Frank Lloyd Wright's Chicago
Chicago and its suburb, Oak Park (where Wright lived for many years), house the largest concentration of his buildings in the nation, and this photographic survey highlights more than 100 of those structures in a chronological fashion. This is done without fanfare and with frequent comparisons to Wright’s other work, making the book more suitable for architecture fans than for casual readers. O’Gorman’s description of the E. Arthur Davenport House ("The material used on the exterior is also a contrast to Wright’s all-stucco preference in design. Here Wright returns to his tried-and-true board-and-batten horizontal cladding, reminiscent of the treatment used at the Goan House") is representative of the writing throughout—far from compelling yet pleasantly spare and descriptive. O’Gorman (Architecture in Detail: Chicago 2002) also provides plenty of biographical context, describing Wright’s childhood spent with "a mother of cloyingly intensive emotional control," his apprenticeship with Chicago architect Louis Sullivan and his abandonment of his wife and six children in the early 1900s to escape to Europe with a client’s wife. The passages describing Wright’s life are divided into sections corresponding to his different periods and styles, from his early work to his most identifiable creation, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Although the book isn’t thrillingly written and will likely be passed over by those seeking a more generalist overview, it’s a well-researched window into the architect’s life and creations. 400+ color illustrations.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.