Final Project Text
Following the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 and coupled with the additional hardships of the Dust Bowl in the American Midwest, the Great Depression was an unprecedented era of severe economic distress that caused widespread unemployment as high as 25%, forced hundreds of thousands of Americans into homelessness, and resulted in the failure of over 5,000 banks. During a financial crisis, especially one of such magnitude, bank lending dries up and the lack of available credit inhibits investment.[1] Yet despite significantly reduced capital for the funding of such projects, a multitude of breakthrough advances in many different fields made the 1930s the most innovative decade of the twentieth century.[1]
One such field that experienced a wealth of progressive ideas during this time was architecture. Although he had no formal training in the department, Frank Lloyd Wright’s visionary concepts and designs have elevated him as the most influential American architect of the twentieth century. When commissions became scarce during the Great Depression, Wright began working on a series of efficient, single-story residences for lower income households . At the time, most architecture in America was simply borrowed from traditional European designs and America was lacking an original style that could accommodate the less formal direction that domestic life was taking, seen in the large, informal living rooms found in many of his homes.[2] Along with a desire to build homes that average, middle class Americans could afford, Wright wanted to build homes possessing a uniquely American style, hence the name “Usonian,” derived from the acronym “United States of North America.”[2]
The first Usonian house was built in 1936 for Herbert and Katherine Jacobs at just over $5000 and it featured many new approaches to construction that would be found in all of the homes to follow including the Pope-Leighey House completed six years later in 1941.[2] Though generally very modest in size, Wright’s use of narrow hallways and low entryways combined with the elevated roof and floor to ceiling glass walls upon entering the room as well as the interior ‘open plan’ which he designed and was the first to implement created a feeling of spaciousness. The homes were L- shaped to fit around a garden terrace, but also to allow in more natural light, something very important to his personal and original design aesthetic, “organic architecture,” which required the harmony of human habitation and the natural world through designs strongly connected and integrated with their surroundings. Wright applied this philosophy to every aspect of the design process down to the building materials and the furniture within the home, which he designed and in built into the actual home.[3]
In addition to the open floor plan, Wright was the first to create a cantilevered carport with no support beams and coined the term ‘carport.’ The carport is certainly an architectural contribution from Wright that we see today.[6] Another common point of modern architecture that he designed and implemented was the radiant heated floor. Each Usonian home is built on a concrete slab foundation, within which are embedded hot water pipes to heat the home when needed.[5] In addition to those innovations, while we would admire more than we would marvel at the dramatic use of windows throughout the home, they are actually a great engineering feat! Those walls entirely made of glass cannot support any of the weight of the house. In the Pope-Leighey House there are multiple walls per room that are unable to support weight and so a lot of work had to go into balancing the building properly. This use of glass walls was coined by Wright as ‘structural glass,’ and really promotes the closeness to nature he constantly strove for.[5]
The Pope-Leighey House cost $7000, a stretch for Loren Pope who made just $50 a week as a copy editor for the Evening Star, but he and his wife agreed that owning such a natural and contemporary home was well worth the cost and begged Wright to build it for them, saying in a letter “Dear Mr. Wright, There are certain things a man wants during life, and of life. Material things and things of the spirit. The writer has one fervent wish that includes both. It is a house created by you.”[6] However after just six years of bliss in the home of their dreams it was decided that their growing family simply needed more space and so they moved from their Falls Church residence to a farm in Loudoun county, biding their time until they could afford another Wright home.[6] Unfortunately when they were finally able to commission their second home, Wright was busy with the Guggenheim Museum in New York and did not survive its completion. Having working until the age of 92, however, Frank Lloyd Wright’s extensive and lasting legacy despite the years of economic hardship in his prime have immortalized him as the greatest American architect of all time.[4]
