Modern Master: Frank Lloyd Wright

The Laurent House opens to the public for the first time on June 7 and will be open the first and last weekend of each month. Admission is $15. Photo courtesy of Wright Auction House.

The seeds for Frank Lloyd Wright's collaboration with prefab builder Marshall Erdman were planted when Erdman hired the architect to design the First Unitarian Society meeting house in Madison, Wisconsin. [Photo credit courtesy The Kubala Washatko Architects (TKWA) via ArchDaily]

An archival view of the pavilion. It featured one long, rectangular room with exposed eaves.

The "hemicycle" layout of the house is one of only 12 or 13 similar structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright around the world.

UNESCO World Heritage Nomination According to Scott Perkins, Director of Preservation at Fallingwater, ten of Wright’s building have been nominated to become UNESCO World Heritage sites, a massive inclusion that would add an important icon of American modernism to the prestigious list, as well as raise awareness and grant more public access to his work. The nominees include Fallingwater, the Hollyhock House, Taliesin West, Taliesin East, Unity Temple, the Guggenheim, Price Tower, Marin County Civic Center, the Frederick C. Robie House, and the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House. While the buildings have previously been submitted and are on the tentative list, supporters hope they make the final cut by 2016. Photo by John Amarantides

He Even Designed Modern Gas Stations This small town service station outside of Duluth may stand as an outlier among Wright’s many commissions, but its unmistakably his, from the copper cantilevered canopy to the glassed-in observation deck. Created with prefab construction and expansion in mind, the station supposedly drew from earlier sketches and ideas Wright had for gas pumps at his proposed Broadacre development. The initial plans even propose hoisting the gas pumps overhead to create a service area free from impediments, a creative but unworkable solution due to building codes. Photo by Eugene D. Becker

The only grouping of Frank Lloyd Wright's early American System-Built Homes—built by Arthur Richards and designed with standardized components for mass appeal to moderate-income families—is situated in the Burnham Park neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The four model 7A duplexes, one model B1 bungalow (shown here), and model C3 bungalow were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Location: Los Angeles, CA Price: $6,900,000 One of Frank Lloyd Wright's West Coast masterpieces, the famed 1923 Storer House sports a signature concrete textile-knit block system. (A somewhat tongue-in-cheek name for the four homes he built with the motif is "Mayan Revival.") This one comes with real street cred: It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

This is the painted model of Broadacre City, showing the amount of undeveloped land between residences. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York).

Although the Price Tower is Wright’s only realized skyscraper, the rendering of the Grouped Towers in Chicago portrays similar themes of lightness and balance. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York).

Taliesin West (1938, Scottsdale, Arizona). Wright experimented with architectural techniques on his winter home and studio over the course of two decades. He developed a stone masonry out of boulders and rocks found around the site. The property houses the offices of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation; the resident staff and students who live and work at Taliesin and Taliesin West; and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.

Unity Temple (1905, Oak Park, Illinois). This structure was one of the first public buildings to be made with affordable, poured-in-place reinforced concrete.

Wright's home and studio, rebuilt after two fires, is a peaceful retreat that demonstrates the architect's graceful merging of architecture and landscape.

Frederick C. Robie House (1908, Chicago, Illinois). This house established a new concept for open-plan living that no longer relied on walls to designate interior spaces.

Price Tower (1952, Bartlesville, Oklahoma). This design is Wright's only realized skyscraper. Its distinctive facade features patinated copper cladding and sun louvers.