This is a recording of a talk called American Trilogy: Richardson, Sullivan, Wright, by Neil Jackson which was recorded in 2021.
Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924) and Frank Lloyd Wight (1867- 1959) form a triumvirate of American architects whose work can be best referred to as Organic Architecture. Born of the years following the Civil War and of the great expansion west, its genesis had been in books like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or Life in the Woods (1854) and George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). Theirs was an architecture which aimed to save the landscape from despoliation, an architecture which was, at times, literally hewn out of the ground on which it stood.
Yet there was much more to it than that. Both Richardson and Sullivan had trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and brought back with them from France the influence of the Romanesque and Classicism. When offered the opportunity to study there, Wright declined, but nevertheless learnt from Sullivan, for whom he worked, the principles of Classical planning which, overlaid with the influence of Japanese architecture, allowed him to ‘explode the box’.
This online lecture by Professor Neil Jackson will examine a selection of buildings by the three architects from the time following Richardson’s return from Paris in 1865 to Wright’s departure for Europe in 1909 (when he eloped with his client’s wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney) and the subsequent publication the following year, by Ernst Wasmuth of Berlin, of his monumental Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright.
Professor Neil Jackson is an architect and architectural historian and Professor Emeritus in the School of Architecture at Liverpool University. He has published many books on architecture including Victorian architecture (Nineteenth-century Bath, Architects and Architecture, 1991, 1998; Saltaire: The Making of a Model Town, 2010) and Arts and Crafts architecture (F W Troup, Architect, 1985). He is a Trustee of the Victorian Society and has recently retired as the Chair of the Events Committee.
After booking a ticket, you will be given access to the recording of the event. Please ignore the event date in the listings.
This event helps raise funds for The Victorian Society - the only charity dedicated to fighting for our Victorian and Edwardian heritage. Join us today and safeguard our unique cultural heritage for future generations! For further information, click here.
The Victorian Society is an IHBC recognised CPD provider.
