"Wright set himself two goals: to define or even create the 20th century and to redefine what we are as human beings."
ADVERTISEMENTThe United Nations World Heritage committee has selected eight buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to be added to the list of World Heritage Sites.
The American architect was born in Wisconsin in 1867 and his work includes the celebrated Fallingwater house and the Guggenheim museum.
Fallingwater was built over a waterfall between 1936 and 1939 for the wealthy Kaufmann family. Today, it is used as a museum operated by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Director Emerita of Fallingwater Lynda Waggoner led the campaign for World Heritage Status.
"This was such a stunning building, a tour de force," says Waggoner. "It re-establishes him. He appears on the cover of Time magazine in 1938, this man who is thought to be dead by some, with Fallingwater in the background, and it just captured the imagination of the world."
Wright scholar John Lobell recalls the architect's words, saying, "Wright said, 'a great architect must be an interpreter of his time, his day, his age'...Wright set himself two goals: to define or even create the 20th century and to redefine what we are as human beings."
Lloyd Wright pioneered the use of concrete in buildings. Perhaps the scope of this technique is most evident in his final work, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The brash concrete swirls of the building were criticised by many on its completion. The museum is now, however, one of the most photographed buildings in New York.
Lloyd did not live to see the completion of the Guggenheim, dying six months before the building was completed in 1959 at the age of 91.
The eight designs that have achieved UNESCO World Heritage Status are Fallingwater house, Taliesin West house, Frederick C. Robie House, Herbert and Katherine Jacobs house, Hollyhock house, Taliesin house, Unity Temple, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
