We’re all at least a little familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, but have you ever considered how his architecture has influenced interior design? Just as interior designers can influence architects, the reverse is also true. A home’s architecture must influence its interior design as well. While this is not an exhaustive summary of Wright’s work, we touch on three of his most famous buildings.

Fallingwater

Fallingwater is probably the most famous of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes and showcases his emphasis on the union of nature and art. It has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. Like his architecture, Wright believed that a home’s interior design should reflect the natural world. A home’s furnishings should incorporate its natural setting and blend seamlessly with its environment. Fallingwater embodies the open floor plan with the Arts and Crafts furniture that is still prized today. Mission and Arts and Crafts furniture is timeless and blends in well with a variety of different interior design styles.

Wright designed both the freestanding and built-in furniture of Fallingwater himself. He designed the furniture from plywood with North Carolina black walnut veneer. The palette for Falling consisted of only two colors–a light ochre for the concrete and his signature Cherokee Red for the steel. Not only are the colors in keeping with Fallingwater’s environment, but the paint was designed to be ecofriendly! PPG Pittsburgh Paints worked to develop the colors specifically for Fallingwater. How many modern interior designers would go to such great lengths?

Design Lesson: Keep the color palette simple.

The Robie House

The Robie House embodies Wright’s Prairie Style of architecture. It is considered one of the most important buildings in architectural history, and once you’ve seen it you can understand why. It was inspired by the expansive prairie of the Illinois area. The Robie House sits on the ancestral grounds of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa Nations peoples.

The Arts and Crafts movement began in England in the 1880s, and influenced architects and interior designers worldwide. The Arts and Crafts movement emphasized original, innovative designs. As the historian H. Allen Brooks, succinctly states: “Arts and crafts was a movement and not a style. It was an attitude, an approach to a problem that advocated no specific vocabulary of forms. It pleaded for simplicity, elimination, and respect for materials. Its most salutary effect, in retrospect, was the purification of public taste.” Wright’s focus on the Arts and Crafts movement became the impetus for much of his architecture.

Design Lesson: Put an emphasis on original and innovative designs.

Taliesin

Taliesin is the home in Wisconsin where Frank Lloyd Wright lived for fifty years. Taliesin’s 37,000 square feet encompass the home itself plus a studio, school, in addition to the 800-acre estate. And it was at this house that Wright designed one of his most famous pieces of furniture: The Origami Chair, which could be fabricated from a single sheet of plywood (although some say that more than one sheet of plywood is needed). Its iconic design incorporates a Japanese aesthetic. The design makes getting up from the chair easier. Is this a lesson that modern interior designers (and chair manufacturers) could learn from? We think so. By the way, we’ve written about how to use the Japandi interior design style, which you might like.

Although every room in Taliesin is stunning, many people credit the living room as the most iconic, with its views of the fields visible through the large windows, described as a pair of Japanese screens. Coincidentally, Wright had a collection of Japanese screens, some of which are still on display at Taliesin. Throughout the house the ceiling heights vary, which gives the design even more interest. Wright believed that art should be used and on display, and if the art “dies along the way, it’s lived a noble life.”

Taliesin is composed of limestone which turns red when exposed to fire, and part of Taliesen went through two fires. Wright rebuilt after both fires.

Wright not only designed these houses, he also created the furniture, leaded glass windows, floors, furniture, and even tableware. When he built a home, he also often filled it with artwork that he loved, such as Japanese wood block prints.

Design Lesson: Let art be used and on display.

Let your design be your signature

When installed correctly, window film is invisible and lets your windows showcase your views. Give us a call and we can help you choose what’s best for your home or office. We work all over the greater San Francisco Bay Area, from San Jose to the East Bay to the San Mateo Peninsula and Marin–and have expanded into southern California, too! Give us a call at 415.623.8700.