The gradual separation between architect and builder sprouted ten years before Wright’s birth with the formation of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1857. It subtly took hold by changing the way an architect was trained (from an apprenticeship in the field to a university curriculum in a classroom), and slowly grew with laws and lies during Wright’s lifetime and beyond to the current chasm. Laws turning “architect” into a legal term and forcing the separation into place instituted lies so insidious, pervasive, and effective that the world is ignorant of them.

This is the sixth post in a weekly series debunking the myth that Frank Lloyd Wright was only an architect. In fact, based on my research, he was first and foremost a builder.

Here is a link to the first article in the series:

https://www.nedesignbuild.com/frank-lloyd-wright-a-builder-at-heart-at-odds-with-todays-architect/

The kingpin of the lies was the AIA, whose founders’ stated purpose was to raise their social status. They turned away from the trades, from which they came, and joined together not for the purpose of better buildings or environments for all, but to raise the standing of a few – their own.

Wright was never a fan: “Feeling that the architectural profession is all that’s the matter with architecture, why should I join them (the AIA)? I would do anything they asked me for, except join them to make a harbor of refuge for the incompetent. Because I believe less and less in professionalism as I see it practiced. I think it’s a kind of refined gangsterism.”

A main strategy for the AIA founders was to get the training of an architect into the top universities, starting with MIT and shortly after Harvard, to validate that architecture was a prestigious pursuit. As these universities write the history books, they wrote the history of the architect as if they had always been separated from the trades. A deliberate misrepresentation and alteration of truth.

They took the past and distorted it to fit the context of their goal – that the architect and builder were always different and separated into different classes, one superior to the other. This lie was put worth to justify their goal and is what holds the system in play. Instead of validating the great architects of the past as they were – the best builders who had risen the ranks to the top, they are presented as a separate species.

This is what they did with Wright and why you never heard what’s in this article. He is used as the model for the pretentious architect, white-collared, and noses up to the idea of manual labor. The antithesis to the stereotypical nail banger builder of today. While Wright may have aided in this depiction at times, it is clear it was not classroom training or the AIA which triggered and cultivated his superpowers. It was endlessly playing with blocks, banging nails to the point of collapse, it was being on jobsites, participating in their construction until one could direct it and then doing so, taking full responsibility for the result. It all started with gloriously dirty, sweaty, blue color, rough and tumble manual f@#$%! labor.

(Caption: Wright, presented by the powers that be as the prototypical architect, never strayed from his builder roots. Photo (c) The Estate of Pedro E. Guerrero)

Next week, in the final post of this series, I share the profound impact that Wright and his work has had on me. Frank Lloyd Wright, I salute you.

Love,

David Muniz Supple