Ayn Rand Based the Protagonist of The Fountainhead on Wright. Sort of.
Ayn Rand made a splash with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. The novel’s hero is Howard Roark, an architect who bucks conventions of the time. Rand vocally admired Wright and the way he went against social norms, the two differed in their philosophies. Rand was a staunch individualist, opposing the collective. Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship was an unapologetic collective. She considered him more of a populist and left of center. But she admired his work, even asking that he design a home for her in Hollywood. She would never build it, as her plans changed, and she stayed in New York. The plans still exist, however, as a testament to their friendship. She said, in a 1937 letter to Wright as she wrote The Fountainhead, “My hero is not you…His life will not be yours, nor his work, perhaps not even his artistic ideals. But his spirit is yours – I think.”