Profile of the Day: Frank Lloyd Wright

155 years ago today, iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin.

Image: Frank Lloyd Wright / Library of Congress

Wright was born on June 8, 1867 to William Cary Wright, a minister and occasional lawyer, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a country school teacher. During her pregnancy, Wright’s mother had proclaimed that her child would come to build beautiful buildings and thus, decorated Wright’s nursery with engravings of English cathedrals to encourage her son’s interest.

Although he had become one of the country’s most successful architects, Wright’s life was not free of scandal or tragedy. In 1909, he left his family and six children to runaway with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, who was the wife of a  client, to Europe. The couple eventually eloped and settled in his Taliesin estate in Wisconsin. However, tragedy struck in 1914 when a disgruntled servant set fire to Taliesin’s living quarters and murdered seven people as they fled, including Cheney and her two children.

Considered one of the greatest architects in history, Wright designed more than 1,000 buildings during his lifetime. Some of his most iconic works include the Guggenheim Museum and Fallingwater.

Wright died on April 9, 1959 at the age of 91.

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