Frank Lloyd Wright is widely considered the twentieth-century's most important architect. Indeed, some forty years after his death, many still consider him the most important American architect of all time. Over the course of seventy years, Wright designed and built more than five hundred structures, from houses and churches to schools, bridges and museums. He was a prolific product designer as well, creating furniture, fabrics, graphic arts, lamps, dinnerware, art glass, silver and linens. An educator, author of twenty books, and head of an architectural firm that employed and trained hundreds of architects, Wright greatly influenced modern architectural theory as well as practice.

Wright sought to create an architecture that would reflect American values rather than what he thought were outmoded models from abroad. He advocated the use of native materials and buildings that fit naturally into their environments. He helped create the "open plan" that liberated American interiors from the boxy, confining interiors of Victorian architecture.

Wright's passion for nature is apparent in many of his works, from the spectacular Fallingwater of 1936, in Pennsylvania, to the snail-like Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Yet Wright's buildings are sensitive to human needs, as well, and his houses are much revered. Today, the twenty Wright homes that are open to the public draw more than one million visitors a year.