Frank Lloyd Wright was a creative in the architectural world. He is best known for his unique takes on architecture, along with his writings. His creative work life spanned a total of 70+ years. Wright also had a particular creative process. It began in the planning stages, where Wright would try to blend his architecture to the surrounding environment and surrounding nature. Wright would use models of his building plans and see if they made sense in the larger model of the surrounding area. One of the products by Wright you can see here in Chicagoland is the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Oak Park. This was established by him as both a home to raise his family, but also as his main architectural studio. In his Oak Park home you can see the vision of having the building blend into the surrounding area, while maintaining particular sharp corners and edges. It appears almost as if it is nuzzled into the nature scene.
Agustin Fuentes' book The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional discusses different aspects of human creativity through an evolutionary lens. One particular part of the book that stood out to me is where Fuentes describes his experience trying to learn how to carve wooden masks from a master crafter in Indonesia. He had to apply the ideas of shaping nature, in this case a block of wood, to a new shape that is not natural; a mask. This is very similar to how Wright tried to shape and bend his architecture around nature while still respecting the natural world and getting it to flow together in harmony.
Wright's style of blending the structure/building with the surrounding natural environment reminds me of when Rubin discusses the necessity of embracing nature in the creative process. I think the sharp, rigid structures that characterize his architectural style is interesting, since I would not think of designing a building like this (when embracing the natural environment). However, keeping an open mind is essential to the creative process.
ReplyDeleteI have always liked Wright's work and I think he was a great creative to bring up in association with creativity and evolution. Wright worked with the space he had to fit the building into nature rather than fit nature around the building. Relating it to Rubin's work as well, you could apply the idea of source (the need for a house/studio and the space he had), filter (what is physically possible to build and matches the aesthetics of the surrounding landscape), and the vessel (Wright's mind putting all of his new and past ideas together to form a final product). Wright is a perfect example of letting creativity happen rather than forcing it.
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