Main content
This programme is not currently available on 主播大秀 iPlayer

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Man Who Built America

Documentary in which architect Jonathan Adams travels America exploring the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, possibly America's greatest ever architect.

Frank Lloyd Wright is probably America's greatest ever architect. But few people know about the Welsh roots that shaped his life and world-famous buildings. Now, leading Welsh architect Jonathan Adams sets off across America to explore Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces for himself. Along the way, he uncovers the tempestuous life story of the man behind them and the secrets of his radical Welsh background.

In a career spanning seven decades, Frank Lloyd Wright built over 500 buildings and changed the face of modern architecture. Fallingwater, the house over the waterfall, has been called the greatest house of the 20th century. The spiralling Guggenheim Museum in New York reinvented the art museum.

Wright's Welsh mother was born and raised near Llandysul in west Wales, and emigrated to America with her family in 1844. Her son Frank was raised in a Unitarian community in Wisconsin. The values he absorbed there were based on a love of nature, the importance of hard work and the need to question convention and defy it where necessary. Wright's architecture was shaped by these beliefs. He built his lifelong home in the valley he was raised in, and he named it after an ancient Welsh bard - Taliesin. It was the scene of many adventures and of a horrific crime. In 1914, a servant at Taliesin ran amok and killed seven people. They included Wright's partner Mamah Cheney and her two young children.

150 years after his birth, Adams argues that Frank Lloyd Wright is now a vitally important figure who can teach us how to build for a better world. Wright's belief in what he called organic architecture - buildings that grace the landscape and respond to people's individual needs - is more relevant than ever, in Wales and around the world.

59 minutes

Last on

Sat 21 May 2022 18:00
主播大秀 Two Wales & Wales HD only

Clip

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:18

    Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra, Duke Ellington

    So Far, So Good

  • 00:29

    Anders Niska, Klas Wahl

    The Darkness

  • 00:42

    Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

    Sing, Sing, Sing

  • 00:42

    Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

    Sing, Sing, Sing

  • 00:58

    Duke Ellington & John Coltrane

    In A Sentimental Mood

Credits

Presenter Jonathan Adams
Director Ian Michael Jones
Producer Ian Michael Jones
Executive Producer Paul Islwyn Thomas
Executive Producer Christina Macaulay
Executive Producer Mark Bell
On-line editing Steph Lynch
Production Manager Leona Cowley
Colourist Nevil Jones
Editor Oliver Baker
Sound Robert Thomas
Camera Operator Huw Talfryn Walters

Broadcasts

Related Links