Lloyd Wright
Encyclopedia
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
and architect, most active in Los Angeles and Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
. His name is frequently confused with that of his more famous father, Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
.
Early years
Lloyd Wright's mother was Catherine Lee "Kitty" Tobin. His father was the famous architect, Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
.
Lloyd Wright attended the University of Wisconsin (even longer than his father had) before dropping out. His first efforts for an independent career took him to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and the landscape architecture firm of the Olmsted Brothers
Olmsted Brothers
The Olmsted Brothers company was an influential landscape design firm in the United States, formed in 1898 by stepbrothers John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. .-History:...
. Specializing in botany and horticulture, he continued to pursue the interrelation of landscape to building throughout his life. Few western architects, including his father, had such an abiding insight into how a building interfaces with nature.
He settled in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
with his brother John around 1913. Landscape design led him to work with Los Angeles architects William J. Dodd and Irving Gill
Irving Gill
Irving John Gill , American architect, is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture. He designed several buildings considered examples of San Diego's best architecture.-Biography:...
, the latter another master architect and mentor to his design career. His work in the movie industry as a production designer at Paramount Studios may have injected the theatrical and fantastical approach to his later architectural work. In 1915 he went to work on landscape design for the Panama-California Exposition
Panama-California Exposition (1915)
The Panama-California Exposition was an exposition held in San Diego, California between March 9, 1915 and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as the first U.S. port of call for ships traveling north after passing westward...
in San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
with architects Irving Gill, Bertram Goodhue
Bertram Goodhue
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was a American architect celebrated for his work in neo-gothic design. He also designed notable typefaces, including Cheltenham and Merrymount for the Merrymount Press.-Early career:...
, and Carleton Winslow Sr. This celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
is also is known as the 1915 San Diego World's Fair, and the principal buildings and gardens still remain in Balboa Park
Balboa Park
Balboa Park is the name of several municipal parks or neighborhoods, including the following:* Balboa Park, San Diego, California, United States* Balboa Park, San Francisco, California, United States...
.
In 1919, his father, working in Japan on the Imperial Hotel
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat...
, delegated some of the responsibilities to him and architect Rudolf Schindler
Rudolf Schindler
Rudolph Michael Schindler Rudolph Michael Schindler Rudolph Michael Schindler (born Rudolf Michael Schindler (1887 Vienna - 1953 Los Angeles) was an American, born in Austria, architect whose most important works were built in or near Los Angeles during the early to mid-twentieth century....
for designing and supervising construction for the Barnsdall residence, known as the Hollyhock House
Hollyhock House
The Aline Barnsdall Hollyhock House is a building in the East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a residence for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, built in 1919–1921...
, in Hollywood, California
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
It was commissioned by oil heiress and arts philanthropist Aline Barnsdall
Aline Barnsdall
Louise Aline Barnsdall was an American oil heiress, best known as Frank Lloyd Wright's client for the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, now the centerpiece of the city's Barnsdall Art Park.- Biography :...
, formerly of Chicago, for her Olive Hill artists' enclave estate. Later, Lloyd Wright would supervise the 1946 renovation of the Hollyhock House, when it was temporarily converted into a World War II USO
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...
facility, and subsequent restoration efforts.
In 1923 and 1924 he served as landscape designer and his father's construction manager for four projects the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
The Los Angeles metropolitan area, also known as Metropolitan Los Angeles or the Southland, is the 13th largest metropolitan area in the world and the second-largest metropolitan area in the United States....
. Lloyd Wright helped in the development of Frank Lloyd Wright's distinctive cast concrete textile-block units used on his California "textile block houses". The first one was the Millard House
Millard House
Millard House, also known as La Miniatura, is a textile block house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1923 in Pasadena, California. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.-Wright's textile block houses:...
(1923), known as 'La Miniatura', in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
. In 1926 the Millard's commissioned Lloyd to design a new gallery structure next to the residence. Both buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The other three textile block house projects were in the Hollywood Hills
Hollywood Hills
The Hollywood Hills is an affluent and exclusive neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the southeastern Santa Monica Mountains. It is bound by Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the west, Vermont Avenue to the east, Mulholland Drive to the north, and Sunset Boulevard to the south.-Hollywood Hills...
: the Storer House (1923); the Samuel Freeman House
Samuel Freeman House
Samuel Freeman House is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles built in 1923. As an example of Wright's pre-Columbian or early Modernist architecture, the structure is noteworthy as one of the four textile block houses built by Wright in the Los Angeles area, the other...
(1923); and the Ennis House
Ennis House
The Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923, and built in 1924....
(1924). Lloyd Wright's work was difficult as he shuttled among the four sites with drawings, and equipment, while sending telegrams to his father when crisis followed crisis but receiving little constructive support and few suggestions from the Taliesin
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
studio in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
.
Independent work
Wright designed and built a number of houses in the Hollywood and Los Feliz districts of Los Angeles in the late 1920s. His first important house there was for the mother of his second wife Helen Taggart, it is known as the Taggart House, a registered Los Angeles Historic-Cultural MonumentLos Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites in Los Angeles, California, which have been designated by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria.-History:...
located next to the city's Griffith Park
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America...
. One of his most significant projects was the hillside house for the manager of silent film star Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...
and then a subsequent renovation and enlargement when Novarro himself acquired the residence. The dramatic and theatrical Mayan
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
inspired Sowden House
John Sowden House
John Sowden House, also known as the "Jaws House", is a residence built in 1926 in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, California. Built by Lloyd Wright, the house is noted for its use of ornamented concrete blocks and for its striking facade, resembling either a Mayan temple or the gaping open...
has become his most iconic structure and is usually regarded as his best work. He also designed and built his own home with a ground floor studio and second floor residence, using the concrete textile blocks, in West Hollywood
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
in the 1920s.
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
. The original shell, built by the Allied Architects group as part of the 1926 regrade of the Bowl, was considered unacceptable both visually and acoustically. Wright's 1927 shell had a pyramidal shape and a design reminiscent of southwest American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
architecture. (According to Charles Moore
Charles Willard Moore
Charles Willard Moore was an American architect, educator, writer, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991.-Life and career:...
, it was a leftover from Wright's sets for the silent film version of Robin Hood
Robin Hood (1922 film)
Robin Hood is the first motion picture ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922. The movie's full title, under which it was copyrighted, is Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, as shown in the illustration at right...
.) Its acoustics generally were regarded as the best of any shell in Bowl history, but its appearance was considered too avant-garde for its time, or perhaps only ugly, and it was demolished at the end of the season. His 1928 shell had the now-familiar concentric ring motif, but it was made of wood, covered a 120-degree arc, and was designed to be easily dismantled and stored between seasons. It was left out in the rain after one season, and rotted, making way for the 1929 Allied Architects shell, which stood until the end of the 2003 season.
The Great Depression stalled his firm as he was reaching his artistic and professional peak. As for many architects, remodellings, rather than total designs were the scope of 1930s work. His post-war designs became more expressionistic and less aligned to previous modernist architectural themes.
The largest collection of Lloyd Wright buildings in the United States was built in phases (1946–1957) for the Institute of Mentalphysics, located on a large Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
site next to the town of Joshua Tree
Joshua Tree, California
Joshua Tree is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 7,414 at the 2010 census, up from 4,207 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Joshua Tree is located in the Mojave Desert at ....
, to the east of Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park is located in southeastern California. Declared a U.S. National Park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act , it had previously been a U.S. National Monument since 1936. It is named for the Joshua tree forests native to the park...
.
Later work
His best-known project is the Wayfarers ChapelWayfarers Chapel
Wayfarers Chapel, also known as "The Glass Church" is located in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. It is noted for its unique modern architecture and location on cliffs above Pacific Ocean...
, also known as "The Glass Church", an indoor/outdoor structure made almost entirely of glass and built in 1951 for the Swedenborgian
Swedenborgian
A Swedenborgian is the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and is an adjective describing a person or an organization that understands the Bible through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg....
church and located overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the Palos Verdes
Palos Verdes
Palos Verdes is a name often used to refer to a group of coastal cities in the Palos Verdes Hills on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S...
Peninsula. The site planning and planting design express his talent and experience as a landscape architect. One of its underlying principles of organic architecture is that the trees are the forms and the space within the forms is sacred space. He had an embracing grove of Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) planted to achieve this. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
"When the trees that surround the Chapel grow up, they will become the framework, become a part of the tree forms and branches that inevitably arise from the growing trees adjacent to it. I used the glass so that the natural growth, the sky, and sea beyond became the definition of their environment. This is done to give the congregation protection in services and at the same time to create the sense of outer as well as inner space."
Among his last projects was the 1963 John P. Bowler house, known as the "Bird of Paradise" House, in Rancho Palos Verdes
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Rancho Palos Verdes is a city in Los Angeles County, California that was incorporated on September 7, 1973. The population was 41,643 at the 2010 census...
using blue fiberglass for projecting roof fins, and the master plan and building designs for a 1970 shopping center in Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach, California
Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California. According to the 2010 census, the city population was 189,992; making it the largest beach city in Orange County in terms of population...
, at Warner and Springdale streets south of Long Beach
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
.
Lloyd Wright and Helen Taggart were the parents of architect Eric Lloyd Wright
Eric Lloyd Wright
Eric Lloyd Wright is an American architect and the grandson of the famed Frank Lloyd Wright.Wright was born in Los Angeles on November 9, 1929 to Helen Taggart and Lloyd Wright , a landscape architect and architect who was the eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright Sr.Educated at the University of...
, who has consulted on the restoration of many of his father's and grandfather's works, as well as being independently creative. Lloyd Wright died in 1978 in Santa Monica, California.
A comprehensive monograph on Lloyd Wright and his work, "Lloyd Wright, the Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr.", has extensive vintage and contemporary photographic documentation of his projects