Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church

Frank Lloyd Wright designed several churches over the course of his lifetime. While still in his teens, he supervised the construction of the Lloyd Jones family chapel designed by a Chicago architect of some renown - J. L. Silsbee. Wright would go on to apprentice in Silsbee's office for a year before landing a job with Adler and Sullivan.

Mr. Wright would often tout is credentials for designing churches as 'not belonging to any of them.' When asked about his religion, he explained "I put a capital "N" on Nature and I call that my religion."

Fast forward to the mid 1950's and here you have his Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin - a suburb of Milwaukee.

I stopped by to take some photos on my last trip to Milwaukee. More photos tomorrow. Holds up pretty well, I'd say. What do you think?

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unitarian Meeting House

Last year I posted a series of photos of the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison.

http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/organic-architecture-in-wisconsin.html
http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-organic-architecture-frank-lloyd.html

In my ambitious space clearing project of the past few days, I found this decade-old drawing in one of my old sketchbooks.

Besides being one of my favorite FLlW buildings, the Meeting House turned out to be one of the most copied (almost always badly) of Mr. Wright's compositions. (He called his buildings "symphonies in stone.") Look at the prow; think of how many churches you've seen with an extended ridge at on the front, some with stained glass in some configuration, some with a solid front.

Frank Lloyd Wright preached the gospel of organic architecture. I've asked many apprentices who studied under America's great Architect about the meaning of organic architecture and, as with Mr. Wright's writing, the answer is almost always different.

"The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole."

"Emulate, but never imitate Nature (Frank Lloyd Wright always capitalized the word)."

And "the building should have its own Nature; it should have a soul!"

This building certainly does have all of that.