts him back at the heart

of modern architectural thinking.

In a career that spanned seven decades,

Frank Lloyd Wright built
over 500 buildings.

And the one he's best
known for is his final one,

the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

(light orchestral music)

(woman vocalizing)

The Guggenheim isn't just something

that's beautiful to look at.

All his life, Frank Lloyd Wright
strove to create buildings

that expressed an idea
of how we should live

and understand the world.

- I'd like to have a free architecture.

I'd like to have
architecture that belonged

where you see it standing,

and was a grace to the
landscape instead of a disgrace.

And the letters we
received from our clients

tell us how those
buildings we built for them

have changed the character
of their whole land,

and their whole existence

is different now than it was before.

- Wright's own life was turbulent,
involving financial ruin,

adultery, and tragedy.

Through it all, he stuck
to a personal creed

based on hard work,

a love of nature, and a fierce
independence of thought.

They sound like thoroughly
American ideals.

But I think to understand what
really shaped Wright's ideas

and the man himself,

you have to begin the story
far away from America,

and closer to where I come from.

(light orchestral music)

Frank Lloyd Wright's
Welsh roots are no secret.

He was proud of them and
spoke of them all his life.

His mother, Anna Lloyd
Jones, was born in 1838

near Llandissilio in West Wales.

Their family was large and devout,

and at their chapel,

they practiced a radical
brand of Christianity

known as Unitarianism.

All his life, Frank Lloyd
Wright would draw inspiration

from this freethinking
spiritual inheritance.

- Unitarianists see God in
anything and in all things.

We often talk of the wonder,

the awesomeness, the magnificence of,

of nature, and of the world
that we're all a part of.

We've always placed a huge emphasis

on the individual's freedom

to choose and to pick and
to decide for themselves

where their understanding of
God and of human nature lie.

Unitarianism fit in with the people here,

the people who were everyday,
hard-working, low-paid people

looking for that freedom and
for that spirit of liberalism.

- It might have been the
search for religious freedom

that took Anna's family away from Wales.

(light orchestral music)

In 1844, the Lloyd Jones clan,

parents, children, aunts, and uncles,

left home, bound for a new, freer life,

in the new world.

The family sailed to New York

and then, with pioneer spirit,

set off westward to find a new home.

What they were looking for
was something familiar,

something like the land
they knew and understood.

Finally, they came upon their new Wales.

Wooded, gently sloping land
near Spring Green, Wisconsin.

To Frank Lloyd Wright,

this place would become a
lifelong spiritual touchstone,

known simply as The Valley.

- The valley that they chose to live in

became so identified with
them and their purpose

and their way of living

that some people called it

the Valley of the God Almighty Joneses.

They didn't really want to
become Americans, you know?

They wanted to be Welsh

on American soil.

- It was into this world that in 1867

Frank Lloyd Wright was born.

It was here, too, that
his values were shaped.

Throughout his childhood,

Frank would spend his
summers here in the valley,

laboring on the farm, living a rural life,

and hearing the Welsh language
of his aunts and uncles.

For the rest of his days,

he would look back on those
summers as a kind of paradise.

(light orchestral music)

Frank's mother encouraged
his early ambitions to build.

After studying engineering
at a local college,

he left home to seek an
architectural apprenticeship.

As luck would have it,

the nearest city was one
of the most exciting places

in the entire world

for an aspiring young architect, Chicago.

New styles of building
were being created here,

including the skyscraper.

Before long, Wright's youthful energy

and talent landed him a job

with the city's leading architect.

And it was in Chicago, too,
that he found his first love.

Catherine Tobin, known as Kitty,
was just 16 when they met.

Within two years, they were married,

and had a child of their own on the way.

Frank Lloyd Wright was
a young man in a hurry.

Borrowing money from his boss,

he bought a plot of land here

in the respectable suburb of Oak Park.

The place where, it was
said, the saloons ended

and the steeples began.

And it was here that he first
built a home for himself.

It might be difficult for
anyone looking at this today

to see it as anything other
than a slightly quirky

gable-fronted suburban house.

It's only when you put it
alongside all of the other houses

of the same period, here or anywhere else

in the Western world,

that you realize just how strange it is.

Take this massive symmetry.

It's highly classical, but stylized.

You can see the faint outlines
of the triangle pediment

of a Greek temple, with
the two bays at the bottom

instead of columns supporting the weight.

It's classical discipline
applied to a small cottage.

The upper part of the house

conveys a huge sense
of weight and sanctity.

So you might expect the
inside to be pokey and dark.

But what you actually
find is the opposite.

The rooms all flow, one into another.

It must have been a
huge surprise to people

back in the 1880s.

This is open-plan before the idea

of open-plan really existed.

Perhaps this is where it began.

(light orchestral music)

The free flow of Wright's design reflects

an idea of family life,

learned in the Unitarian
value of his childhood,

honest, equal, and communal.

He even inscribed these
values above the hearth,

clear for all to see.

In its open spaces and its open spirit,

Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak
Park home was his first step

towards a new kind of architecture.

Over the next few years,
Wright's career took off.

His house attracted the
attention of curious neighbors,

and commissions flowed in.

He would eventually design over
50 houses for local clients.

Many, like his own, subtle experiments

with traditional forms.

By now, Frank and Kitty had six children.

Wright was in his late
30s, and more than ready

for his big break.

But when that came, it
was a bolt from the blue.

Every Sunday, Frank Lloyd
Wright and his young family

would walk a half-mile to worship

at the local Unitarian church.

It wasn't the kind of building
that he really approved of.

It was vaguely Gothic
with a pretentious spire.

And then, one night in 1905,

it was struck by lightning
and it burned to the ground.

(light orchestral music)

Never slow to see his chance,

Wright proposed a new
building for the site.

It was unlike anything
seen before in America.

Wright's plans for the new building

cast aside all traditional styles,

as he seized the chance to
express his own spiritual

and architectural beliefs.

Gone would be ornament,
arches and the showy spire.

What emerged instead was Unity Temple,

the world's first truly modern building.

Few people even today would
guess that this is a church.

The building doesn't even
have an obvious way in.

The very material the Unity
Temple is constructed from

seems unsuitable for a place of worship.

These walls and every
detail of the exterior

are made from solid,
unadorned, reinforced concrete.

Wright's justification
was that it was cheap,

a utilitarian material used

for low-grade engineering structures.

The impoverished church committee
was persuaded to go along.

But Wright's real reason
for using concrete

was that it was a new
and exciting technology

with unlimited potential.

It put Frank Lloyd Wright
just where he wanted to be,

on his own at the
frontier of architecture.

If the exterior of Unity Temple

expressed an idea of the divine,

it was in austere geometric forms.

But the space that those
forms created on the inside

was among Frank Lloyd
Wright's most beautiful

and spiritually uplifting rooms.

(light orchestral music)

The sanctuary of Unity
Temple is a perfect square.

Golden light streams in
through colored glass

in the coffered ceiling

while ornament and structure
combine to unite the whole.

- This building is unique.

It is hard to figure out how
to even get into the sanctuary.

And when you find it, it just opens up

and it's a gem of a space.

I love the intimacy,

this capacity to worship while

in community with one another,

being able to see one another.

It's the most important
part of the building

for the most of us.

- Wright based the
distinctive interior layout

of Unity Temple closely on
the Lloyd Jones family chapel

back in Wales.

But his new building's overall radicalism

was still too much for
some in its congregation.

It's said that they prayed for ivy,

and were happy when ivy came.

(upbeat orchestral music)

All the while that Unity
Temple was taking shape,

Frank Lloyd Wright was
busy designing houses.

By now, he had his own
architectural practice,

and his designs had
become far more daring.

Pointed roofs had started to flatten out,

as windows widened.

Cellars and attics vanished,

and houses spread out, low to the ground.

Wright was inspired by
the vast open spaces

that stretched away beyond Chicago.

The buildings even became
known as prairie houses.

He brought this early vision to perfection

with the Robie House,

a gorgeous steamship of a
building with windows like prows.

It sailed through an open green landscape,

a vessel of the Midwest prairie.

The Robie House looked
as modern and powerful

as the Great Lakes steamers
that docked in Chicago.

It was an impressive feat of engineering.

The huge projecting roof was
Wright's most daring to date.

Inside, too, Wright used
this building to experiment,

creating a sense of drama around
the simple act of entering.

You come into the Robie
House through the front door,

which is actually at the back,

and you find yourself
in this low, dark lobby,

which pushes you towards
this flight of stairs.

And as you climb the stairs,

you get glimpses of light at the top,

which lead you upwards and
build a sense of anticipation.

But then, you're forced to turn.

And you turn again, and then
there's another few steps

which lead you up, and one final turn

and then you're released into
this fantastic wide room,

surrounded by windows and
bathed with natural light.

(light orchestral music)

Wright liked to call
conventional houses boxes,

and their rooms boxes within boxes.

In the unlimited free
flow of the Robie House,

to use his own phrase,
he destroys the box.

One final thing about the
Robie House that's true

of almost all of Wright's houses,

if you commissioned one, you
didn't just get the building,

you got the furniture too,

which Wright designed, along
with a list of dos and don'ts.

Curtains and blinds were out,

as were paintings on
the wall and ornaments.

Wright had astonishing self-belief,

almost to the point of being overbearing.

He called interior decorators
inferior desecrators.

It wasn't unusual for former
clients to arrive home

to find that Wright had
made an unannounced visit

and rearranged all their furniture.

In the case of the Robie House,

he even designed a dress
for Mrs Robie to wear here.

(upbeat orchestral music)

Frank Lloyd Wright, now in his early 40s,

was riding high and creating a real stir.

But increasingly he was chafing

against conventional family life

in a polite suburb.

- He himself started to see

that the world was a lot
bigger than Oak Park,

and at a certain point he
realized he was interested

in looking much further forward.

How did he become someone
to be reckoned with?

Well, one way to do that
is to dress differently

and to go out more and

to have girlfriends, I suppose.

I think that was the start
of what one might call

almost anti-social behavior.

- Wright's unconventional
conduct crossed a line

when he began an affair
with the wife of a client.

Mamah Cheney was a
feminist, a freethinker.

The ideal partner for a radical man,

albeit a mother of two.

When their relationship was discovered,

Wright took decisive action.

Closing down his studio,

he abandoned his family,

and together with Mamah fled to Europe.

(light orchestral music)

When the couple returned a year later,

it was to set up home together.

Wright knew they wouldn't
be welcome in Oak Park,

so he began building a new house

on land owned by his mother.

It was in the one place that
for him represented safety,

community and integrity.

The valley of his childhood.

He even gave his new house
a centuries-old Welsh name,

Taliesin.

Taliesin sits on the brow of a hill.

As Wright liked to point out,

its Welsh name actually
means shining brow.

It's been compared to an Italian villa

or even to a medieval Welsh farmstead.

A fortified state built at a time

when he needed to feel secure.

But Taliesin is very much more besides.

More than any other building,
it embodies Wright's ideal

of how architecture and
nature should coexist.

I said that Taliesin sits on a hill.

Frank Lloyd Wright would
have taken pleasure

in correcting me.

He preferred to say
that it was of the hill,

that it graces the hill,

that the hill and the house
are improved by each other

so that they become a unity.

- Taliesin I learned a lot from.

The way that he marries his
buildings with the landscape

and the way, their
juxtaposition with each other

and the way that spaces flow through them.

It sort of comes out of the landscape.

It's constant and it's
green hills and trees

and grass and such.

I remember being unbelievably impressed.

- Wright summed up the philosophy
that lay behind Taliesin

in a simple phrase,

organic architecture.

It's a memorable expression,

but just what is it that
makes a building organic?

Well, here he used local materials.

Stone, sand and timber
sourced from nearby.

What's more, the same materials
are used inside and outside,

so that interior and
exterior flow together.

Windows are low and linear,

so that when you are seated inside,

you have a continuous
view through tree tops,

as if you're elevated,
floating among them.

(light orchestral music)

But it's important to say that for Wright,

organic architecture

didn't just mean using local materials

and blending a building into a landscape.

What he meant was that the
philosophy of the building,

what it says about how
we should live, would,

when blended with the
character of the site,

give rise naturally and
organically to its unique form.

In this case, a building
that belongs to its hill

and could never be built anywhere else.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney

lived happily at Taliesin,

for all that local newspapers

dubbed their house a love bungalow.

Wright was defiant.

Around a building he
carved the Welsh symbol

that represented his
Unitarian family motto,

truth against the world.

But the dream of this
new world wasn't to last.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Taliesin, like almost all
large houses of its time,

was built to be run by servants.

But Wright's liberal principles
meant that here they lived

on the main floor with everybody else,

not in some pokey garret.

"Treat your servants as your
friends," Wright had written.

In 1914, a new servant
was taken on at Taliesin,

Julian Carlton, a butler
and all-round help.

One day in September, when
Frank Lloyd Wright was away,

the unimaginable happened at Taliesin.

While Mamah and her children
were sitting down to lunch,

Julian Carlton ran amok.

Using petrol, he set fire to the house.

As its terrified residents fled,

he attacked them with a hatchet.

Seven people died here,

including Mamah Cheney and
her two young children.

Taliesin was all but destroyed.

The seemingly senseless slaughter
made national headlines.

Julian Carlton refused to
speak about what he'd done.

He starved himself to death
in jail two months later.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Mamah Cheney was buried in the valley,

in sight of the ruins of Taliesin.

The years after the
calamity were turbulent ones

for Frank Lloyd Wright.

He had gone from the
happiest time in his life

to the time of deepest despair.

He threw himself into the
rebuilding of Taliesin,

but much of the decade
he spent working abroad.

When he returned to America,
it would not be to the Midwest,

scene of his previous triumphs
and his greatest tragedy.

Instead, he turned to a new horizon

and an extraordinary
new phase in his work.

(light orchestral music)

Wright received five
commissions to build houses

in Los Angeles.

The biggest and boldest
of them was designed

for a wealthy LA couple, the Ennises.

If Taliesin is of the hill,

the Ennis house really is on the hill.

This is a fortress.

It's a mysterious interior place

that sits proud in its landscape.

Is it organic?

It's a building that
perfectly suits its city,

the ambition and boldness of LA,

and the bright sun that
shines here all year round.

For Frank Lloyd Wright, now 57 years old,

the Ennis House was a creative rebirth.

The design was inspired by the ancient

forms of Mayan temples.

But to build it, Wright devised

a brand-new construction method.

The entire house was made out
of patterned concrete blocks.

27,000 of them, all manufactured on-site.

As the building rose,

steel rods were threaded
between them for support.

Wright liked to say that

he was weaving here rather than building.

I think you can see what he meant.

You have the steel rods
running along these joints,

interleaving the warp and weft,

and then the concrete
blocks that form the finish.

He also said he wanted to elevate

an unloved building material,

the humble concrete block,

into something much more beautiful,

and he certainly succeeded.

(light orchestral music)

Entering the Ennis house feels

like stepping into an adventure.

The forbidding exterior
really gives you no idea

what to expect.

Inside, the house is made

from exactly the same
concrete blocks as outside.

But whereas the exterior
is solid and massive,

these columns create a series

of intriguing interlinked spaces.

This really is, it's an incredible space.

Being inside this rock-like structure

makes you feel as if you're
in a complex of caves.

It's a really powerful sense of mystery.

No idea how far it extends
or where you're being taken.

I think that's what must have made it

such an exhilarating place to live.

There's a timelessness and
drama to the Ennis house,

and it's no surprise that
it's proved a favorite

with Hollywood film-makers.

It's been featured in
horror films and thrillers,

and most famously,

in the seminal 1980s
science-fiction film "Blade Runner".

The sheer originality of Wright's creation

means it can fit easily into
any world of the imagination.

It's remarkable, given
how instantly recognizable

this building is.

The Ennis house was a triumph
for Frank Lloyd Wright.

But as the 1920s drew to a close,

storm clouds were once again gathering.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Wright had found a new love.

Olgivanna Milanoff was Montenegrin,

a professional dancer and
some 30 years his junior.

Their relationship
became mired in scandal.

Business suffered and worse was to follow.

The Wall Street crash

of 1929 decimated American architecture,

and for three years Frank Lloyd Wright

had not a single commission.

Always a spendthrift, he
was finally flat broke.

Now in his mid-60s,

Wright was coming to be
seen as yesterday's man,

a talent who had faded away.

Some simply assumed that he was dead.

Then, at Taliesin, something
remarkable happened.

A plan was hatched that would
define Wright's later life.

It was ingenious but simple.

The legendary Frank Lloyd Wright

would offer apprenticeships.

The Taliesin Fellowship was born.

(light orchestral music)

- The fellowship did a
lot of things for Wright.

It provided him with young men and women

who wanted to learn
and who were very happy

to work in the garden, in the farm.

They were building, they
were cooking, cleaning,

and most of them had the
money to support Wright

in a way that he couldn't
possibly otherwise have managed.

- Mr Wright said,

"This is not a school
and I am not a teacher.

"You are here to help me with my work,

"and if you get something
out of that, that's good."

You were really here to help him,

but, you know, when
you're helping a master,

unless you're just totally immune to it,

your life gets changed.

It's as though there was like
a real magician, not a fake,

and that magician made things
happen just by being there.

- But in the huge
drafting room at Taliesin,

real architectural work
was in short supply.

All Wright and his apprentices

could do was to draw and dream.

Then at last a commission came in.

The result would relaunch
Frank Lloyd Wright's career

and take it to new heights.

(light orchestral music)

In 1933, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman,

Edgar Kaufmann, decided to
rebuild his holiday cottage

deep in the Pennsylvania woodland.

As chance would have it,

his son was an apprentice at Taliesin.

Wright and Kaufmann met
and the deal was done.

The story of the origins
of Kaufmann's new house

has the quality of a legend.

Frank Lloyd Wright visited

and surveyed this very challenging site

and he'd had detailed maps of it drawn up.

But afterwards, months passed
with no sign of progress.

Then, at Taliesin one day, the phone rang.

Mr Kaufmann was in the area.

Could he call by and look at Frank's plans

for the new building?

Wright sat down in his drafting
room, and in just two hours,

set down an astonishing vision.

What he had designed has been called

the greatest house of the 20th century.

Fallingwater.

80 years on from its construction,

it still takes your breath away,

looking fantastically
modern and yet timeless.

This really is a phenomenal sight.

I've been looking at buildings
for a very long time now

and I've not seen anything
quite as thrilling as this.

- Fallingwater.

That's the one quintessential
building, to me.

It's the way it's
situated in its landscape,

the way it occupies a space

which is much bigger
than its physical size.

In our minds it's a vast city
of horizontals and verticals.

In that one building, he
created modern architecture.

- Now the fundamental
call that Wright made

was also the most daring.

Edgar Kaufmann had expected

that his new house would be sited

somewhere around here looking
back at the waterfall.

Nobody anticipated that
Wright would site the building

directly on top of the fall itself.

And yet that one inspired decision

led directly to this
extraordinary, floating,

almost dreamlike building
that we see today.

The huge slab of rock
from which the water drops

was echoed by Wright

in Fallingwater's extraordinary
projecting terraces.

The effect is to harmonize
the building with its setting.

Something conspicuously man-made,

yet in sympathy with nature.

(light orchestral music)

Inside too, every detail of Fallingwater

responds to the natural
world in which it is set.

The floor is polished stone

and evokes the rippled
surface of the river below

just before it goes over the falls.

The long lines of windows
lift you into the tree tops,

while the vibrant chairs and
rugs are like birds or flowers,

bright splashes of color
in the deep canopy.

There's a wonderful
feeling of security here,

of being in a shelter in the wild.

There's even room at Fallingwater

for a staircase that leads nowhere.

Just down to the water where
you can stand and contemplate.

(light orchestral music)

After barren years, Fallingwater
was Frank Lloyd Wright's

most spectacular success,

and a vindication of his lifelong
architectural philosophy.

No other building of Wright's
more clearly expresses

his personal idea of organic design.

The waterfall on its own
was undoubtedly beautiful,

but it's enhanced by
this vision of a building

that seems to have grown
out of the rocks and trees

while still pushing
technology to its limits.

Very few buildings anywhere
from any time in history

express an uplifting idea of
humanity's place in the world

like this one does.

(upbeat jazz music)

While Fallingwater was being built,

work was progressing rapidly

on a second breakthrough project.

The site could hardly
have been more different.

A flat industrial lot on the outskirts

of a dull Wisconsin town.

The commission didn't
sound inspiring, either.

An office building for a
cleaning products company.

But, once again, Wright worked his magic.

When you look at it today,

the Johnson Wax building is straight out

of vintage science fiction.

Even on a gray day like this,

it still fills me with a
sense of joyous possibilities.

It's when you step inside, though,

that the genius of the
building fully reveals itself.

(light orchestral music)

Wow, what an awe-inspiring room.

The great workroom of
the SC Johnson building

has been called the greatest room

in all American architecture.

And you can see why.

Wright's answer to the dreary surroundings

was simple enough.

No windows.

Instead, he created an
artificial interior world

that is itself as inspiring and uplifting

as a wild landscape.

Delicate light enters through
patterns of Pyrex tubes,

while huge otherworldly
columns leap up to the skies.

The beauty of Wright's design
was clear for all to see.

But back in the 1930s,

the technical challenge of
turning vision into reality

was making some people distinctly nervous.

These extraordinary
columns were like nothing

the local building control
officers had ever seen,

and so, before construction could begin,

they insisted on testing
one under a full load.

Wright, as confident a
showman as he was an engineer,

was happy to oblige, and
to invite the press along.

Six tons of sandbags were
loaded onto the column.

The officials were satisfied.

But Frank Lloyd Wright
had a point to prove.

Ten tons went on, then 20.

And finally, 60 tons.

Wright strode up to the column, kicked it,

hit it with his cane.

It was only when the wooden
props holding the column upright

were removed that it finally crashed down.

There was so much weight on it

that a sewer 20 feet
underground fractured.

(light orchestral music)

The strength and ingenuity
of Wright's columns

allowed him to create a
vast cathedral-like room.

It embodied his lifelong Unitarian belief

in the sanctity of nature

and the sanctity of work.

- It's called the great
workroom for a good reason,

it's a great place to work.

When you're working here,

it's like working in a glade of trees.

With the sun streaming down
through the glass tubing

in the ceiling,

and creating these wonderful vistas

of a sense of outdoorness.

It's an incredible place to work.

(light orchestral music)

- The twin triumphs

of the Johnson Wax
building and Fallingwater

ushered in a new period of creativity

and success for Wright.

It's been said that American
lives have no second act.

Well, here was one,

perhaps bigger and bolder than the first.

By now, Frank Lloyd
Wright was 70 years old

and life was good.

His home was still Taliesin,

now standing proud once
more in the Wisconsin Valley

of his childhood.

He was happily married to Olgivanna,

but there was one thing
about life at Taliesin

that she could no longer bear.

(wind howling)

The long frozen winters
when temperatures plummeted

to minus 20 and snow
settled for months on end.

(upbeat jazz music)

And so, in 1937, a convoy
set off from Taliesin

in the depths of December.

The cars were packed with provisions,

the tools of the trade,

and the entire Taliesin Fellowship.

From now on, winter would be
spent at a new home in the sun.

The parched Arizona desert was
the most extreme environment

that Frank Lloyd Wright had ever built in.

It would test his philosophy
of organic architecture

to the limit

and result in a kind of
building never seen before.

Taliesin West is such a
unique and beautiful place.

It was designed and
constructed over seven years,

and it was loosely based on a diagram

that connects the various
angles of the building

to geological features
and to prominent hilltops

on the horizon.

It's like a piece of
free-form architectural jazz.

Taliesin West was constructed entirely

by members of the Fellowship.

Building supplies were hard
to come by in the desert,

so Wright improvised,
turning to the boulders

that littered the site.

I love this material.

Wright called it desert masonry.

And I bet that anyone who
studied here during those years

could take me straight to
their section of the wall,

and that they would
recognize their own boulders,

almost as if they were personal friends.

The massive walls of Taliesin West

seemed to grow out of
the desert floor itself.

But on top of them, Wright placed canvas.

It was so delicate, it had
to be replaced each year,

as if pioneers were making camp.

(light orchestral music)

Inside and outside were
never more happily merged.

It was a kind of natural air conditioning,

a building that worked
with its environment

and not against it.

It was actually green architecture

before that phrase even existed.

The open, airy world of Taliesin West

created a relaxed, communal
way of living and working.

Today, it's home

to the Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture,

a place where students still
work and live together.

The allure of Frank Lloyd Wright lives on.

- When you see the level of freedom

and experimentation they had,

that it was not concerned
with a particular style

or keeping things as they are,

but actually into challenging

and questioning what architecture means.

And I think that's what
we really can take away

from the experience of
being in his legacy.

- The years passed

and Frank Lloyd Wright
approached the age of 90.

(light orchestral music)

He was now the grand old man
of American architecture,

lauded by his peers at home and abroad,

interviewed on television,
a household name.

- I understand that last week,
in all seriousness, you said,

"If I had another 15 years to work,

"I can rebuild this entire country,

"I could change the nation."

- I did say that,

and it's true.

- He continued to work tirelessly,

designing a Unitarian church,

a skyscraper,

a synagogue,

and, as ever, houses.

(light orchestral music)

But in the self-proclaimed
capital of American architecture,

he had failed to make any mark.

With his final masterpiece,

Frank Lloyd Wright would change all that.

- There is a wonderful
picture of him six months

before he died on top of
the Guggenheim Museum,

and he's looking on top of the world.

I think that's a very
apt metaphor for him.

I think Frank was having
a lot of fun saying,

"Here it is, take it
or leave it," you know?

(laughing)

"I'm the boss here, this
is what I'm giving you."

- The evolution of the
Guggenheim is fascinating,

and it's a great illustration
of how Wright worked.

So much in his late
career was there in embryo

in his early days,

but his philosophy and his
imagination never changed course.

Here he turned to an old, unbuilt design

that featured a ramp for cars to drive up.

First, he turned it upside down,

so that the building was wider at the top.

Then, he turned it inside out,

putting the ramp on the interior.

The result became one of
the most famous buildings

in the world.

(upbeat jazz music)

The Guggenheim Art Museum
was Frank Lloyd Wright's

poke in the eye for New York City,

and the people he called
the Glass Box Boys,

the modernist architects and critics

who had no time for his work.

Into their landscape of
soaring vertical lines,

glass, and right angles,
he smuggled a low,

curvaceous newcomer,
and it stole the show.

Inside, the Guggenheim was
the logical culmination

of Wright's lifelong
desire to open up interiors

and create a free flow of space.

It's a building with just one
room and one path to follow.

Some people prefer to start at the top.

Others, like me, would
rather begin at the bottom.

But once you're on your way,

Frank Lloyd Wright is leading
you every step you take.

In traditional museums,

you're sometimes not
sure where you're going,

whether you missed a room,

or if there might be better art

hiding just around the corner.

Here, everything is open.

You can see where you're
going, how far you have to go,

and the artworks that await you.

You're drawn naturally up the path.

And after looking closely at
the painting in front of you,

you can turn away and
relax to an open vista,

the movement of people,

and glimpses of artworks on the walls.

You're not just looking at art,

you're getting a lesson in
the act of looking at art.

(light jazz music)

Back in the 1950s, however,

many people thought that Wright's design

for a circular art museum

was little short of madness.

The sloping walls, they said,

would mean that paintings
leaned backwards.

The windows would allow in
too much or too little light.

And as for Wright's choice of color,

that was better not mentioned.

In the end, that un-Wright-ian thing,

a compromise, was reached.

The color was off-white,

the paintings were fixed
on brackets off the wall,

and daylight was mixed
with fluorescent light.

- I'd say I like the building more

because I don't really try
and fight it any longer.

What we like to say to one another is,

"We're a circle in a world of squares."

It was a bloody expensive building,

but you see the unbelievable
joy and astonishment,

particularly first-time visitors,

and that doesn't come through
so often in today's world.

(light orchestral music)

- Frank Lloyd Wright died in April 1959,

six months before the
Guggenheim Museum opened.

His life had encompassed
a huge swathe of history.

Born in the wake of
the American Civil War,

the son of a pioneer,

he died a television
personality in the Space Age.

He had changed architecture,
not just in America,

but around the world.

Frank Lloyd Wright was laid to rest

in the one place that meant most to him,

the valley of his childhood,
among his ancestors.