(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
I'm Phoebe Zimmerman. And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program People in America. Today we tell about the life and work of the greatest American building designer of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings for more than seventy years. He did most of his work from nineteen hundred through the nineteen fifties. He designed houses, schools, churches, public buildings, and office buildings.
Critics say Frank Lloyd Wright was one of America's most creative architects. One critic said his ideas were fifty years ahead of the time in which he lived.
Frank Lloyd Wright was born in eighteen sixty-seven in the middle western state of Wisconsin. He studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In eighteen eighty-seven, he went to the city of Chicago. He got a job in the office of the famous architects, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler.
Several years later, Wright established his own building design business. He began by designing homes for people living in and near Chicago. These homes were called "prairie houses."
Prairie houses were long and low. They seemed to grow out of the ground. They were built of wood and other natural materials. The indoors expanded to the outdoors by extending the floor. This created what seemed like a room without walls or a roof.
In nineteen-oh-two, Wright designed one prairie house, called the Willits House, in the town of Highland Park. The house was shaped like a cross. It was built around a huge fireplace. The rooms were designed so they seemed to flow into each other.
Visitors to Chicago can see another of Wright's prairie houses. It is called the Robie House. It looks like a series of long, low rooms on different levels. The rooms seem to float over the ground. Wright designed everything in the house, including the furniture and floor coverings.
Wright's prairie houses had a great influence on home design in America. Even today, one hundred years later, his prairie houses appear very modern.
In the nineteen thirties, Wright developed what he called "Usonian" houses. Usonia was his name for a perfect, democratic United States of America. Usonian houses were planned to be low cost. Wright designed them for the American middle class. These are the majority of Americans who are neither very rich nor very poor.
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that all middle class families in America should be able to own a house that was designed well. He believed that the United States could not be a true democracy if people did not own their own house on their own piece of land.
Usonian houses were built on a flat base of concrete. The base was level with the ground. Wright believed that was better and less costly than the common method of digging a hole in the ground for the base. Low cost houses based on the Usonian idea became very popular in America in the nineteen fifties. Visitors can see one of Wright's Usonian homes near Washington, D. C. It is the Pope-Leighy House in Alexandria, Virginia.
Frank Lloyd Wright believed in spreading his ideas to young building designers. In nineteen thirty-two, he established a school called the Taliesin Fellowship. Architectural students paid to live and work with him.
During the summer, they worked at his home near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Wright called this house "Taliesin." That is a Welsh name meaning "shining brow." It was built of stone and wood into the top of a hill.
During the winter, they worked at Taliesin West. This was Wright's home and architecture office near Phoenix, Arizona. Wright and his students started building it in nineteen thirty-seven in the Sonoran Desert.
Taliesin West is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas of organic architecture taking root in the desert. He believed that architecture should have life and spirit. He said a building should appear to grow naturally and easily from its base into its surroundings. Selecting the best place to put a building became a most important first step in the design process.
Frank Lloyd Wright had discovered the beauty of the desert in nineteen twenty-seven when he was asked to help with the design of the Arizona Biltmore hotel. He continued to return to the desert with his students to escape the harsh winters in Wisconsin.
Ten years later he found a perfect place for his winter home and school. He bought about three hundred hectares of desert land at the foot of the McDowell Mountains near Scottsdale, Arizona.
Wright said: " I was struck by the beauty of the desert, by the dry, clear sun-filled air, by the stark geometry of the mountains." He wanted everyone who visited Taliesin West to feel this same sense of place.
His architecture students helped him gather rocks and sand from the desert floor to use as building materials. They began a series of buildings that became home, office and school. Wright kept working on and changing what he called a building made of many buildings for twenty years.
Today, Taliesin West has many low stone buildings linked together by walkways and courtyards. It is still very much alive with activity. About seventy people live, work and study there. Guides take visitors through what is one of America's most important cultural treasures.
In nineteen thirty-seven, Wright designed a house near the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is a fine example of his idea of organic architecture. The house is called "Fallingwater." It sits on huge rocks next to a small river. It extends over a waterfall. From one part of the house, a person can step down a stairway over the water.
"Fallingwater" is so unusual and so beautiful that it came to represent modern American architecture. One critic calls it the greatest house of the twentieth century. Like Taliesin West, "Fallingwater" is open to the public.
Frank Lloyd Wright also is famous for designing imaginative public buildings. In nineteen?oh?four, he designed an office building for the Larkin Soap Company in Buffalo, New York. The offices were organized around a tall open space. At the top was a glass roof to let sunlight into the center.
In the late nineteen thirties, Wright designed an office building for the Johnson Wax Company in Racine, Wisconsin. It also had one great room without traditional walls or windows. The outside of the building was made of smooth, curved brick and glass.
In nineteen forty-three, Frank Lloyd Wright designed one of his most famous projects: the Guggenheim Museum of Art in New York City. The building was completed in nineteen sixty, the year following his death.
The Guggenheim is unusual because it is a circle. Inside the museum, a walkway rises in a circle from the lowest floor almost to the top. Visitors move along this walkway to see the artwork on the walls.
The Guggenheim museum was very different from Wright's other designs. It even violated one of his own rules of design: the Guggenheim's shape is completely different from any of the buildings around it.
When Wright was a very old man, he designed the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, near San Francisco. The Civic Center project was one of his most imaginative designs. It is a series of long buildings between two hills.
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that architecture is life itself taking form. "Therefore," he said, "it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today, or ever will be lived."
Frank Lloyd Wright died in nineteen fifty-nine, in Phoenix, Arizona. He was ninety?one years old. His buildings remain a record of the best of American Twentieth Century culture.
重点解析
1.ahead of早于；领先
I finished several days ahead of the deadline.
我是在最后期限的前几天完成的。
2.flow into流入
Water is very humble, it is always down, down, may it flow into rivers and lakes;
水很谦卑，它总是向下、向下，可它却流成了江河湖海；
3.be able to能；可以
They may be able to help with childcare so that you can have a break.
他们可以帮忙照料孩子，这样你就可以歇一歇了。
4.based on基于
The selection process is based on rigorous tests of competence and experience.
选拔过程是基于对能力和经验的严格测试。
5.famous for以...闻名
The area is famous for its very mild winter climate.
这个地区因冬季气候十分温和而著名。
6.a series of一系列问题
The students have put forward a series of questions.
学生们提出了一系列问题。
参考译文
我是菲比·齐默尔曼，我是史蒂夫·恩贝尔。这里是VOA慢速英语栏目《美国人物志》。今天我们讲述20世纪美国最伟大的建筑设计师弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特的生活和工作的故事。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特设计建筑超过70年。他大部分的作品完成于1900年至1950年。他设计了房屋、学校、教堂、公共建筑和办公楼。
评论家称，弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特是美国最具创造力的建筑师之一。一位评论家称，弗兰克的理念领先他生活的时代50年。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特于1867年出生于中西部的威斯康辛州。他在威斯康辛大学学习了工程学。1887年，他去了芝加哥市。他在著名建筑师路易斯·沙利文和丹克马尔·阿德勒的办公室里找到了一份工作。
几年后，赖特创建了他自己的建筑设计公司。开始时他为生活在芝加哥和芝加哥附近的人们设计住宅。这些房屋被称为草原式住宅。
草原式住宅又长又低。它们似乎是从地面上生长出来的一般。它们是用木头和其他天然材料建造的。室内通过铺地板向室外扩展。这似乎是创造了没有房顶或墙壁的房间。
1902年在高地公园区，赖特设计了一个草原式住宅，名为威利茨住宅。这座房子的形状就像一个十字。它是围绕着一个巨大的壁炉建造的。这些房间的设计使它们看起来彼此相通。
芝加哥游客可以看到另一个赖特设计的草原式住宅。它名为罗比住宅。它看起来像一系列不同楼层的长而低的房间。房间似乎漂浮在地面上。赖特设计了房子里的所有东西，包括家具和地板覆盖物。
赖特的草原式住宅对美国的住宅设计产生了很大的影响。即使一百年后的今天，他的草原式住宅也看起来非常现代。
20世纪30年代，赖特设计了他称为是美国风住宅的建筑类型。Usonia是他对一个完美、民主的美利坚合众国的称呼。他计划让美国风住宅走低成本路线。美国风住宅是赖特为美国中产阶级设计的住宅。他们是大多数的美国人，既不是非常富有，也不是非常贫穷。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特认为，所有的美国中产阶级家庭都应该拥有一个设计良好的住宅。他认为，如果人们没有在自己的土地上拥有自己的房子，美国就不可能成为真正的民主国家。
美国风房屋建在平坦的混凝土地基上。基座与地面持平。赖特认为这比在地面上挖一个洞作为基地的普通方法更好，成本更低。基于Usonian理念的低成本住宅在20世纪50年代的美国非常流行。游客们可以看到赖特在华盛顿特区附近的美国风住宅之一，它是弗吉尼亚州亚历山大市的Pope-LeighyHouse。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特致力于把他的观点传播给年轻的建筑设计师。1932年，他成立了名为塔里耶森奖学金的学校。建筑学生可以付钱和他一块生活和工作。
夏天时候，他们在他的靠近威斯康辛州斯普林格林的家中学习。赖特把他的房屋称为塔里辛。那是一个威尔士名字，意思为“闪亮的山顶”。它建在一座山的顶部，由石头和木头建成。
冬天时候，他们在西塔里辛工作。这是赖特在靠近亚利桑那州凤凰城的家和建筑办公室。赖特和他的学生在1937年开始在索诺兰沙漠建造它。西塔里辛是弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特的有机建筑思想在沙漠中扎根的一个例子。他认为建筑应该有生命和精神。他说，一个建筑应该看起来是自然生长的，很容易从它的基地开始融入到周围的环境。在设计过程中，选择建造建筑的最佳位置成为最重要的第一步。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特在1927年发现了沙漠的美丽，那时有人请求他帮助设计亚利桑那州比尔特莫尔酒店。他继续和他的学生回到沙漠，以逃避威斯康辛州严酷的冬天。
十年后，他找到了一个完美的地方作为自己冬天的家和学校。他在亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔附近的麦克道尔山脚下购买了大约300公顷的沙漠土地。
赖特说：“我被沙漠的美丽、那里干燥充满阳光的清新空气、山峰鲜明的几何形状打动了。”他想让每位参观西塔里辛的人都能拥有同样的感觉。他的建筑学学生帮助他从沙漠地面收集岩石和沙子作为建筑材料。他们开始建造一系列的建筑，包括住宅、办公室和学校。20年来，赖特一直致力于改变他所谓的由许多建筑组成的建筑。
如今，西塔里辛有很多由人行道和庭院连接到一块的低的石造建筑。它仍然非常有活力。约有70人在那里生活、工作和学习。导游带领游客参观美国最重要的文化宝藏之一。
1937年，赖特在宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡市附近设计了一栋房子。这是他有机建筑思想的一个很好的例子。这所房子叫“流水别墅”。房屋坐落在一条小河旁边的巨大岩石上。它延伸到瀑布之上。从房子的一部分，人可以从水上的楼梯上走下来。
流水别墅太过特别和美丽，以至于它代表了现代美国建筑。一位评论家称它是20世纪最伟大的房屋。和西塔里辛一样，流水别墅对公众开放。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特也以设计有创意的公共楼房闻名。1904年，他为纽约布法罗的拉金肥皂公司设计了一座办公楼。办公室围绕着一个高大的开放空间布置。在顶部是一个可以让阳光照进中央的玻璃屋顶。
20世纪30年代末，赖特为威斯康辛州拉辛市的约翰逊蜡公司设计了一座办公楼。它也有一个没有传统墙壁和窗户的很棒的房间。大楼的外部是由光滑的、弯曲的砖和玻璃制成的。
1943年，弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特设计了他最著名的项目之一：纽约市的古根海姆艺术博物馆。这座楼完成于1960年，那是弗兰克去世的第二年。
古根海姆艺术博物馆的不寻常之处在于它是一个圆形。在博物馆内部，一条人行道从最低的一层几乎一直上升到顶部，形成一个圆圈。游客沿着这条走道走，可以看到墙上的艺术品。
古根海姆博物馆与赖特的其他设计大相径庭。它甚至违反了赖特自己的设计规则之一：古根海姆博物馆的形状完全不同于它周围的任何建筑物。
当赖特很老的时候，他设计了加州圣拉斐尔的马林县公民中心，那里靠近旧金山。马林县公民中心是赖特最有创造力的设计之一。它是位于两座山之间的一些列长的楼房。
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特认为建筑就是有形的生命。因此他说，“它是关于生命的最真实的记录，就像它昨天在这个世界上，就像它今天在这个世界上，或者将永远在这个世界上一样。”
弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特于1959年在亚利桑那州凤凰城去世。享年91岁。他的建筑保留了美国20世纪最优秀的文化。
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