Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building: Myth and Fact

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building has become an icon of modern architecture. And the fact that it was demolished only forty-six years after its 1904 completion makes Jack Quinan’s study of the building—which housed a Buffalo, New York, soap company—all the more valuable. 

Quinan’s history draws on engineering documents, personal accounts of the building, and other papers he acquired from the family of Darwin D. Martin, a Larkin executive who proposed commissioning Wright to design the company’s offices. With access to these rare sources, Quinan reveals how a young Wright landed the commission and traces the evolution of his cutting-edge plans. Quinan then takes Wright studies to a new level, examining the Larkin Building as a structure at the center of economic and personal relationships. 

Illustrated with more than one hundred photographs, floor plans, maps, and diagrams, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building provides a concise but complete record of how the building was conceived, built, evaluated, and finally demolished in what has been called a tragic loss for American architecture.

Qunian's book recreates the building through words and photographs. "...architecture can be understood as a product of economics, personality, function and form." Architecture

Bit by bit Quinan brings to life a key achievement of American architecture, from the saga of its creation to the inconsistencies of its reputation.

Jack Quinan is professor of art history at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The author of several books on Frank Lloyd Wright, he is also the founder of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the curator of Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York.