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Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, Term Paper

The Guggenheim, therefore, takes you out of your element: it transports you into another time, another place -- a time and place that never existed and has yet to come into existence: a sanctuary where modern art and naturalism merge into an architectural act of creation. Are these false impressions? Or is the Guggenheim nothing more than a Kandinskian cross between "fashion" and "fine art" (Johnson 666)?

There is nothing absurdist about Wright's architecture. It is sincere and always quiet. Yet something about the Guggenheim is so unlike Robie House -- so bursting -- so NYC and modern -- that it amazes, calls attention to itself and yet does not play the fool. It is as if nature, electrified by the city life of Manhattan, crawled its way out of the waters in Central Park and evolved in a sudden awakening of energy into a concrete structure -- the fruit of the vine of 5th Avenue: a pine cone inversion dangling upwards toward the sky.

In conclusion, Wright's Robie House and Guggenheim are architectural works that surprise and yet do not shock; that confound and yet do not offend. They draw one to a sense of the spiritual -- and yet reject the traditional definitions and rigors of medieval faith: they draw attention to themselves and their individuality and allow one to turn an introspective eye on things; but they also...

They evoke the mysterious, and yet they are trapped by a time and place: by 20th century kitsch, Midwest sentimentality, and NYC 5th Avenue glamour and brutalism. For all these reasons, I have chosen to analyze the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. He is an American enigma -- a representation of all that is most curious about the modern world: its desire to be individualistic and its inability to do anything but conform to the shallow philosophical impulses of its time.
Works Cited

"Frank Lloyd Wright Biography." Web. 24 July 2011.

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Print.

Pfeiffer, Bruce; Nordland, Gerald, eds. Frank Lloyed Wright: In the Realm of Ideas.

Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. Print.

Secrest, Meryle. Frank Lloyd Wright: a biography. IL: University of Chicago Press,

1992. Print.

Twombly, Robert. Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and His Architecture. Wiley-IEEE,

1987. Print.

Witcombe, Christopher. "The End of Art." Modernism. 2000. Web. 22 Apr 2011.

Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography. Petaluma, CA:

Pomegranate Communications, Inc., 2005. Print.

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

"Frank Lloyd Wright Biography." Web. 24 July 2011.

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Print.

Pfeiffer, Bruce; Nordland, Gerald, eds. Frank Lloyed Wright: In the Realm of Ideas.
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