Wright's Organic Architecture: Latent in Hegel's Philosophy on the Arts?

Wright’s theory of organic architecture started to coalesce around 1908 when he wrote “In the Cause of Architecture,” although there were traces before, and he continued to develop his theory in subsequent years (and decades). My approach in this paper traces Wright’s theory of design as aesthetically driven in the pursuit of beauty and the expression of the inner spirit, the foundations of which was extensively produced by William Friedrich Hegel. Wright used material as the physical embodiment of spiritual essence. As such, my premise is that Wright’s theory of organic architecture is either influenced from Hegel’s Idealist-Romanticist theory of the arts or it was closely aligned with it if it did have an independent origin. It is beyond the scope of this paper to present the historical evidence for their connection and possible chains of influence on Wright from Hegelian-minded acquaintances. Rather, my focus here is on investigating what insights might be gained on Wright’s organic architecture when seen through the lens of Hegel’s theory on the arts, especially his Romantic stage. But the definition of Wright’s organic architecture itself is full of ambiguity, whether as Wright originally intended it or even today. Wright was not a philosopher constructing a systematic philosophy on the arts or architecture. Might Hegel’s theory on the arts lend systematic structure into Wright’s theory of organic architecture? Might we give coherence to Wright’s theory that is substantiated by his works? Might we also gain insights into Wright’s theory by examining Hegel’s theory on the arts, in particular his concepts of Romantic art and architecture? In this paper, I will show that much of Wright’s principles of organic architecture were already latent in Hegel’s aesthetics, written and lectured on about 100 years earlier. This connection occurs not only in the sense of Wright sharing in the general nineteenth century romanticist-transcendentalist school of thought, but also in very specific point by point parallels between Wright’s tenets of organic design and Hegel’s description of romantic architecture discussed in Hegel’s Aesthetics, Volume 2 In fact, Hegel’s theory of Romantic art contain points missing from Wright’s theory of organic architecture but that yet add richness and further depth of meaning to Wright’s theory. With Wright being widely recognized as the most influential architect on the beginnings of modern architecture, his Hegelian leanings brings further insight into its continuation into the modern era in architecture.