GLH10302-At a Glance

George Lewis Hughes

English 103: Accelerated Composition – Visual Rhetoric Assignment; At a Glance

Daniel Richards

September 1, 2008

Elements of Visual Rhetoric Embedded in the Architectural Attributes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater

One importance to understand about world-famous, early twentieth century, Chicago architect Frank Lloyd Wright is that he is self-defined only to the constraints of originality; that is, everything he designs directly embraces its setting, whether urban or natural. Thus, his stylistic approaches persistently vary according to which building materials best meld into its surroundings. Although essentially all of his designs are generally strange, they can also isolate themselves in terms of their consistently vast and oftentimes even overwhelming size and scale.

Wright was extremely attentive to and concerned with details in his architecture, even to an extent of conducting interior decorations and works of art inscribed quite abstractly into the very masonry of both the interior and exterior respective facades on his own volition. In those terms he was his own artist. His later designs, however, often did reflect the prevalent and signature architectural trend of the Roaring Twenties, namely, the Art-Deco style, which may also partially aid in the voluminous explanations for his pursuit of densely acquired relief designs on selective components of his buildings.

As a young architect in training, I am particularly intrigued by Wright’s style of designing eco-friendly homes, on the condition that such practices are becoming increasingly important in the wake of the “Global Warming” paranoia. Nevertheless, the properties of his arguably most renowned design, Falling Water, also captivate my imagination because of its totally unparalleled originality. He not only succeeds in its mutual status with the natural environment in upstate Pennsylvania, but he also even manages to give the house an organic character all to itself, specifically with respect to blending in with the natural surroundings.