Architecture & design
Frank Lloyd Wright
1867–1959 · architect
America's most famous architect, who designed the Turkel House in Detroit's Palmer Woods and the Affleck and Smith houses in Bloomfield Hills.
- Born
Richland Center, Wisconsin- Died
Phoenix, Arizona
aged 91- Birth name
- Frank Lincoln Wright
- Detroit years
- 1940–1950s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Wright never lived in Michigan, but his late-career Usonian houses, modest homes for middle-class clients, found eager patrons in metro Detroit. The first was the Gregor and Elizabeth Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills (1940–41), cantilevered over a ravine; the family gave it to Lawrence Technological University in 1978, which uses it for teaching and preserves it. Nearby, two Detroit schoolteachers, Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith, built their Wright house in 1949–50 and lived in it for decades; since 2017 it has belonged to Cranbrook, which offers tours from May to October. In Detroit itself, Dorothy Turkel commissioned a two-story Usonian Automatic house of patterned concrete blocks at the edge of the Palmer Woods neighborhood in the 1950s. It is the only Wright house in the city, and its restoration in the 2000s made it a symbol of Palmer Woods' revival. Together the three houses make metro Detroit a destination for Wright admirers.
Highlights
- Affleck House, Bloomfield Hills (1940–41), owned by Lawrence Technological University
- Smith House, Bloomfield Hills (1949–50), toured through Cranbrook since 2017
- Turkel House in Palmer Woods, the only Wright house in Detroit
- Designed Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1950s
Dorothy Turkel House
The only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Detroit, a Usonian Automatic of concrete block; a private residence.
Worked here · 1940–1941
Gregor S. and Elizabeth B. Affleck House
Usonian house over a ravine, owned since 1978 by Lawrence Technological University, which uses it for teaching.
Worked here · 1949–1950
Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House
Usonian house given to Cranbrook in 2017; tours run May through October.