Frank Lloyd Wright Timeline

Wright married Catherine Tobin, with whom he would have six children. With financial help from Sullivan, he purchased land in Oak Park, Illinois, where he built his first home and studio.

Wright scandalized society by abandoning his wife and children to travel to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of a client. The affair damaged his reputation and career for several years.

Image source: Mamah Borthwick

During his European stay, Wright oversaw the preparation of the Wasmuth Portfolio, a lavish two-volume publication of his work issued in Berlin in 1910, which profoundly influenced European modernist architects.

Image source: Wasmuth Portfolio

Wright began building Taliesin, his home and studio on his family's ancestral land in Wisconsin, designed as a living laboratory where he would live and work for the rest of his life.

Image source: Taliesin (studio)

A distraught household servant set fire to Taliesin's living quarters and murdered Mamah Borthwick Cheney and six others as they attempted to escape the flames. The tragedy devastated Wright, who rebuilt the residence as Taliesin II.

Following his divorce from Catherine Tobin in 1922, Wright married sculptor Maude 'Miriam' Noel, a tumultuous marriage that ended in divorce in 1927 amid her struggles with morphine addiction.

Wright married Olga ('Olgivanna') Lazovich, a Montenegrin dancer, who remained his partner until his death and co-founded the Taliesin Fellowship with him.

Wright and Olgivanna established the Taliesin Fellowship, an apprenticeship program at Taliesin where young architects learned by living, working, and building alongside Wright, shaping generations of designers.

Image source: The School of Architecture

Wright's engaging autobiography brought him renewed fame and attracted apprentices to the newly formed Taliesin Fellowship, revitalizing his career during the Great Depression.

The Taliesin-associated school evolved into an accredited institution training apprentice architects under Wright's philosophy, continuing after his death until its closure in 2020.

Wright died at age 91 in Phoenix shortly after undergoing surgery. At the time of his death, he had completed more than 500 built works and left behind designs that continue to shape architecture worldwide.

Wright designed this elaborate entertainment complex in Chicago, featuring intricate concrete ornamentation. It was demolished in 1929, though fragments survive and it remains a notable work of his middle period.

Image source: Midway Gardens

Wright spent years designing and overseeing construction of the Imperial Hotel, employing innovative floating foundation techniques. The building famously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 largely intact, cementing his international reputation.

Image source: Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

When the devastating earthquake struck Tokyo, Wright's Imperial Hotel withstood the shaking remarkably well, and messages of congratulation from around the world revived his struggling career.

Commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, Fallingwater is perhaps Wright's most famous work — a cantilevered house dramatically built over a waterfall, widely regarded as a masterpiece of organic architecture.

Image source: Fallingwater

Beginning with the Herbert Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin, Wright developed his Usonian houses: modest, affordable homes featuring carports, flat roofs, and radiant floor heating, aimed at democratizing good design.

Image source: Usonia

Wright's headquarters for S.C. Johnson & Son in Racine, Wisconsin, features the Great Workroom with slender dendriform (tree-shaped) columns and continuous bands of glass tubing, a landmark of corporate architecture.

Image source: Johnson Wax Headquarters

Wright established Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, as his winter home, studio, and school campus, built of local stone and desert materials, embodying his ideal of architecture rooted in its landscape.

Image source: Taliesin West

Time magazine featured Wright on its cover alongside coverage of Fallingwater, marking his return to national prominence decades after his early Prairie School fame.

Wright spent fifteen years developing his iconic spiral museum on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Opened six months after his death, its inverted ziggurat form remains one of the world's most recognizable buildings.

Wright continued writing prolifically into his late eighties; The Story of the Tower reflected his lifelong fascination with tall buildings and structural innovation.

Image source: Lloyd Wright

Wright unveiled his visionary proposal for 'The Illinois', a skyscraper one mile high intended for Chicago, demonstrating his boundless imagination even though the project was never built.

Six months after Wright's death, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City, serving as the final grand statement of his career and an enduring monument to his genius.

Image source: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum