Providing a thick building skin with a perforated quality takes advantage of these conditions. Additional energy will be saved by the use of trombe walls and a geothermal system bringing an earthy stability to the variable temperatures throughout the day. The abundant sunshine is a tremendous asset to the reduction of energy through the proper use of daylighting. The connection of the project to water is celebrated in its use within the landscaping with reflection pools, evaporative cooling pools, a lotus flower pond, and a series of synchronized water entertainment fountains.Ĭlimatically, the building responds morphologically to the many attributes that characterize the region including, dryness, large daily temperature fluctuations, prevalent sunshine, and consistent ground temperatures below the surface. Special care is given to the utilization of water through rainwater capture, greywater recycling, stormwater retention, and its use within the geothermal system. Water is important to the region in general despite the abundance within Lake Bosten itself. Ecological and geological extremes practically co-exist within Korla yielding a tremendous opportunity to exemplify both conditions as part of the project morphology. First developed in 1894, when Wright was establishing his practice in Chicago, this philosophy of design would inform his entire career.Korla is in a unique location situated above the Taklamakan Desert and at the foothills of a mountain range on the other side of Lake Bosten. The buildings reflect an all-encompassing philosophy that Wright termed “Organic Architecture.” By this, Wright meant that architecture should be suited to its environment and be a product of its place, purpose, and time. Characterized by dramatic horizontal lines and masses, the Prairie buildings that emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century evoke the expansive Midwestern landscape. It had no sense of Unity … To take any one of those so-called ‘homes’ away would have improved the landscape and cleared the atmosphere… My first feeling therefore had been a yearning for simplicity.”Ī masterful architectural designer, Wright developed a unique vocabulary of space, form, and pattern that represented a dramatic shift in design from the traditional houses of the day. “Just for a beginning, let’s say that house lied about everything. “What was the matter with the kind of house I found on the prairie?” he asked. For Wright, the houses he witnessed around him, derived as they were from the styles of other countries and other cultures, were unsuited to the American landscape. Lavish buildings of Gothic Revival, French Empire, and Italianate form lined the streets of America’s cities. House styles were derived from the architecture of old Europe. Inspired by the teachings of Wright’s mentor, Louis Sullivan, the architects of the Prairie School sought to create a new, democratic architecture, free from the shackles of European styles, and suited to a modern American way of living.Īt the time Wright founded his practice American domestic architecture remained mired in the past. These talented individuals honed their skills while working under the leading architects of nineteenth century Chicago. This group, which Wright would later refer to as “The New School of the Middle West,” included George Elmslie, Myron Hunt, George Washington Maher, Dwight Perkins, William Gray Purcell, Thomas Talmadge, and Vernon Watson, as well as Wright’s later associates Marion Mahony, Walter Burley Griffin, William Drummond and Francis Byrne. His work was supported and often enhanced by a group of pioneering Midwestern architects at work in and around Chicago. Inspired by the broad, flat landscape of America’s Midwest, the Prairie style was the first uniquely American architectural style of what has been called “the American Century.”ĭuring his early years in Chicago, Wright did not operate in a vacuum. It was at his Oak Park Studio during the first decade of the twentieth century that Wright pioneered a bold new approach to domestic architecture, the Prairie style. In 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright founded his architectural practice in Oak Park, a quiet, semi-rural village on the Western edge of Chicago.
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