Frank Lloyd Wright is probably the best-known American architect, and William Allin Storrer is considered the foremost scholar of Wright’s work.
On Tuesday, March 3, Storrer presented a lecture in Hattiesburg sponsored by the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Construction and Design.
“Storrer is the preeminent cataloger of Frank Lloyd Wright’s built work,” said James Ray Polk, a visiting architecture and design instructor at USM. He noted that Storrer’s first published catalog was compiled in 1974. That book is currently in its fourth edition and is still the definitive collection.
Entitled “The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog,” each page gives an explanation of one of the buildings. It was no easy task as Wright designed more than 1,000 buildings. The book specifically concentrates on “built work,” meaning structures that were actually constructed, and there are more than 500 of those.
“Frank Lloyd Wright was potentially the first fully American architect,” Polk said. “He rejected the norms of European architecture. His argument was that we are our own nation, so we should have our own architecture.”
Architectural academia agrees with Polk: In 1991, Wright was recognized by the American Institute of Architects as “the greatest American architect of all time.” Twelve of his structures are considered in the top 100 most important buildings of the 20th century, while 10 are listed as World Heritage sites.
One of the principal reasons Wright is revered is that he was “non-elitist,” Polk said.
Yes, he designed a number of elite structures, including New York City’s Guggenheim Museum – which was completed shortly after Wright’s death in 1959 at the age of 91. But potentially his greatest contribution to American architecture started much earlier, with what is known as the Prairie School of architecture – low-slung houses that Wright believed fit with the American landscape.
Wright’s ideas regarding architecture were that buildings should be beautiful, then American, democratic, and finally, that houses should be affordable, Storrer said in his lecture at the Cultural Center in downtown Hattiesburg.
One of his first designs was a church. Churches, single-family residences, the Guggenheim and that most iconic of all American structures – the gas station.
Wright designed only one gas station, as far as anyone knows. And if Storrer doesn’t know it, it probably doesn’t exist.
The director of USM’s School of Construction and Design, Erich Connell, has “instituted requirements that students studying architecture travel to see great architecture,” Polk said. “Erich brings to the school an appreciation for exposing students to great work.”
(Connell also brings people like Storrer to USM.)
Polk is uniquely qualified to assist in such expeditions. For a year or two, he taught at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Part of that time was spent in Wisconsin with the remainder being in Scottsdale, Arizona.
It was a snowbird school – half a year in each corner of the country.
On one of the trips Polk recently led, the students visited that singular gas station. He and his students showed up, “catalog in hand, and here comes this family from Chicago, holding the same catalog,” he said.
They were bent on the same pilgrimage: to follow the catalog, which was written by Storrer.
Wright almost singlehandedly created the ranch house, the quintessential house style that has dominated American residential architecture for many decades.
“The concepts he introduced weren’t stylistic fads,” Polk said. “Anytime you hear somebody talk about the open floor plan, where the kitchen, dining room and living rooms are all connected together, flow together – that was his invention.”
Bedrooms in Wright’s houses are generally small, especially by modern standards, with most of the residence being given to those wide-open spaces. He believed bedrooms should be reserved for sleeping and such, with most “living” to be done in the rest of the house.
Wright’s houses intentionally echo the terrain upon which they were built, Storrer said. The Prairie style specifically was meant to represent the territory around Wisconsin, his home, as well as surrounding areas, including Chicago. To that end, “he did not believe in bulldozing the land so that you can build a house,” and thus removing nature.
He wanted each home to fit in with nature, rather than the other way around.
In most of his designs, the kitchen is at the center, with other spaces “arranged like a pinwheel” around it.
Essentially, “he designed a secular version of the cruciform” – the familiar cross-shape common in church architecture, Storrer said, adding that the kitchen serves as the altar in the house.
Kitchens in Wright’s homes were typically quite small, making it possible for the cook to “just turn around and reach everything,” rather than being forced repeatedly to walk from one end to the other.
With narrow entryways and low ceilings, when you enter a Wright-designed home, the huge living rooms become the first place you actually enter, Storrer said. “It’s where you enter. It’s where you want to be. The living room is always the focus.”
While in Hattiesburg, Storrer also spoke with groups of USM’s architecture and design students, in addition to the lecture at the Cultural Center on Main Street.
