Results by title

Winner of the 1998 Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians.

Chicago has always held a special fascination for those interested in architectural and urban history. For many, the defining moment occurred at the turn of the century when Chicago was booming and the world came to the city by the lake. But the story most often told in architectural history—the tale of single creative geniuses like Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan—does little to explain the birth of the everyday modern city, with its high-rise downtown, diverse neighborhoods, and sprawling suburbs. This book connects architectural history with urban history by looking at the work of a major architectural firm, Holabird & Roche. No firm in any large American city had a greater impact.

With projects that ranged from tombstones to skyscrapers, boiler rooms to entire industrial complexes, Holabird & Roche left an indelible stamp on the city of Chicago and, indeed, far beyond. In this volume, the first of two on Holabird & Roche and its successor, Holabird & Root, Robert Bruegmann traces the firm’s history from its founding in 1880 to the end of the First World War. Incorporating meticulous research based on the extensive architectural holdings of the Chicago Historical Society, Bruegmann documents the firm’s work from the boom years of the 1880s through the period of sustained growth and innovation after the turn of the century. In chapters devoted to topics as diverse as downtown commercial and retail development, business hotels, civic buildings, automobile showrooms, and suburban clubs and housing, Bruegmann creates a sustained historical narrative that considers the profound interdependence of architecture and modern urban life.

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.

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.

In this widely acclaimed work, James Ackerman considers in detail the buildings designed by Michelangelo in Florence and Rome—including the Medici Chapel, the Farnese Palace, the Basilica of St. Peter, and the Capitoline Hill. He then turns to an examination of the artist's architectural drawings, theory, and practice. As Ackerman points out, Michelangelo worked on many projects started or completed by other architects. Consequently this study provides insights into the achievements of the whole profession during the sixteenth century. The text is supplemented with 140 black-and-white illustrations and is followed by a scholarly catalog of Michelangelo's buildings that discusses chronology, authorship, and condition. For this second edition, Ackerman has made extensive revisions in the catalog to encompass new material that has been published on the subject since 1970.

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.

This volume brings together for the first time all the papers Louis Sullivan intended for a public audience, from his first interview in 1882 to his last essay in 1924. Organized chronologically, these speeches, interviews, essays, letters to editors, and committee reports enable readers to trace Sullivan's development from a brash young assistant to Dankmar Adler to an architectural elder statesman. Robert Twombly, an authority on Sullivan's work and life, has introduced each document with a headnote explaining its significance, locating it in time and place, and examining its immediate context. He has also provided a general introduction that analyzes Sullivan's writing style and objectives, his major philosophical themes, and the sources of his ideas. With the help of headnotes and introduction, readers will get a thorough sense of Sullivan's concerns, discover how his ideas evolved and changed, and appreciate the circumstances under which new interests emerged.

This collection is a handy introduction to the full range of Sullivan's thinking, the book with which readers interested in the architect's writings should begin. As a companion volume to Robert Twombly's biography of Sullivan, it gives a comprehensive picture of one of America's most important architects and cultural figures.

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.

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.