Conrad N. Brown

Chasing Frank Lloyd Wright, is the book I wish I'd had when I graduated from high school. It might have saved me many wrong turns and helped me see many opportunities I didn't know I had. This book is about all that and an entertaining story to boot. Becoming an architect is not a walk in the park. First, there is all that theoretical stuff, about beams, columns and cantilevers. Then the historical stuff from the Egyptians to the Greeks and Aztecs that evolved somehow into today's building codes. Throw in some interesting life experiences, making new friends, meeting some architects who have made it, building relationships, becoming known, putting in years of apprenticeship and finally passing a state or national licensing test, It's not easy, no-not at all. And all for what, your name on the door? People don't become architects to get rich, to build a base for politics or to have a secure, comfortable job in a big corporation for life. Architects are those who cannot stop imagining and then building what is possible, if it can be built, it is possible.

Some would ask, who needs architects anyway. Builders will build you a house in any shape or form, while commercial building manufacturers offer whole buildings in glossy brochures at a guaranteed price. Schools and office buildings have been built so many times before that you can just "borrow" as set of plans and go. There are many reasons not to use an architect to create your own unique structure, but it comes down to the one reason that you do.

To create something that is yours and yours alone, a statement to the world that you care what you leave behind. That you need a specific, particular structure to make a statement of truth and beauty. Or perhaps to fill a personal, business or community need. How to get there is in this book, at least how I got there, and the rewards and punishments along the way.