90 Years in the Cause of Architecture
America's most famous architect, the son of a Yorkshire preacher and grandson of a Welsh one, Frank Lloyd Wright lived and died believing he was the prophet of a new architecture. 'Now I have been accused of saying that I was the greatest architect in the world,' he confessed to the TV cameras, 'and, if I had said so, I don't think it would be very arrogant because I don't believe there are many, if any. For 500 years what we call architecture has been phoney.'
Born 1869, died 1959: during that time he had three wives and one mistress who was assassinated by a madman; and turned out thousands of designs for buildings that seemed to have nothing in common except their authorship. Tonight's film is a personal record of an architect who 'strode into architecture, talking like a man unaware that there ever was such a production as a house, or such a thing as an architect. He had to recreate architecture with the elements at hand'
Commentary spoken by John Stockbridge
Written and produced by Ramsay Short
Frank Lloyd Wright, Grand Old Man of architecture: page 12
(Colour)