The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion - Hardcover

Storrer, William Allin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226776247 ISBN 13: 9780226776248

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1994

Synopsis

A Frank Lloyd Wright Companion brings together in one handsome, oversized volume the essential details, descriptions, brief histories, photographs, and plans of everything built by America's best-known architect.

For the first time, William Allin Storrer presents complete plans of all Wright's work as built along with a remarkably rich treasury of critical information and rare anecdotal material collected over many years of research.

Surveying almost 450 buildings, each of which he visited at least twice, Storrer includes the full range of Wright's architecture—from vacation cottages in Montana and Michigan to such monuments of modernism as the Johnson's Wax Building and the Guggenheim Museum. He also includes buildings completed after Wright's death in 1959.

Organized to follow Wright's career from his first design, the interior of the Helena Valley Chapel near Taliesin, to his last built work, the Lykes residence in Phoenix, the entries feature:

A text that summarizes what is important about the history of each building, its commission, design, use, and client, its place in Wright's work, and its stylistic and engineering innovations.

1000 photographs of interiors and exteriors, most taken by the author. There are also elevations and historical images of buildings that are no longer standing.

Floor plans of Wright's built work showing changes in his preliminary plans, and each meticulously redrawn by the author.

As a comprehensive single-volume reference unmatched in scope, detail, and authority, the Companion will be an indispensable centerpiece of any Frank Lloyd Wright collection and any serious library of art and architecture.

"William Allin Storrer, a scholar who has written on Wright for a quarter-century, has produced the first true and complete catalogue raisonné of Wright's work, and it is stunning. . . . Mr. Storrer has given us more than a story; he has written an epic. This book, more than any other, makes the remarkable length and breadth of Wright's career clear. . . . His texts are straightforward and intelligent. . . . [Storrer] has taken the vast forest of Wright's built work and looked at it tree by tree, labeling each and every one of those trees thoroughly and intriguingly. It is a testament to Mr. Storrer's skill that this book comes off not merely as a catalogue, but as an inspiring study of the whole Wright forest."—Paul Goldberger, New York Times Book Review

"Storrer . . . knows more about Frank Lloyd Wright than anyone else, and he's produced the ultimate encyclopedia, with 965 photographs of 470 buildings and an insightful, fact-filled text."—Robert Campbell, Boston Globe

"By bringing the full range of Wright's work under one roof, this definitive guide makes a major contribution to the literature on Wright."—Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune Books

"[A]n excellent reference guide to everything built by Frank Lloyd Wright."—Thomas D. Sullivan, Washington Times

"This book is an essential reference for all those interested in Wright. . . . It will be highly useful when reading the more theoretical books that are beginning to pour out from Wright's archives."—Architecture Nz

"Frank Lloyd Wright expert Storrer has compiled the definitive Wright reference book. . . . It is an invaluable, enjoyable, and authoritative resource."—Donna Seaman, Booklist

About this title

About the Author:

William Allin Storrer has written and lectured on Frank Lloyd Wright for more than fifty years. He is the author of The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

From Booklist:

Wright expert Storrer has compiled the definitive Wright reference book. His splendid descriptive volume covers more than 450 buildings designed by master architect Wright between 1886 and 1959. Storrer documents each structure with plans, drawings, photographs, and commentary. Each presentation is both complete and concise, following each stage of Wright's aesthetic development, each leap of his imagination, and each instance of technical innovation. The surprisingly fluid text includes anecdotes about the circumstances leading up to important commissions and pithy discussions of the personalities and motivations of Wright's often unusual clients. Storrer is not only a scholar and writer, but a computer draftsman and photographer as well. He has painstakingly redrawn floor plans to accurately reflect the layout of the actual buildings, as opposed to Wright's preconstruction drawings, and taken most of the 965 photographs. Storrer carefully composed each shot to capture the play of light and shadow Wright orchestrated for both the interior and the exterior of his unique creations. While Storrer's "companion" is not as coffee-table pretty as some of the other Wright books out this past year, it is an invaluable, enjoyable, and authoritative resource. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0226776247
• ISBN 13: 9780226776248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 508