Building on the Ordinary: Frank Lloyd Wright and Welsh Wisconsin.

The archetypal "starchitect," Frank Lloyd Wright portrayed himself as a genius producing his architectural designs outside of time and history. Architectural historians have challenged this myth as they have demonstrated many historical antecedents of Wright's work and also integrated Wright's buildings into a broader history of modern architecture. One question, however, that has not been sufficiently explored is how ordinary architecture-specifically the Welsh American buildings of his maternal relatives in Wisconsin-contributed to the making of Wright's architecture in the first place. Wright's uncle, Thomas Lloyd Jones, was a builder, and several of his buildings remain in the valley south of Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the Lloyd Joneses settled after emigrating from Wales. The extant Lloyd Jones buildings show similarities with nineteenth-century American buildings while also exhibiting characteristics consistent with Welsh vernacular architecture. Firsthand analysis of these buildings combined with an examination of Thomas Lloyd Jones's diaries demonstrate that Wright was exposed to his uncle's building activities, worked under the mentorship of his uncle, and ultimately collaborated on a Lloyd Jones family house with him. This study examines Wright's integration into the building culture of his extended Welsh American family in southwestern Wisconsin, demonstrating channels of communication between their vernacular building culture and Wright's early house designs. In demonstrating how ordinary building forms and methods contributed to the history of Wright's work, this article blunts the edge between the theoretical concepts of "the canon" and the vernacular "built environment". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]