Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867. He began working for architect Joseph Silsbee in Chicago in 1887, leaving five months later to join Adler and Sullivan's office. There, he became imbued with the Prairie School style of architecture, which was to influence his entire life. Following a disagreement with Sullivan, Wright left to open his own office first in Chicago, then in Oak Park, Illinois. He became best known for his Prairie School houses, which he developed before 1900. Seventy-six of his Prairie School houses were built, mostly in and around Chicago and his success soon made him one of the recognized leaders of the Prairie School. He was an icon in the field and many younger practitioners copied him for years to come.

Domestic troubles and two fires at his studio/workshop at Spring Green, Wisconsin, between 1909 and 1925 brought his practice almost to a standstill. In 1932, the Wright studio in Spring Green gave way to the Taliesin Fellowship, founded with 23 young apprentices. In addition, he established a school and workshop in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1938, and maintained both locations as active architectural offices. The Taliesin Fellowship issued 180 buildings of all kinds, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York City (1957); Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (1953-1955); and the Marin County Civic Center, California (1957-1959), plus numerous residences.

The year 1936 marked a dramatic upswing in Wright's career with the production of the first of his Usonian houses (partially prefabricated, economically-built homes) and such masterpieces as the Johnson Wax Company's administration and research buildings in Racine, Wisconsin, and "Fallingwater", a vacation house cantilevered over a waterfall near Pittsburgh. Frank Lloyd Wright died in Paradise Valley, Arizona on April 9, 1959.