FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Southland Times, Issue 23888, 5 August 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

An article published in “The Press Junior” last year described the work of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan. While this American has long been hailed as a genius by the Japanese, he has been slow to have the recognition of his own countrymen. Now, ■ however, it looks as if he is to become as well known to the general public as he deserves. The American pictorial weekly "Life,” in its issue for May. devotes its three front pages to Wright's latest building. This building is not a school, a memorial or a town hall, merely an office building for a large wax polish manufacturing company in Wisconsin. Its architect says “It was designed to be as inspiring a,

place to work in as any cathedral ever was to worship in.” If you look at the pages of “Life” you will see for yourself. There are no windows in the building, but glass tubes let in light, which also pours in from the roof. The building is planned on the cantilever principle; the roof balances on pillars which are narrower at their base than at the top.

No building like this one has ever been attempted before. It imitates neither the Greeks nor medieval Gothic builders as so many. New Zealand buildings do. It is a twentieth century building in which twentieth century people may work happily and efficiently.

- D.M.N.