Frank Lloyd Wright

​Frank Lloyd Wright created inspiring organic architectural designs in harmony with humanity and the environment.  For over 100 years, people have gathered in the spaces he designed to pursue positive changes in democracy, education and other social and civic causes.

1867-1900

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Wisconsin in 1867 and grew up near Spring Green, Wisconsin. He apprenticed as an architectural draftsman with Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Eventually, Wright rose to the role of chief draftsman for the highly successful Chicago firm of Adler and Sullivan. Adler and Sullivan built some of the most important buildings of the 1880’s and 1890’s, such as the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, considered to be among the first early skyscrapers in the world.

After a dispute with his mentor, Louis Sullivan, Wright established his own architectural practice in 1893. He began to specialize in home design, such as the simplified Winslow House of 1893 in River Forest, Illinois. The house's design is inspired by the works of Sullivan yet anticipates Wright’s mature Prairie School buildings of the next decade

1900-1904

By 1900, Mr. Wright had built a series of Midwestern Prairie Houses. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands (often made of art glass designs), and integration with the landscape.

It was at this point in Wright’s career that he was approached by 40-year-old Susan Lawrence-Dana of Springfield. Her young husband died in 1900. Her father, a former mayor of Springfield, died six months later in 1901. Even in this face of these losses, Susan was determined to change her father’s old Italianate house into an entertainment center for extensive parties, receptions, and fund-raising benefits. The old house was totally transformed by Wright. It became the largest residential project thus far in the architect’s ten-year-old independent career since leaving Sullivan’s office.

Built for some $60,000 (including art glass, furniture, and architectural fees) the Springfield project was twice as expensive in its detail and elaboration as the 1902 Ward-Willits House in Oak Park (which is widely considered the first of Wright’s mature prairie-style designs).

The Springfield project contained more than 12,000-square feet of finished living space and a 4,000-square foot carriage house, today adaptively used as a visitor center.

1905-1959

The architect went on to significant world fame, both as a design of outstanding houses and public buildings: The Fredrick Robie House in Chicago of 1907 to 1909; The Guggenheim Museum in New York of 1949 to 1959; and Fallingwater at Mill Run, Pennsylvania in 1936. Fallingwater is different from, but related to, the Dana-Thomas House. Its comfortable interior and expansive rooms are linked by narrow, meandering passageways, much like the numerous stairwells of the Dana House. Wright’s love of natural materials, including wood and stone, are found in both houses, along with his love for organic plants, planter boxes, urns, and rough and textured wall surfaces.

Throughout his career, Wright changed his style and designs in response to changes in American society. The Dana House is an example of a “prairie style” home, designed by Wright as the first truly American style of architecture, seeking to create harmony between architecture, landscape and community; these homes were generally built between 1899-1910. When Americans faced the Great Depression, Wright began working on affordable housing, which developed into the Usonian home – a more simplified yet beautiful home for Americans to enjoy living in. Wright would design Usonian homes to fit a diverse variety of budgets for the remainder of his career.

Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 at the age of almost 92. He designed 1,114 architectural works during his career, 532 of which were realized. Several hundred are still standing today. The Frank Lloyd Wright Trail is a self-guided architectural adventure connecting 13 of his Illinois designs that are open to the public.

The Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site has become one of the premiere Wright sites for understanding his development as an architect. This was no modest home, instead it was one of Wright’s largest and most extensive house projects, ever. The superb decorative designs that remain give testament to this unique project in Wright’s long, highly visible, and controversial career.

To Learn More About Susan Lawrence Dana, the woman who commissioned Wright for the Dana-Thomas House, Click Here.

To Schedule a Tour of the Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site, Please Click Here.