Over the past decade, there has been a significant revival of interest in the architecture and designs of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). From Barnsdall Park in Los Angeles to the Zimmerman house in New Hampshire, from Florida Southern College to Taliesin in Wisconsin, with Fallingwater in between, Frank Lloyd Wright buildings open to the public receive thousands of visitors each year, and there is a thriving commerce in reproductions of Wright's furniture and fabric designs. Among the many books available on Frank Lloyd Wright, William Allin Storrer's classic—now fully revised and updated—remains the only authoritative guide to all of Wright's built work.

This edition includes a number of new features. It provides information on Frank Lloyd Wright buildings discovered since the first edition. It features full-color photographs to highlight those buildings that remain essentially as they were first built. To facilitate its use as a convenient field guide, this durable flexibound edition gives full addresses with each entry, as well as GPS coordinates, and offers maps giving the shortest route to each building. Preserving the chronological order of past editions, the catalog allows readers to trace the progression of Frank Lloyd Wright's built designs from the early Prairie school works to the last building constructed to Wright's specifications on the original site—the Aime and Norman Lykes residence.

The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright will be indispensable for anyone fascinated with Wright's unique architectural genius.

From sprawling houses to compact bungalows and from world-famous museums to a still-working gas station, Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs can be found in nearly every corner of the country. While the renowned architect passed away more than fifty years ago, researchers and enthusiasts are still uncovering structures that should be attributed to him.
William Allin Storrer is one of the experts leading this charge, and his definitive guide, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, has long been the resource of choice for anyone interested in Wright.  Thanks to the work of Storrer and his colleagues at the Rediscovering Wright Project, thirty-seven new sites have recently been identified as the work of Wright. Together with more photos, updated and expanded entries, and a new essay on the evolution of Wright’s unparalleled architectural style, this new edition is the most comprehensive and authoritative catalog available.
Organized chronologically, the catalog includes full-color photos, location information, and historical and architectural background for all of Wright’s extant structures in the United States and abroad, as well as entries for works that have been demolished over the years. A geographic listing makes it easy for traveling Wright fans to find nearby structures and a new key indicates whether a site is open to the public.
Publishing for Wright’s sesquicentennial, this new edition will be a trusted companion for anyone embarking on their own journeys through the wonder and genius of Frank Lloyd Wright.

But its full story has never been told. Beth Sholom Synagogue provides the first in-depth look at the synagogue’s conception and realization in relation to Wright’s other religious architecture. Beginning with his early career at Adler and Sullivan’s architectural firm in Chicago and his design for Unity Temple and ending with the larger works completed just before or soon after his death, Joseph M. Siry skillfully depicts Wright’s exploration of geometric forms and structural techniques in creating architecture for worshipping communities. Siry also examines Wright’s engagement with his clients, whose priorities stemmed from their denominational identity, and the effect this had on his designs—his client for Beth Sholom, Rabbi Mortimer Cohen, worked with Wright to anchor the building in the traditions of Judaism even as it symbolized the faith’s continuing life in postwar America. With each of his religious projects, Wright considered questions of social history and cultural identity as he advanced his program for an expressive, modern American architecture. His search to combine these agendas culminated in Beth Sholom, where the interplay of light, form, and space create a stunning and inspiring place of worship.

 

Filled with over three hundred illustrations, this remarkable book takes us deep inside the synagogue’s design, construction, and reception to bring us an illuminating portrait of the crowning achievement of this important aspect of Wright’s career.

Through letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a stunning assemblage of photographs - many of which have never before been published - author Ron McCrea tells the fascinating story of the building of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, which would be the architect's principal residence for the rest of his life. Photos taken by Wright's associates show rare views of Taliesin under construction and illustrate Wright's own recollections of the first summer there and the craftsmen who worked on the site.

 

The book also brings to life Wright’s "kindred spirit," "she for whom Taliesin had first taken form," Mamah Borthwick. Wright and Borthwick had each abandoned their families to be together, causing a scandal that reverberated far beyond Wright's beloved Wisconsin valley. The shocking murder and fire that took place at Taliesin in August 1914 brought this first phase of life at Taliesin to a tragic end.

Situated in Chicago's famed Gold Coast, just north of the Magnificent Mile, the Charnley house is one of the finest dwellings in the city and considered worldwide to be a stunning example of avant-garde architecture. Now the headquarters of the Society of Architectural Historians and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, the house was built in 1892 at a critical moment in urban and architectural history. The Charnley House is the first authoritative publication on the building, which has long been discussed in surveys but never before examined in detail.

In this collection of original essays, six well-known architectural historians illuminate various aspects of the house, both inside and out, as they consider its remarkable formal and spatial qualities, its historical significance in the development of Chicago's elite residential neighborhood, and its place in the context of American domestic architecture. Equally important, the contributors tackle the knotty, decades-old issue concerning the building's designer. While many have ascribed the scheme to Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan's chief assistant at the time, this book sheds new light on how the house relates significantly to the work of both master and apprentice.

The continuing debate over the house's "authorship" highlights the importance of the Charnley house in the history of modern architecture as the seminal work of residential design in the United States. These thoroughly researched interpretations, supplemented by an abundance of never before published illustrations, analyze this house of distinction with the care and detail it deserves. Beautifully restored in late 1980s, the Charnley house now has a book worthy of it.

     The most pivotal and yet least understood event of Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated life involves the brutal murders in 1914 of seven adults and children dear to the architect and the destruction by fire of Taliesin, his landmark residence, near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Unaccountably, the details of that shocking crime have been largely ignored by Wright’s legion of biographers—a historical and cultural gap that is finally addressed in William Drennan’s exhaustively researched Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders.
     In response to the scandal generated by his open affair with the proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Wright had begun to build Taliesin as a refuge and "love cottage" for himself and his mistress (both married at the time to others).
      Conceived as the apotheosis of Wright’s prairie house style, the original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull.
     Supplying both a gripping mystery story and an authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, Drennan wades through the myths surrounding Wright and the massacre, casting fresh light on the formulation of Wright’s architectural ideology and the cataclysmic effects that the Taliesin murders exerted on the fabled architect and on his subsequent designs.

 

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

A cultural icon who defined the twentieth-century American landscape, Frank Lloyd Wright has been studied from what seems to be every possible angle. While many books focus on his works, torrid personal life, or both, few solely consider his professional persona, as a man enmeshed in a web of prominent public figures and political ideas. In this new biography, Robert McCarter distills Wright’s life and work into a concise account that explores the beliefs and relationships so powerfully reflected in his architectural works. 

McCarter examines here how Wright aspired to influence America’s evolving democratic society by the challenges his buildings posed to traditional views of private and public space. He investigates Wright’s relationships with key leaders of art, industry, and society, and how their views came to have concrete significance in Wright’s work and writings. Wright argued that architecture should be the “background or framework” for daily life, not the “object,” and McCarter dissects how and why he aspired to this and other ideals, such as his belief in the ethical duty of architects to improve society and culture. 

A penetrating study of the foremost pioneer in modern architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright offers a fascinating biographical chronicle that reveals the principles and relationships at the base of Wright’s production.

Meryle Secrest's Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography focuses on Wright's family history, personal adventures, and colorful friends and family. Secrest had unprecedented access to an archive of over one hundred thousand of Wright's letters, photographs, drawings, and books. She also interviewed surviving devotees, students, and relatives. The result is an explicit portrait of both the genius architect and the provocative con-man.

"Secrest seizes the themes most evocative of certain of our cultural myths, forging them into a coherent and emotionally plausible narrative."—New Republic

"An engaging narrative."—New York Times Book Review

"The real triumph of this biography . . . is the link it makes between Frank Lloyd Wright's personal life and his architecture."—The Economist

"Secrest's achievement is to etch Wright's character in sharp relief. . . . [She] presents Wright in his every guise."-Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune

"An extremely engaging profile."—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A spellbinding portrait."—Library Journal

"The best [biography] so far, a huge and definitive accumulation of fact."—Time

An iconic figure in American culture, Frank Lloyd Wright is famous throughout the world. Although his achievements in architecture are stunning, it is his importance in cultural history, Jerome Klinkowitz contends, that makes Wright the object of such avid and continuing interest. Designing more than just buildings, Wright offered a concept for living that still influences how people conduct their lives today. Wright's innovations in architecture have been widely studied, but this is the most comprehensive and sustained treatment of his thought.
            Klinkowitz presents a critical biography driven by the architect's own work and intellectual growth, focusing on the evolution of Wright's thinking and writings from his first public addresses in 1894 to his last essay in 1959. Did Wright reject all of Victorian thinking about the home, or do his attentions to a minister's sermon on "the house beautiful" deserve closer attention? Was Wright echoing the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or was he more in step with the philosophy of William James? Did he reject the Arts and Crafts movement, or repurpose its beliefs and practices for new times? And, what can be said of his deep dissatisfaction with architectural concepts of his own era, the dominant modernism that became the International Style? Even the strongest advocates of Frank Lloyd Wright have been puzzled by his objections to so much that characterized the twentieth century, from ideas for building to styles of living.
            In Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought, Klinkowitz, a widely published authority on twentieth-century literature, thought, and culture, examines the full extent of Wright's books, essays, and lectures to show how he emerged from the nineteenth century to anticipate the twenty-first.

Outstanding Book, selected by the American Association of School Librarians

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

From boyhood adventures to the creation of visionary buildings like the Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright and His New American Architecture chronicles the vibrant life of one of the world's most famous architects.

Wright's love of architecture was nurtured early on-from paintings of European cathedrals hung in his childhood room; to "Froebel Gifts" building blocks, which he crafted into crude structures; to long walks near the Wisconsin River, where his mother pointed out patterns and colors in nature. Wright also learned, from summers spent on his uncle's Spring Green farm, that adversity is part of life. And perhaps this helped him weather a life beset with both tragedy and triumph.

Wright's prolific career spanned more than 70 years, and he created more than 1,100 designs. Author Bob Kann brings readers into the eccentric stories behind some of Wright's landmark buildings. Find out about Wright's Oak Park home, known to locals as "the house with a tree growing through it;" the Robie House, which is shaped like a battleship; and Fallingwater, which is built on a waterfall. Learn how Wright successfully built the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to withstand earthquakes, and how the Johnson Wax Building and Guggenheim Museum set new standards in institutional architecture.

The comprehensive source for as-built plans of Wright's work
 
Published to critical acclaim more than a decade ago, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion brought together in one volume all the essential descriptions, photographs, and plans of everything built by America's most famous architect. Now, for this handsomely produced revised edition, William Allin Storrer brings the history of every Wright structure up to the present.

Storrer treats the full range of Wright's architecture—from vacation cottages in Montana and Michigan, to such monuments of modernism as the Johnson Wax Building and the Guggenheim Museum, to buildings completed after Wright’s death in 1959. Since the first edition, some of Wright’s buildings have been relocated, some have been refurbished, and, sadly, some have even been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Storrer documents these changes and includes new information about the extent of Wright’s work on the buildings, the contributions of his associates, and the details of his business arrangements. Wright aficionados will be especially pleased to find comprehensive coverage of the newly discovered Mitchell residence in Racine, Wisconsin.

Organized chronologically, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion features a description of each building that details the history of its design, construction, and ownership. Floor plans allow readers intimate access to each of Wright’s built works. With nearly 1,000 photographs (many new to this edition), elevations, historical images, and floor plans that show changes in Wright’s preliminary plans, this reference is unmatched in its authority. The indispensable centerpiece of any Wright collection, the newly revised Companion is a must for any serious library of art and architecture.

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.

Frank Lloyd Wright is best known for his urban and suburban houses. Lesser known are the more than 40 summer “cottages” he designed in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ontario. Many of the early summer cottages have a rustic feel and are not as easily recognized as Wright’s prolific year-round domestic designs. Among them is a stunning estate on Delavan Lake in southern Wisconsin called Penwern. Commissioned by Chicago capitalist Fred B. Jones around 1900, Penwern has received both national and state recognition. The home’s current stewards have dedicated themselves to restoring the estate to Wright’s vision, ensuring its future. Featuring beautiful color photographs, plus vintage black and white pictures and original Wright drawings, this book transports readers back to the glory days of gracious living and entertaining on the lake.
 

The Wisconsin-born Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) is recognized worldwide as an iconic architectural genius. In 1911 he designed Taliesin to use as his personal residence, architectural studio, and working farm. A century later Randolph C. Henning has assembled a splendid collection of rare vintage postcards, some never before published, that provides a revealing and visually unique journey through Wright’s work at Taliesin. Included are intimate images of Taliesin at various stages and views of the building just after the tragic 1914 fire. The postcards also depict nearby buildings designed by Wright, including the Romeo and Juliet windmill and two buildings for the Hillside Home School. Henning provides useful explanations that highlight relevant details and accompany each image. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin documents and celebrates Wright’s 100-year-old masterpiece.

Finalist, Midwest Book Awards for Cover Design and for Regional Interest Illustrated Book

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years, 1910-1922 uncovers the real story of Wright's travels in Europe. By examining this elusive and influential period in Wright's development, Alofsin restores an important chapter to the history of modern architecture. Bringing new definition and insight to the story of Frank Lloyd Wright, this book has become a standard work on America's greatest architect.

"Alofsin has set out to explain the impact of European culture on Wright by integrating its artistic influence with the tumultuous events in his private life. . . . [He] succeeds in this ambitious goal."—Kevin Nute, Architects' Journal

"A convincing and well-documented case that these were in fact crucial and fruitful years in Wright's development as an architect. . . . Absorbing."—Catherine Maclay, San Jose Mercury News

"One of the best."—Robert Fulford, Toronto Globe and Mail

The Robie House in Chicago is one of the world's most famous houses, a masterpiece from the end of Frank Lloyd Wright's early period and a classic example of the Prairie House. This book is intended as a companion for the visitor to the house, but it also probes beneath the surface to see how the design took shape in the mind of the architect. Wright's own writings, rare working drawings from the period, and previously unpublished photographs of the house in construction help the reader look over the shoulder of the architect at work. Beautiful new photographs of the Robie House and related Wright houses have been specially taken to illustrate the author's points, and a bibliography on Wright is provided.

Winner, 2017 Ned Shank Award for Outstanding Preservation Publication from Preserve Arkansas

Shadow Patterns: Reflections on Fay Jones and His Architecture is a collection of critical essays and personal accounts of the man the American Institute of Architects honored with its highest award, the Gold Medal, in 1990.

The essays range from the academic, with appreciations and observations by Juhanni Palaasma and Robert McCarter and Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, to personal reflections by clients and friends. Two of Arkansas’s most accomplished writers, Roy Reed and Ellen Gilchrist, who each live in Fay Jones houses, have provided intimate portrayals of what it’s like to live in, and manage the quirks of, a “house built by a genius,” where “light is everywhere. . . . Everything is quiet, and everything is a surprise,” as Gilchrist says.

Through this compendium of perspectives, readers will learn about Jones’s personal qualities, including his strong will, his ability to convince other people of the rightness of his ideas, and yet his willingness, at times, to change his mind. We also enter into the work: powerful architecture like Stoneflower and Thorncrown Chapel and Pinecote Pavilion, along with private residences ranging from the modest to the monumental. And we learn about his relationship with his mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Shadow Patterns broadens and enriches our understanding of this major figure in American architecture of the twentieth century.

O'Gorman discusses the individual and collective achievement of the recognized trinity of American architecture: Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-86), Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). He traces the evolution of forms created during these architects' careers, emphasizing the interrelationships among them and focusing on the designs and executed buildings that demonstrate those interrelationships. O'Gorman also shows how each envisioned the building types demanded by the growth of nineteenth-century cities and suburbs—the downtown skyscraper and the single-family home.

[A] brilliant analysis . . . a major contribution to our understanding of the beginnings of modern American architecture."—David Hamilton Eddy, Times Higher Education Supplement.