Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

    It's the birthday in 1867 of Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest American architect of all time and pioneer of the Prairie School of architecture. Wright was born in Richland Center, a farming community in western Wisconsin. His father was an occasional lawyer and itinerate preacher. His mother was a school teacher. Both encouraged Wright's interest in the arts.

   When Wright was just three the family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts where his father took over a small congregation. While on the east coast,  his  mother learned of the kindergarten movement and bought Frank a set of geometrical blocks that Frank played with for endless hours.  

   Wright's father was unable to support the family with his little congregation and they returned to Wisconsin where they could get help from his wife's family. Eventually, when Frank was 14, Mrs. Wright kicked the dad out of the house for not bringing in money. Frank never saw his father again. 

    Wright attended high school but did not graduate. He studied engineering for a year at the University of Wisconsin, but left to start work as a draftsman at an architectural firm in Chicago. He arrived in Chicago in 1887. There was a population boom going on and the city was still rebuilding from the great fire of 1871.

   Wright was soon apprenticed to the famous architect, Louis Sullivan. He got into fist fights with his fellow draftsmen, but Sullivan seemed to like him. When Wright married, Sullivan loaned him money to build a house.  Wright was always short of cash due to his expensive tastes in clothing and cars. He began designing houses in his spare time which angered Sullivan, to the point that Sullivan fired him. Wright started his own firm which gave him the opportunity to focus on his own ideas. Wright wanted to create a new style for America. He and other young architects developed the Prairie School, which emphasized strong horizontal lines and harmony with nature. Wright's firm was one of the first in the U.S. to hire women architects.

    Wright and his wife Catherine had six children. He let Catherine care for the children. He was busy with work and his extra-marital affairs. He wanted to marry one of his girlfriends but Catherine would not give him a divorce. He built the famous Taliesin house near the family home in Spring Green, Wisconsin and settled the girlfriend there. In 1914, a servant set fire to Taliesin and murdered Wright's girlfriend and two of her children. Wright rebuilt the house, finally got a divorce and married another girlfriend, but this girlfriend was a morphine addict, so they split up.

   Wright next met a Montenegrin dancer named Olgivanna and moved her into Taliesan, which again burned down. This time the new phone system the culprit. Wright built Taliesan III and married Olgivanna and his troubles were over pretty much.

   Other famous works of his are Falling Waters, a home built over a waterfall in Mill Run, PA, and Taliesin West, his winter home in Arizona, now the site of his archives and school of architecture. At age 80, he began work on the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He finished this project not long before his death in 1959 at age 91.

Architect of space

   

    Todays poem is by Anon:

The drinker jumps without a chute.

Rolls off a stool, lands on his snoot.

He hits the street to rove and rave,

At bottle's end, he hits the grave.

     

    Come back Sunday for more squibs from @jmcdonnell123.