"A building appears as the landscape. The hard and fast lines between inside and outside disappear." Frank Lloyd Wright

Basements, as foundation structures, were always an issue with Frank Lloyd Wright because of drainage problems associated with wet and unstable soil conditions under the structural loads of brick and steel. As early as the 1910s with his design of the Imperial Hotel in Japan, Mr. Wright understood the phenomena of earthquakes as an additional consideration that completely discounted use of subterranean features that would necessarily support the stress of tons of brick and steel. Thus, foundations set in unstable soil or earthquake prone areas required an alternative solution compared to traditional engineering principles and guidelines.

Mr. Wright probably realized that the Inperial Hotel required a foundation much like the buildings in Chicago, because the soils in the city were wet and unstable mixtures of soft sand, clay and silt. Foundations for new skyscrapers at the turn of the twentieth century in downtown Chiacgo also required a different approach.

Buildings were either supported by enormous pilings of concrete and steel or by "pads" of the same materials, resting, or floating on the clay, which would sustain and distribute the enormous weights. The methods developed during this time period subsequently became famous as the Chicago "floating foundation."

One of the pioneering new architects of the building movement following the 1871 great Chiacgo fire was William Le Baron Jenny. Louis Sullivan worked for Jenny and, as we know, Mr. Wright later worked for Mr. Sullivan.

Further, the contractor for a number of major projects, including the Imperial Hotel, had also worked for Sullivan, a Mr. Paul Mueller. It is probable that Frank Lloyd Wright learned something about weight distribution on foundations laid on unstable surface soils in Chicago as a result of working for Louis Sullivan. These same "floating foundation" principles were carried out by Mr. Wright during the construction of SAMARA more than 50 years later.

Overview 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 ]