>> One year later, he went to work for the firm of Adler and Sullivan, directly under Louis Sullivan. Wright adapted Sullivan's maxim "Form Follows Function" to his own revised theory of "Form and Function Are One." It was Sullivan's belief that American Architecture should be based on American function, not European traditions, a theory which Wright later developed further.
So what does "form and function are one" mean? A closet is shaped like a closet? A mud room should be made of mud? In any case, he didn't last long with Sullivan, who fired him for taking contracts outside the firm.
Wright's love career is more fun. He was married to socialite Catherine (Kitty) Tobin, gave her five children, then ran off to Germany with a neighbor's wife, one Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Neither Wright nor Mrs. Cheney was divorced. These matters did not escape the attention of the Oak Park gentry, and Frank's career took a dive. (Bad function is bad form.) Presently Frank and Mamah came back to Spring Green where he built Taliesin. Just a few years later, supposedly, a deranged servant murdered Mrs. Cheney and six others, and set fire to the house. (Now, there's a story that needs a fresh look. Why would a servant have it in for Frank Lloyd Wright?) Nothing daunted, Frank rebuilt Taliesin, married one Miriam Noel, separated from Miriam Noel one year later on the story that she was addicted to morphine (why, Miriam?). He then immediately met Olivanna Milanoff, also known as Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg. They moved in together at Taliesin in 1925, but soon, Olga's ex-husband, Valdemar Hinzenburg, showed up seeking custody of his daughter, Svetlana. After crossing a state line, Wright and Olgivanna were arrested for violating the Mann Act. Valdemar may have been in hot pursuit, I don't know :-) Charges were dropped later and the happy couple were united in matrimony (formal wife #3, functional wife #??). Wright then got tired of cold Wisconsin winters (I sympathize) and built Taliesin West in Arizona.
This is not the authorized liberal biography. I suppose I could mention that Frank went to one of those creepy experimental kindergartens, did not finish high school, did not finish college, and was a unitarian.
Now I will have to think of him as Frank Lloyd Wrong. As a budding and open minded (open=empty) would-be architect, I heard none of this. I did learn the concept that if one considered function paramount, a viable form would follow. It did not seem to appear in his own works, though. Being also a would-be gadfly I shifted allegiance to Richard Neutra, and went from there to my perfesser, Buckminster Fuller who gave me A's for gluing toothpicks into a bunch of equalateral triangles, and then on to true nothingness. That is how I wound up in Business Admin Personnel Management, all on an avant guard campus. I was really confused as those around me started growing long hair and drinking espresso and saying neat things like Keroac and the beat generation and smoking cigarettes in class.
(Right now, I am drinking espresso, so some stuff wore off.)