"Bring out the nature of the materials, let their nature intimately into your scheme." Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908

The tendency of steel to rust was considered a "fatal weakness" to Mr. Wright. However, in contrast to other architects, he viewed corrosion not as a technical problem but as a design issue. Owing to its nature, Wright recognized that steel could be covered with other materials or protected with coverings.

This is evident in the way Mr. Wright embedded thin columns of steel into the wood of SAMARA. He used flimsy, vertical, steel columns to provide support along the bands of glass in the living room then covered the steel with Philippine mahogany to protect it from the elements of corrosion. He literally turned a building material, that after 40 years would normally be quite ugly and disagreeable, into something quite lovely.

On the terrace, he turned structural steel pipes into pieces of art by specifiying Taliesen red paint be used to not only protect the steel from corrosion, but more importantly to create natural beauty by adding cubes of wood covered with thin, oxidized copper sheets. In this way the expression of steel is typically lost entirely, thus preventing any expression of its durability limitations. To Mr. Wright, this view of SAMARA reflects the beauty of his architecture as art.

The tensile and compression properties of steel add effects seen only in Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian homes. On one hand, the cantilevered fireplaces and the cantilevered roofs are products of Wright's unique insight into the tensile property of steel. On the other hand, in the SAMARA living room and terrace, Wright used the compression property of steel to create an entirely new sense of space.

Where other architects used steel only for its strength to almost intentionally create barriers between what they considered to be separate outdoor and indoor living space, Frank Lloyd Wright used steel pipes, thin steel columns and steel beams to extend and unite Nature's space as a continuation of the human senses.

Overviews of Construction Innovations
[ Nature of Materials ]   [ Building on a Unit ]   [ The Owner's View ]   [ Building the Wright Way ]
[ Historic Perspectives ]   [ Manipulating the Space ]   [ Oriental Influence ]