Frank Lloyd Wright Is Not Who You Think He Is

Ask most people to name an architect, and they’ll probably say Frank Lloyd Wright. The 20th century American master is famous not just for his beloved works, such as the audacious, spiraling Guggenheim Museum and the canti­levered Fallingwater, which still attract hordes of tourists, but also for his forceful personality, equal parts William Jennings Bryan and Pablo Picasso.

For many years after his death, at 91, in 1959, the students at Wright’s school and the leaders of his foundation tried to stick to a very strict interpretation of his singular vision, revering the long-gone architect as an almost godlike figure. Ironically, these attempts to protect his legacy have damaged it—limiting the ways Wright could be studied and keeping his ideas from expanding and influencing the future.