"Space is the breath of art." Frank Lloyd Wright, 1906

Perhaps the most significant of Mr. Wright's construction innovations is the elimination of the box-type approach so prevalent in house designs. Instead of having four walls with cut-outs for windows and doors, Mr. Wright opened up the living space to the outside and thus destroyed the appearance of the box.

Frank Lloyd Wright's objective was to carry your eye to the outside to bring Nature into the room making it an intimate part of the living space. He used a very simple principle to accomplish this effect.

• First, he used large, one-quarter inch thick, polished plate glass on two sides of the living room.
• Second, he consistently used the same building materials for inside and outside construction.

Examples shown at the entrance to SAMARA include red brick inside with identical brick outside; the same wood inside and out; same ceiling inside as out; same recessed lighting fixtures inside and out; and, the same finishing coats inside and out. He also specified a wide variety of plants both inside and out.

Wright eliminated corner posts by using mitered glass corners throughout the house. In this way, your eyes are automatically carried to the outside extending the view of the living space to the natural environment. These are major innovations that contributed significantly to eliminating box-like rooms and houses.

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 ]