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Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect

Name: Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect
Author: Frank Lloyd Wright, Terence Riley
ISBN: 9780870706431

by Frank Lloyd Wright, Terence Riley

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Overview

Undeniably the greatest architectural genius of his time, Frank Lloyd Wright produced a vast body of work that defined and redefined American architecture. This book, published to accompany a retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presents a comprehensive summary of his vision - from the turn of the century until his death in 1959 - and a new assessment of his remarkable achievement.

A wealth of illustrations, including many in full color, present newly restored original drawings of his designs as well as photographs of built works. Wright's residential architecture provided images of models for generations of suburban building across the United States. Among his best known works are single-family houses: The Prairie houses; the California Textile Block houses; Usonian houses for middle-class America; and spectacular commissions for wealthier clients, such as Fallingwater, the famous house constructed on natural rock and cantilevered dramatically over a waterfall. Wright also explored community planning and low-cost housing, and he executed a wide range of institutional and commercial projects. Among the latter are the Larkin Company Administration Building in Buffalo; Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois; the S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc Administration Building and Research Laboratory Tower in Racine, Wisconsin; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo - all landmarks in the history of architecture.A pragmatist and brilliant technical innovator, Wright was also an aggressively independent thinker and articulate advocate for his views. The essays in this book, by distinguished architectural critics and historians, not only chart the development of his work, but also define the essence of his thought, which had its core in Emersonian spiritualism. Exploring the resonance of Wright's career in twentieth-century American society, the authors discuss his views on individuality and community, craftsmanship and technology, and nature and the built environment; his relationship to European modernism; and his autocratic advocacy of a democratic architecture.

From the turn of the century until his death in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright produced projects that defined and redefined the American architectural vision. This book, accompanying a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is the most comprehensive appraisal of his achievements ever assembled. 466 illustrations, 190 in full color.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A major, candid reappraisal of Frank Lloyd Wright's enduring legacy, this handsomely illustrated survey accompanies a retrospective at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. The study probes two sides of Wright: the visionary organic architect steeped in the spiritual idealism of Emerson and Whitman, and the autocratic advocate of a democratic architecture. Wright's fertile dialogue with modernism (which he at times vehemently denied) and his grounding in 19th-century notions of family and community are discussed. Special attention is paid to his designs for housing projects and Broadacre City, an unrealized utopian enclave which reflected his weaknesses in its wasteful overreliance on the automobile, its rigid class hierarchy and its consumerist vision leaving little space for public interaction. Five sensitive essays by noted scholars are accompanied by 484 plates (183 in color) including scores of Wright's color drawings. Riley and Reed co-curated the exhibit. (May)

Library Journal

This book is published on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition of the same name. Coming more than 50 years after the museum's first Wright retrospective, both book and exhibit offer a fresh, comprehensive view of the architect's work. The transfer of the exhibit to book form is only partially successful, however. The book comprises photographs-many in color-of buildings and models, plans and sketches, and newly restored drawings by Wright. These are divided into nine thematic sections, but the themes and sections are not easily deciphered. The sections are neither titled nor listed in the table of contents, making it difficult to locate each individual introduction. Moreover, there are no running titles, so one's only orientation is chronological. And while the plates are truly stunning, the text explaining them is woefully deficient, often leaving the reader puzzled. While the text seems redeemed by the first five essays, comprehensive collections will be better served by William Allin Storrer's The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion (LJ 2/1/94).-Daniel J. Lombardo, Jones Lib., Amherst, Mass.