Drawn from current book in progress: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Water Gardens, 1893-1959. Over his career, Frank Lloyd Wright was especially noted for designing not just buildings, but gardens and landscapes as extensions of his buildings. Wright drew on the two main landscape traditions: the Italian-French system of a man-made order dominating nature and the Japanese aesthetic of designing in harmony with nature. Wright did not see these traditions in opposition, he used one or the other, depending on the commission. Yet his was not an academic mind. He was an artist who looked at models and synthesized principles to generate his own creation. Between 1916-22, Wright lived most of each year in Japan where he experienced Japanese water (and dry) gardens in person, through books, and, possibly through instruction by his Japanese art master, Shugio Hiromichi. He became familiar with such sites as Shugaku-in Imperial Villa and Katsura Imperial Villa (both Kyoto). He was particularly prolific with water after he developed a sequential Japanesque eight-part system: a) pool as spring, b) stream, c) pond, d) waterfall, e) stream, f) river, g) lake, h) ocean. Sometimes these elements were present naturally on the site; other times, he designed one or more components (sometimes six or more) where the water garden became his own creation. Most of these schemes were unbuilt. However, two–Taliesin and Fallingwater–are acclaimed masterpieces. While the first consists of a-b-c-d-e-f components, Fallingwater is b-d-d-e.

Kathryn Smith
Author, historic preservation consultant, and lecturer
Thursday, February 8, 2024
7 p.m. EST / 4 p.m. PST