This essay by Frank Lloyd Wright, The Meaning of Materials - Stone was written in a completely different manner than all of the other reading this semester. Frank lloyd Wright's style is more poetic than novelist, and he doesn't seem to follow a succinct flow of thoughts from beginning to end in this essay, but in a more circumspect route seems to happen upon stone during a larger personal pontification regarding the world as the architect's oyster. The tone is very conversational, if not more of the stylings of a personal journal entry than an essay regarding stone as a material. It is more than possible that this style of writing is synonymous with Frank Lloyd Wright, but being absolutely green to this world I have no idea. I did feel his absolute awe and wonderment toward the materials he described. Where, at the onset of this essay he made it clear as mud that he believed the worlds natural resources offer the architect what an art supply store offers an artist: an array of materials at the ready to be used and manipulated by the knowing hands of an architect. The style in which he tried to explain this phenomena really treated each material as if it had a sort of intrinsic majestic quality. The individual qualities and characteristics of the materials themselves suggest what architecturally should be done with those materials, "There is suggestion in the strata and character in the formations". An interesting thought, not dissimilar to the main theme offered by our previous concrete reading and repeated here.
The essay than progresses to stone, with Wright (if I may be so bold as to refer to one of the fathers of modern architect on such familiar terms without offending) stating with a matter of fact tone, that stone is the oldest architectural material, a thought that he elaborates upon later in his essay with a sort of summary about the history of the use of the material. Prior to that history however, he spends a few short paragraphs (they were really just very loosely connected sentence streams) discussing the qualities of stone, that it is smooth, solid, heavy, durable, and it can be honed or polished, but mostly that it is a massive material. I personally believe that through this string of thoughts Wright was trying to establish his view of stone as a sort of regal, imposing material, but instead of coming out and saying how he felt about the material, he simply described the qualities that would infer the imposition and power stone has, but again I'm a newbie to FLW's writing.
As a newbie though I thought it really interesting that FLW included how other cultures throughout history regarded stone and in some cases his judgement of their use. He wrote that Asians loved stone, the Byzentines, Mayans, and Egyptians used stone with real love and understanding. Alternatively he criticized the Greeks and Romans for their use of the material stating that the Greeks, "abused" stone and that the Romans were apathetic toward the material. All of the statements were overly simplistic view points that summarily dismissed any and all other thoughts regarding the matter by simply labeling some of the ancient architectural greats. I guess that when you are FLW you can write such things without fear of criticism. However, I am sure that the great Roman and Greek ancient architects wouldn't have agreed that they didn't know how to handle the building material they are probably best known for using.
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