Hollyhock House, Los Angeles, California. Completed in 1921 during the growth of the Hollywood film industry, Hollyhock House is now part of Barnsdall Art Park, which is owned by the City of Los Angeles. The forms of this house evoke Meso-American designs, with the space designed to be a house and an arts complex. Photo: Hollyhock House / Joshua White
Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona. Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to create a desert utopia and achieved this with Taliesin West, built in 1937. Constructed using local rock and desert sand, Wright utilized a form of “desert masonry” to build this beautiful site where he spent his winters until his death in 1959. The property includes a studio, three theaters, and a workshop—which were used for Taliesin Fellowship activities—as well as Wright’s private quarters. Photo: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation / Andrew Pielage
The Jacobs House, Wisconsin - completed in 1937, exemplifies Wright’s collection of “Usionian” houses, which are meant to emerge from the earth in structures of wood, stone, and clay, thereby integrating with the natural environment. Photo: James Dennis / David Heald
View across the living room of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, studio, school, and 800-acre property, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Taliesin was first constructed in 1911 as Frank Lloyd Wright’s home in the Wisconsin River valley, where he spent time with family in his youth. After a deadly arson attack in 1914 and an electrical fire in 1925, Wright rebuilt the living quarters both times. Wright also founded the Taliesin Fellowship to provide people with architectural training through a holistic approach. Taliesin serves as a living timeline of Wright’s life, work, and influence. Photo: Taliesin Preservation, Inc.
Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago, Illinois. The Robie House is an ultimate expression of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style of architecture. The house is horizontally elevated, features a configuration of sliding planes, window mosaics with colored diagonal patterns, and a spacious open plan composed of a room full of natural light and divided by a central chimney. Photo: Frank Lloyd Wright Trust
View of Unity Temple auditorium from pulpit, Oak Park, Illinois. The Unity Temple was built after the Universalist Church of Oak Park was struck by lightning and burned down. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the temple as a perfect square to reinforce a sense of unity among worshippers and created depressed cloisters on all four sides, giving visitors the sense that they are floating in the air. Wright considered the Unity Temple his first contribution to a new, modern architecture. Photo: Unity Temple Restoration Foundation
Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935. Perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright’s most beloved work of architecture, Fallingwater appears perfectly integrated with its natural surroundings, which include a cascading waterfall. Fallingwater’s terraces and balconies extend into the surrounding woods and create a harmony between architecture and nature. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith
For the past half-century, UNESCO has identified and helped encourage protections for 1,223 World Heritage sites around the world – including 27 in the United States. The list also has helped match people with places that interest and inspire them.
It is not the beauty of a place, or its place in history, or other single factor that secures a spot on the list. Instead, the primary criterion is how a place reflects an “outstanding universal value,” as gauged by factors that range from history, art, and science – to conservation or natural beauty – to ethnology and anthropology.
The architectural works that illustrate Frank Lloyd Wright’s approach to “organic architecture” found the sweet spot that constitutes this outstanding universal value. His design philosophy held that architecture should function for everyone and harmonize people and their environments.
Endeavoring to push engineering boundaries, Wright made innovative use of steel and concrete to create open plans that connect structures to natural elements. His work blurs the boundaries between natural and built space, bringing the out-of-doors into homes and places of worship, work and leisure.
The American architect “changed the discourse on global architecture,” UNESCO notes, and the ensemble of work designated as a World Heritage site “contributes uniquely to the elaboration of this original architectural language. . . . in their fusion of spirit and form they evoked emotional responses that were universal in their appeal.” Wright’s approach had a significant impact on the European Modern Movement, and on individual architects in Japan, Latin America, and Australia.
The US sites include both grand structures and simple homes. It includes the consummate example of a Prairie House, whose design elements have been adopted in communities nationwide. Their settings range from city to suburban, from forest to desert environments, adapting elements from global cultures to break free of traditional forms. More than mere structures, these are creations that facilitate modern life beginning in the mid-20th century – and that continue to inspire.
- Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania
- Unity Temple and the Robie House, in Illinois
- Taliesin (Wright’s studios) and the Jacobs House, in Wisconsin
- Taliesin West, in Arizona
- The Hollyhock House, in California, and
- The Guggenheim Museum, in New York
