Architectural Misconduct 1 - Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright is probably the most famous American architect. Known for Fallingwater, The Guggenheim, and his Prairie/Usonian homes, he had big ideas about the "right" way to do architecture and even bigger ones about how cities should work.
Born in 1867 to a fractious household, his mom decided early he’d be a great architect and filled his nursery with cathedral illustrations and geometric toys. His parents split when he was a teen; he never saw his father again.
In 1909, he abandoned his wife and six kids to run off to Europe with a client’s wife. After returning, he built Taliesin as their private sanctuary. In 1914, while he was away, a servant murdered her, her two kids, and four others with an axe, then set Taliesin on fire.
Later, he married a morphine addict, then left her for a mystic-leaning Montenegrin dancer. That came with another daughter, another Taliesin fire (this time electrical, destroying a vast collection of rare Japanese prints), and an arrest under the Mann Act during a custody battle. Charges were later dropped.
Eventually he created the Taliesin Fellowship, a quasi-cult architectural commune. Despite the bad press and exploitative vibes, many students thought the trade-off was worth it. He died in 1959, but in 1985 his body was dug up and moved from Wisconsin to Arizona against his will so he could be buried next to his last wife.
In short: unstable childhood, four partners (including a junkie and a dancer), at least eight kids, one lover and two kids murdered with an axe, three fires at his house, possibly America’s first major architectural weeb, and ran a charismatic quasi-cult until he died.
