Author(s): Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer

Architecture

This is the Wright stuff and the definitive publication on America's greatest architect. The three-volume monograph features all of Wright's designs (numbering approximately 1100), both realized and unrealized. Volume 2 covers the post-World War I years and the Usonian concept house period. Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is widely considered to be the greatest American architect of all time; indeed, his work virtually ushered in the modern era and remains highly influential today. His wide-ranging and paradigm-shifting oeuvre is the subject of Taschen's three-volume monograph that covers all of his designs (numbering approximately 1100), both realized and unrealized. Made in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives in Taliesin, Arizona, this collection leaves no stone unturned in examining and paying tribute to Wright's life and work. From his early Prairie Houses (typified by the Robie House) to the Usonian concept home and progressive 'living architecture' buildings to late projects like the spiral Guggenheim Museum in New York and the development of his fantastic vision of a better tomorrow via his concept of the 'living city', all of the phases of Wright's career are painstakingly described and illustrated herein. Author and preeminent Wright expert Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer highlights the latest research and gives fresh insight into the work, providing new dating for many of the plans and houses. A plethora of personal photos gives readers a feeling of what it was like to work in Frank Lloyd Wright's fellowship, traveling each spring from Taliesin West to the old Taliesin complex in Wisconsin and returning the next fall to spend the winter in sunny Arizona again. Volume 1 is dedicated to the early Chicago years and Prairie Houses, the period which provoked a profound influence on European architects. Volume 2 deals with the work after World War I, beginning with the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and covering Wright's quest to design affordable houses with systematic construction methods and the Usonian concept house, with the forest-sited villa Fallingwater being the dramatic climax. Volume 3 starts after World War II, when Wright's organic 'living architecture' introduced ideas for the use of solar energy and curved open spaces. In addition to the Guggenheim museum, the postwar era also saw extraordinary projects such as Wright's plans for a new Baghdad, his only realized high-rise tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the crystal figure of the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, and an endless row of houses that reached new complexity by floor plans based on hexagons and playing with intersecting angles.