Synopsis
Frank Lloyd Wright was the most influential architect of the twentieth century—and a rogue genius whose life was a wild ride. Wright routinely ignored unpaid bills, clients' wishes, budget constraints. Only his creative vision mattered to him. That vision transformed the way we live, sweeping aside the Victorian home and creating a uniquely American architecture exemplified by his Prairie Style houses. Wright built hotels, churches, and offices, too, incorporating endless innovations in techniques and materials. Ideas poured out of him throughout his long career; he called it “shaking the design out of my sleeve.”
Jan Adkins's fascinating biography of this compelling, infuriating, largerthan- life figure will change the way every reader looks at architecture.
Children's Literature
AGERANGE: Ages 14 up.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was a self-made genius, a world-class egoist, and the premiere architect of the 20th century. Jan Adkins has created a superb, virtually not-able-to-put-down biography of the "old rogue" for younger and older readers alike. Beginning by setting Wright's roots firmly within the Welsh community of his Wisconsin birthplace, Adkins (who has an architectural background) next proceeds to place Wright within every architectural happening of the next near-century of the man's long life. It is fascinating to watch the high school and college dropout who never received an architect's license con his way through an apprenticeship with the great Louis Sullivan of skyscraper fame, learn from the Chicago Exposition of 1893, and move on to create "The Prairie Style," the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, and the iconic "Fallingwater" and Guggenheim Museum. Along the way, Adkins also chronicles Wright's freefall personal life (a boon to tabloid journalism for decades), as well as his later days as "saint" and "guru" to his Taliesin Fellowship of young wannabe architects. It is an amazing read about an amazing life. Adkins has appended source notes, a bibliography, and an index. My only druther is the abysmal quality of the handful of photographs incorporated into the text. Wright's works deserve better treatment than these fuzzy images. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr