James Krafter Jr., age 16, of Glendale, Ariz., for his question:

WHY IS FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT SO HIGHLY REGARDED?

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of American's most influential architects. He is highly regarded because he was imaginative and during his career which ran almost 70 years he created a striking variety of fine architectural forms.

Wright's designs range from traditional buildings typical of the late 1800s to ultramodern designs. He became internationally famous as early as 1910 but he never established a style that dominated either American or European architects.

Weight's influence was great but generally indirect. It was spread as much by his speeches and writings as by his buildings and designs.

Born in Wsiconsin in 1867, Wright studied engineering briefly at the University of Wisconsin. In 1887 he moved to Chicago where he became a draftsman in the office of a noted Midwestern architect.

Later he joined the staff of the famous Chicago architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. He soon became their chief draftsman. He left Adler and Sullivan in 1893 to establish his own practice.

Wright became famous for his "prairie" style of home designs. In a prairie house, open spaces inside the home expand into the outdoors through porches and terraces. Because of their low, horizontal form, the homes seem to grow out of the ground. This effect was emphasized by Wright's use of wood and other materials as they appear in nature.

One famous home, built in Chicago in 1909 and called the Robie house, looks like a series of horizontal layers floating over the ground.

One of wright's famous nonresidential designs was the Imperial Hotel complex in Tokyo which was built in 1922. The hotel was designed to withstand the earthquakes common in Japan and it was one of the few undamaged survivors of the severe earthquakes that struck Tokyo in 1923.

One of Wright's early nonresidential design was the Unity Temple in Oak Park., I11., which was built in 1906. It was the first public building in the United States that showed its concrete construction. In earlier buildings, the concrete had been covered.

In 1932, Wright founded the Taliesin Fellowship. This fellowship was made up of architectural students who paid to live and work with Wright. The students worked during the summer at Taliesin, Wright's home near Spring Green, Wis., and during the winter at Taliesin West, his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Dramatically perched over a waterfall is the Kaufman "Falling Water" house built in 1936 at Bear Run near Uniontown, Penn. It became a symbol for the general public of far out modern architecture.

Another famous building designed by Wright is the Johnson Wax administration building which was built at Racine, Wis., in 1939. Still more famous is the Guggenheim Museum which was completed in New York City in 1960.

One of the most spectacular projects is the futuristic Marin County Civil Center north of San Francisco in California. About nine buildings are planned for the center which is expected to be completed by the year 2000.

Wright was 92 when he died in 1959.