THE VERY MOST SUPERLATIVE ARCHITECT OF ALL TIMES AND PLACES

Okay, so here I would like to suggest, along those lines, that architecture is not easy to fairly describe, that furthermore, architecture cannot be ordered or ranked or filed adequately, in any way. At least I have not seen such a way, beyond opinion. These may get pretty elaborate but they are what they are. Honestly, I limit myself pretty strictly and do not easily call buildings “architecture” at all, let alone try to prioritize or numerically order them.

It bugs me, then, when a question such as this highlighted one, or similar, is posed or implied, “who is the world’s best architect?” when a best American architect, between the choices of Frank Lloyd Wright, or Louis Henry Sullivan, slips and falls from some ranking schema into an easily debatable opinion.

If you do not know who Sullivan is, ask me sometime, I can help.

I mean there are whole books framed to make you think of how highly ranked Frank Lloyd Wright is in the pyramid of architects or whatever the hierarchy may be, such as Frank Lloyd Wright “America’s Greatest Architect” (Herbert Austin Jacobs, 1965) . And an infamously brazen story of a lawsuit where Wright testified under oath that he was “the World’s Greatest Architect”. Nowadays licensed architects must avoid advertisements or claims that place them above the norms and tendencies of other licensed architects, which is called the ‘Standard of Care”.

I have studied Wright and his work for years, I honestly like his work. I appreciate the shelves upon shelves of Wright scholarship, I too have written about his work, gone inside, drawn it, discussed–and am still not sure what his claim to fame is, except for indulging in so much fame, his buildings are good but seem secondary to his attention seeking.

Back to the question in bright yellow, now. I would suggest here that Wright was not even the best in his office, when he worked for Adler and Sullivan. The principals were both better (I have began listing why in another post for later).

Wright was not the best in Chicago. He might have been maybe pretty good in 1910s Spring Green, Wisconsin or in 1930s Scottsdale, Arizona–if there was such a thing. Towards the later half of his life when superlatives about his career swirled and were invoked, many of his own proteges and apprentices were more talented and capable in the 1920-50s. They did the work he was credited with. Wright was frankly too old.