The great American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, once said, "No house should ever be on a hill, or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together, each the happier for the other." This was the concept behind his revolutionary idea of organic architecture. The aim of this style of architecture was to build structures that were not only functional, but that existed in harmony with the world surrounding them. Wright had immense reverence for nature. He was somewhat disgusted by the absolute brutality that architects and city builders showed towards it, and he was sure there was a better way. Most of Wright's buildings were designed and built for the rich and prominent, but Wright also had a strong conviction for the affordable and functional consumer home (for a fantastic podcast on these homes, go here). Wright wanted everyone to be able to enjoy nature the way he did.
I adore Frank Lloyd Wright. I love his architecture and the beautiful message of harmony it portrays. I think there is a lot that we can learn from his ideas.
Right now, there are fires raging throughout the world. Perhaps some of the most concerning fires are the ones ravaging through the Amazon rainforest. I will not go into detail, but these two resources can help you understand the issue better. Basically, these fires are so problematic because people are refusing to live in harmony with the nature surrounding them. Now, that is easy for me to say as I sit in my apartment on the barren valley floor of Utah valley where space abounds and we can pretty much do as we please with it. For struggling farmers who feel like they have to struggle against the forest to make a living, there are other issues. My point still stands though. Regardless of our situation, there are things that we can do in order to live in greater harmony with the world around us. There are things that we can do to be "of the hill."
Frank Lloyd Wright didn't see nature as something that needed to be conquered. He saw an opportunity to add a deeper connection between architecture and nature. Perhaps his most famous work, Fallingwater, is a prime example of this.
This home was built along the banks of an existing waterfall. A typical architect might have carved out a large chunk of the forest, and placed the building in a prime location to view the majesty of the waterfall, but not Wright. He wanted to preserve as much of the original beauty as he could, so he designed a home that not only had minimal effect on the surrounding environment but that encapsulated the essence of the waterfall itself. The piece is so unassuming that you might miss it if you weren't paying attention.
This unassuming nature is critical to being "of the hill." It is important for us to realize that we are just visitors here on this Earth. We walk it for a time, living our lives the best we can, and then one day we're gone, and the world keeps moving. Destruction of our world happens because people begin to believe that they are more important than the world itself. They forget that we share this space with millions of incredibly unique and diverse creatures. For a moment, they think that they can cut out a large swath of the world to sit in and assume nothing will be affected by it.
Where there is action, there will always be a consequence. Some consequences we are willing to live with. Some may even be positive, but many consequences lead to destruction and hurt, many times to ourselves. As individuals, it is important that we weigh our impact on the world. We have the power to not only conduct ourselves in unassuming ways, but we have the ability to speak up and hold corporations and governments accountable for their clumsy and irreverent actions.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to reach out with any comments or questions.
"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." -Frank Lloyd Wright
Here is a link to a previous post on environmentalism.