Frank Lloyd Wright: Orientalism in his thought and its historical sources.

Abstract

Present scholarship on Frank Lloyd Wright has tended to characterize the architect's interest in the Orient and the inspiration he drew from it largely in terms of a pursuit of stylistic novelties end exploration of the exotic possibilities of architecture. However, this study contends that the focus of Wright's interest in the Orient, extending significantly beyond a quest for the visual elements of style, was a singular manifestation of his ongoing philosophical concern for seeking and defining the essence of architecture. This study constitutes a critical inquiry into the role of the Orient in the making of Wright's modernism, as well as an examination of Wright's unique cultural and intellectual milieus in order to clarify the theoretical thrusts that propelled him to engage Eastern art and philosophy in elaborating his theoretical premises. This study argues that Wright's appreciation and absorption of East Asian cultures were an integral part of his complex intellectual and aesthetic campaign against the cultural authorities of his time, especially the classical tradition of art and architecture. The findings indicate that Wright's Orientalism in this context was drawn from an idiosyncratic web of theoretical sources encompassing both Western and Eastern religio-aesthetic thought. For instance, a number of Wright's aesthetic beliefs were derived from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transcendentalism, with its idealization of nature and delvings into Oriental religious thought. The radical Romanticists Thomas Carlyle, William Morris, Victor Hugo, Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, in turn, supplied Wright with substantial theoretical basis not only for advancing his own multifaceted brand of radical Romanticism, but also for accessing salient aspects of Eastern art and culture. At the same time, Wright's maternal uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, provided a compelling early impetus for pursuing the Oriental connection. The theology of Liberal Religion actively promulgated by Jones had helped expose Wright to Eastern religions and the religious ideals underlying the Japanese house. The design features that Jones promoted as embodiments of his domestic reform cause were to resonate, in Wright's subsequent formulation of his conception of the Prairie house. Apart from the Western sources, Wright's Orientalism also drew from Taoism of ancient China, as reinterpreted and disseminated in America by kakuzo Okakura, a pioneering figure in the field of Oriental art connoisseurship. Okakura's singular rendering of Taoism in his portrayal of Japanese art and architecture yielded the general framework within which Wright absorbed the Taoist aesthetic and forged his own deeper Taoist mind for design.