Many of Wright's buildings used radiant heating

Frank Lloyd Wright designed hundreds of buildings

Frank Lloyd Wright was a prolific architect and built hundreds of structures across America, and even a few in Japan and Canada. From humbler homes in Illinois to sprawling mansions in California, Wright experimented with different styles throughout his career and varied in each of his designs.

What it's like to work in an office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright's SC Johnson Global Headquarters is an administrative building in Wisconsin that radically challenged common practices for creating a corporate office space. Built in 1939, the office remains functional today with a spacious central room for exchanging ideas.

Several Frank Lloyd Wright properties are on the market

Several of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes are currently for sale, offering buyers the opportunity to own a historic building. Some of these homes could stay on the market for years, as they’re famously a pain to maintain.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Fallingwater revived Frank Lloyd Wright’s career at age 67

A series of scandals and financial setbacks made Wright lose his previous relevance, leaving the public to view him as a “has-been.” Following the creation of Fallingwater, a masterpiece set atop a waterfall, Wright saw an uptick in commissions and continued to produce inspired buildings at an age that many others would retire by.

Unitarian Frank Lloyd Wright made Unity Temple to honor his own faith

In 1905, a Unitarian church in Frank Lloyd Wright's town was struck by lightning and destroyed. Wright, a Unitarian himself, was commissioned to build the replacement and constructed a simple yet radical concrete sanctuary known as Unity Temple.

Take a virtual tour of a Usonian home

Wright's Usonian homes might have been more economical, but they didn't lack any of the inventive design of his other projects. That's evident throughout this tour of one of the homes in Pleasantville, New York's Usonia community.

Organic architecture marries man-made buildings with the natural context around them

Frank Lloyd Wright’s nebulous concept of organic architecture is one that even he struggled to define. Its basic premise is to make a building look as though it grew from the land it stands on by emphasizing natural materials and incorporating the surrounding environment into the design.

Taliesin’s first fire also involved the tragic murder of seven people

In 1914, while Frank Lloyd Wright was out working in Chicago, one of his servants at Taliesin brutally murdered his mistress, Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney, her two children, and three other people in the home. The massacre left a deep impression on Wright, who spent much of his career restoring the home.

Infrared light is most often associated with thermal radiation and cooking food

Although extensively used in remote controls for electronics, where LED lights send signals wirelessly, infrared cameras allow for night vision and thermography—imaging of heat patterns in the body to non-invasively reveal blood flow for supplementary diagnostics. Infrared radiation also provides heat in toasters, saunas, and other technologies.

Bauhaus' biggest contributions to modern architecture

Walk around almost any major metropolitan area, and you'll see Bauhaus' influence in the glass facades, tubular steel, and windows offering ample natural light. This ArchDaily explainer illustrates those concepts through iconic Bauhaus buildings, such as the Gropius House, along with detailed diagrams of their design.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Geothermal power can generate electricity and provide direct heating for homes

By drilling several kilometers through penetrable rock, wells can access highly pressurized groundwater warmed by thermal energy trapped beneath Earth's surface. This water can be turned into steam to create electricity in generators. Heating systems several meters deep can pump fluid underground before circulating it through buildings.

Home energy performance can be boosted through home orientation and shading

When designing a home, placing living areas to the north maximizes sun exposure during winter, while eaves and awnings can limit excessive summer heat. Breezeways and entry air locks can also reduce the dependence on heating and cooling costs.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The greenhouse effect was discovered by analyzing Earth's temperature

Using mathematical techniques developed to analyze heat transfer, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier showed that Earth should be significantly cooler if solar radiation were the only contributor to its surface temperature. By considering that the atmosphere could amplify the sun's warming effect, he formulated what became known as the greenhouse effect.

Why are subway walls tiled?

In the early days of subway tunnels, architects needed to deal with dirt and moisture and make the cavernous stations less dank and dark. Ceramic tiles were easy to clean, and their glossy, bright finish helped illuminate the cave-like areas.

Bill Bowerman got the idea for the breakthrough waffle-knit running shoe from a waffle iron

Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman was trying to find new ways to create traction for his runners on artificial turf. He looked at the waffle iron and realized that the pattern would work for the shoes’ soles.

Nikola Tesla embraced showmanship when promoting ideas ahead of their time

He once electrified himself during a live demonstration to illustrate the safety and power of alternating current, and his presentations often featured arcing coils, glowing lights, and bold claims about a future of wireless power.

Some claim the Wrights weren’t first in flight

Their scientific and engineering achievements aside, the Wrights’ claim to be first in flight is debated—and rejected—by some in the industry. Other early pioneers like Gustave Whitehead or Alberto Santos-Damonto are said to deserve the title.

HH Richardson developed the Romanesque architectural style

The Richardsonian Romanesque style, which the architect developed during the 19th century, blended the Roman and Renaissance arches found in France with the pointed arches of Victorian Gothic. Below is a fountain designed by Richardson honoring Detroit's 16th governor.

Why Edwin Armstrong developed FM radio

AM radio was popular but prone to interference and static, which could be frustrating for listeners. In 1933, Armstrong, a Columbia University professor, discovered that a clearer signal could be broadcast by revising how it was captured.

Cold-blooded reptiles seek heat, and that behavior may help combat fungal infections

This Radiolab podcast episode takes on the idea that though our human bodies are too warm for the majority of fungal species to effectively replicate inside our bodies, that's not the case for reptiles. Yet when those species warm their bodies by basking in the sun on rocks, they can soak up heat and may also help keep fungal infections in check.

Rockwell based many of his paintings on staged photographs

Rockwell’s work was often noted for its realism. His paintings' near-photographic precision was no accident. Early in his career, he painted from live models. Later, he’d conceived a scene, staged it, photographed it, and then used the photos as the foundation for his paintings.

The first rooftop solar panels were installed in 1883

In 1883, New York inventor Charles Fritts created the first solar cell by coating selenium with a thin layer of gold. The cell achieved energy conversion rates of 1 to 2% compared to the 15 to 20% of modern photovoltaics.

Why water towers are built that way

Marie Curie pioneered radioactivity research, for which she won two Nobel Prizes

Marie Curie and her husband isolated polonium and radium despite poor lab conditions and financial hardship. President Harding, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in 1921 in recognition of her service to science.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Poison ivy can cause rashes year-round since all parts of the plant contain urushiol, the oil that triggers our allergic response.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.