Ken Burns - American Lives

Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, Frank Lloyd Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B Anthony, Mark Twain, Horatio's Drive, Unforgivable Blackness (2005)
 

Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest architect of the 20th century, was deeply indebted to Japan for its aesthetic inspiration. This is the story of how he repaid that debt.  Wright sought refuge in Japan when he faced public condemnation at home. For six tumultuous years, he struggled to complete the enormous commission of the Hotel Imperial in Tokyo, which helped turn his career around. During the construction of the hotel, he forged several relationships with Japanese architects who went on to alter Japan s cityscapes and to mentor a new generation of architects. Against the backdrop of the most turbulent century in history, Wright's obsession with Japan and Japan's own debt to Wright vividly reminds us that the creative spirit knows no borders.