Prairie School (Frank Lloyd Wright) Style and Geometric

by Timothy Atwood

"There is geometry in the humming of the strings ... there is music in the spacing of the spheres."

- Pythagoras

In my geometric windows I tend to use curvilinear forms drawn from nature. In this regard my style tends to be less angular than many traditional Prairie School designs. Still I try to follow the basic ideas as typified by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Some "Prairie School" style stained glass concepts:

  • Patterns of the lines and metal divisions are at least as important as the glass itself.
  • The dividing lines form "light screens" which break up the view to the outside and throw patterns of light across a room.
  • Forms reflect the building structure and the outside landscape so the stained glass is part of the overall architecture and surroundings.
  • Clear glass often predominates to unify inside and outside with the window itself.
  • Mathematical progressions and proportions used to create rhythm and structure in the pattern.

"The element of pattern made more... beautifully effective when introduced into the glass of the windows than in the use if any other medium that architecture has to offer. The metal divisions become a metal screen of any pattern"

"construction seen as nature-pattern"

"closer relation to nature - glass"

- (Frank Lloyd Wright)

"Glass... amounts to a new qualification of light..."

"Light itself in light, to diffuse or reflect, or refract light"

- Frank Lloyd Wright