When Wright struck out on his own, he continued monitoring the execution of his buildings to various degrees. His long career included designing over 1,000 buildings while having over 50% of them constructed. He did not oversee all of them personally (which would not be humanly impossible given that volume) but was far more than solely a designer. Being charitable, I would estimate that less than 50% of buildings architects design get built today and of these maybe 1% of these architects are responsible for the building of their designs.

This is the fourth post in a weekly series debunking the myth that Frank Lloyd Wright was only an architect. In fact, based on my research, he was first and foremost a builder. Here is a link to the first article in the series.

Wright wrote to a colleague “I am a builder” when describing himself and what he embodied. His designs certainly had a degree of experimentation, and this expectedly resulted in some imperfections and lessons learned along the way. For those innovating and pushing the boundaries of what is possible a learning curve is inevitable, yet Wright embraced accountability for his creations by coming full circle.

After seven summers laboring on the farm, in 1885 the 18-year-old Wright gladly took a job with Allan D. Conover, an engineer and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was supervising the construction of the Science Hall on campus. Wright was tasked with designing steel clips to join the tower’s trusses but was met with frustrated craftsmen as the clips did not fit properly. Not bred as an armchair architect, and no matter the winter conditions or the tower’s height, Wright climbed up the steel beams to resolve his design and make sure they worked.

A favorite gift of ours to clients with children is a Froebel set inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The impact Tuskegee and its founders have had deserves both esteem and universal recognition. The key players on this stage were visionaries and far ahead of their time. Their fundamental viewpoint was that design, planning, and the full building process could be planned, owned, and executed by a single responsible professional — the Master Builder of old.

The seat of power of the world’s most powerful nation was conceived, planned, designed, and crafted in great detail by the creative genius of a young man born and raised in Kilkenny, Ireland.

The derivation of the word “architect” actually breaks down to Master (Arcki) Builder (Tecton)

Walter Gropius was born in Berlin, Germany on 18 May, 1883. He established himself as a founder of the Modern Style in the elite ranks with Frank Lloyd Wright and other legends such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier.