Frank Lloyd Wright Is Pleased to Have His Humanistic Style of Architecture Placed in Opposition to Le Corbusier’s Stark Modernism Throughout the Architecture World

Wright first wrote to Lewis Mumford in 1926, when he was in his 50s and already renowned, but at a low point in his career and in desperate need of renewed critical interest in his work; Mumford was in his 30s and making his name in cultural criticism, with much of his writing focused on architecture and urban planning. His writing, however, connected the separate domains of philosophy, architecture, anthropology, and literature to one another and to the human domain in general. He greatly admired Wright’s work as “the exemplar of organic design, built in accordance with the rhythms of modern life”; the two men shared ideas and interests. Wright first approached Mumford with an admiring note, and they developed an often wary friendship that meanders from growing intimacy to a break over politics and then to a gradual reconciliation. Their correspondence, which has been published, stands out in particular for the intensity of the pair’s intellectual discourse.

Both Wright and Mumford rejected what they considered the harsh designs of European modernists like Le Corbusier, whose spare cubist minimalism and focus on efficiency shaped the Modernist movement and earned the name the International Style. Wright and Mumford were very American with distinctly democratic style preferences, and shared a kind of Emersonian and Jeffersonian wish that architecture and technology should better serve humanistic ideals.

Peter Behrens was a German architect, influential in Europe in the evolution of the modern architectural style. He established before World War I a predominantly utilitarian type of architecture that at the same time achieved qualities of clarity and impressiveness. Behrens is known for factories, residences, workers’ apartment houses in Vienna, and for his pioneering work in industrial design. Among his pupils were Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Miës van der Rohe. In 1931, Wright’s work was exhibited at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Behrens then wrote an article critical of Le Corbusier’s designs as obsessed with geometry and static, naming Wright as an obvious counterpoint. Thus Wright was placed in opposition to Le Corbusier throughout the architecture world in Europe, and he was very concerned about how his philosophies and work were presented in the article and wanted to know if the translation was really accurate. At any rate, he thought it was time for him to confront excessive modernism. He sent Mumford a copy of the article.

Catherine Bauer was a social historian interested in public housing, urban, and regional planning. She and Mumford were romantically linked for years. In 1931, when Wright’s lectures were published in the Princeton monograph series for art and archaeology, Bauer described the book as “the very best book on modern architecture that exists.”

Typed Letter Signed, Taliesin, September 10, 1931, to Mumford, sending the letter, asking for his opinion on the translation, mentioning that he’d sent Bauer a copy while teasing her at the same time, and inviting a visit. “This may interest you – I would like to know if it ‘gets over’ in the German or is distorted. I thought it time to go to the mat. The thing is all over Europe by now. Behrens picked me up at once contra Corbusier. I’ve sent a copy to Catherine Bauer. I replied to her very characteristic note and hope she doesn’t mind teasing – for I called her ‘Communist Catherine’. There are lots of names she could call me to even up. The three evenings at the New School are Sept. 16, 17, and 18th and the 19th. We sail for Rio to make the award of the Columbus Memorial returning Oct. 26. A job on my hands. I can’t vote for anything the previous trio recommended. I guess I am going down to register a minority report. N.B. I have a job. New home in Washington, D.C.” He then adds in holograph, “Won’t you come to the ‘one man Parliament’ and bring Catherine and others. We may have some fun!” Included is a copy of Mumford’s fascinating letter in response, courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Foundation.

Wright was teaching architecture at the New School in New York at this time, a fact that that school proudly relates on its website today. As for the sail to Rio, the Wrights were invited to visit Rio de Janeiro as guests of the Pan American Union to judge a series of designs for the Columbus Memorial. The Washington house he mentions here does not appear among the list of Wright’s projects. In fact, to highlight his difficulties during these years, he received no commissions that are listed as finished projects from 1929-1934.