Connect with the Libraries
Have an idea for Subject of the Month?
June 2017
Selectors: Jim Van Loon, Rosa Forte
June 8 marks the 150th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth in Richland Center, Wisconsin in 1867. The Purdy-Kresge display and online guide “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150” includes material selected from the WSU library collection and online sources to provide insight into the life and work of this colossal (and controversial) American design talent.
eBooks (WSU credentials required)
Frank Lloyd Wright by
A complete biography based on a wide range of previously untapped primary sources, covering Wright's private life, architecture, and role in American society, culture, and politics. Views Wright's buildings as biographical as well as social statements, analyzing his work by type, category, and individual structure. Examines Wright's struggle to develop a new artistic statement, his dramatic personal life, and his political and economic ideas, including those on cities, energy conservation, cooperative home building, and environmental preservation. Includes over 150 illustrations (photographs, floor plans, and drawings--many never before published), extensive footnotes, and the most exhaustive bibliography of Wright's published work available.
ISBN: 0471857971Publication Date: 1987-04-24
Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought by
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
ISBN: 9780299301446Publication Date: 2014-09-18
Frank Lloyd Wright on the West Coast by
Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings on the West Coast have not been thoroughly covered in print until now. Between 1909 and 1959, Wright designed a total of 38 structures up and down the West Coast, from Seattle to Southern California. These include well-known structures such as the Marin County Civic Center and Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, and many lesser-known gems such as the 1909 Stewart House near Santa Barbara.
ISBN: 9781423634478Publication Date: 2014-09-01
Death in a Prairie House by
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.
ISBN: 9780299222147Publication Date: 2008-08-21
Websites
- Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy The mission of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy is to facilitate the preservation and maintenance of the remaining structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright through education, advocacy and technical services.
- Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation exists to preserve Taliesin and Taliesin West for future generations, and to inspire society through an understanding and experience of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas, architecture, and design.
- Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture builds architects of the future by offering comprehensive study towards a professional Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree. The program is designed for students who thrive in a multifaceted environment focusing on rigorous design, critical thinking, and hands-on learning. The School’s specialized approach facilitates an individualized educational experience and fosters a close relationship between students, faculty, and staff.
- Frank Lloyd Wright Trust The mission of the Trust is to engage, educate and inspire the public through interpretation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design legacy and preservation of his original sites for future generations.
Video (WSU credentials required)
- Ken Burns' American Lives : Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright tells the story of the greatest of all American architects. Wright was an authentic American genius, a man who believed he was destined to redesign the world by creating everything anew. Over the course of his long career, he designed more than 800 buildings, including such revolutionary structures as the Guggenheim Museum, the Johnson Wax Building, Fallingwater, Unity Temple and Taliesin. His buildings and his ideas changed the way we live, work and see the world around us.Call Number: ELECTRONIC RESOURCE-Kanopy Streaming VideoPublication Date: 1998; PBS
- 10 buildings that changed America 10 buildings that changed America tells the stories of ten influential works of architecture, the people who imagined them, and the way these landmarks ushered in innovative cultural shifts throughout our society. From American architectural stalwarts like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, to modern revolutionaries Frank Gehry and Robert Venturi, this film examines the most prominent buildings designed by the most noteworthy architects of our time. We see the legacy of these architects all around us: in the homes where we live, the offices in which we work, our public buildings, and our houses of worship. These 10 buildings represent architects who dared to strike out on their own and design radical new types of buildings that permanently altered our environmental and cultural landscape.Call Number: ELECTRONIC RESOURCE-Kanopy Streaming VideoPublication Date: 2014; Kanopy Streaming
- Monuments to man : the impact and influence of concrete on civilization This work highlights architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and the errant Spanish genius Antonio Gaudi in examining concrete, and the way it created our modern cities and how we work and live in them. This film covers the history of concrete from its discovery, its disappearance for 15 centuries and its re-emergence to become the most effective of all building materials.Call Number: ELECTRONIC RESOURCE-Kanopy Streaming VideoPublication Date: 2014; Kanopy Streaming
Video (YouTube)
Images - attribution
- Image of Fallingwater from the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS).
- Portrait of FLW and Johnson Wax Building interior from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
- All images of Wright's Michigan designs from the Frank Lloyd Wright Structures Image Gallery / Carl Thurman under Creative Commons 4.0 attribution license.
Quote from the architect
Less is only more where more is no good.
--Frank Lloyd Wright
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. Frank Lloyd Wright
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd107515.html
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd107515.html
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd107515.html
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd107515.html
FLW c.1926 (age 59)
Books in Print
The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion by
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.
Call Number: NA 737.W7 A4 2006ISBN: 9780226776217Publication Date: 2006-11-01
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright by
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 Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright will be indispensable for anyone fascinated with Wright's unique architectural genius.
Call Number: NA 737 .W7 A4 2002ISBN: 0226776220Publication Date: 2002-04-15
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Art of Japan by
This fascinating study reveals the lesser-known side of this famed architect as an important & avid collector of Japanese art, & the role it played in his life & his architecture. Accompanies an exhibition at the Japan Society, New York.
Call Number: N 8660 .W75 M43 2001ISBN: 0810945630Publication Date: 2001-03-01
Treasures of Taliesin by
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that his unbuilt designs were the most interesting of his works. Here are 106 color plates of his drawings for 76 unexecuted designs. Twenty-nine of the drawings have never been published.Pfeiffer has created a visual history of the development of Wright s work that extends in time from 1895 to 1959 and in architectural interest from his admonition to Franklin Watkins to use cadmium plated screws with an electrical screwdriver to secure the cypress siding of his studio-residence to a description of the 26-foot drawing for The Mile High Building that was exhibited on September 17, 1956.Wright argued then that This is the future of the tall building in the American city. Level Manhattan to one large green, like Central Park, and erect a few of these well spaced apart and you have the congregation desired by city work and city life, but surrounded with trees, fields, parks and streams. Pfeiffer draws on his long association with Wright to describe the circumstances surrounding the germination of each project, characterize the personalities involved, and explain what went wrong and why. The stories include political intrigue and assassination, as well as intimate glimpses of personalities such as Mike Todd and Ayn Rand, and a poignant recollection of Marilyn Monroe, who wanted an entire floor of her planned home with Arthur Miller for their children. There is even a residence for a mysterious client whose identity was known only by Wright."
Call Number: NA 2707 .W74 P44 1985ISBN: 0809312352Publication Date: 1985-10-01
Databases (WSU credentials required)
- Arts & Humanities Database This link opens in a new window This database features hundreds of titles covering Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies. It is designed to complement the following indexes: ABM, Avery, BHA, BHI, DAAI, Index Islamicus, MLA, Philosopher's Index and RILM.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics, and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. WSU currently subscribes to the Arts and Sciences I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VII, IX, X and XI Collections.
Selected FLW-designed homes in Michigan
Meyer May residence
450 Madison Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids MI 49503
Abby Beecher Roberts residence
County Hwy. 492, Marquette MI 49885
Gregor S. and Elizabeth B. Affleck residence
1925 N. Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills MI 48013
Sarah and Melvyn Maxwell Smith residence
5045 Pon Valley Rd., Bloomfield Hills MI 48013
Amy Alpaugh residence
71 N. Peterson Park Rd., Northport MI 49670
Eric and Pat Pratt residence
11036 Hawthorne Dr., Galesburg MI 49053
Robert D. Winn residence
2822 Taliesin Dr., Kalamazoo MI 49008
Erling P. and Katherine Brauner residence
2527 Arrow Head Rd., Okemos MI 48864
Don and Mary Lou Schaberg residence
1155 Wrightwind Dr., Okemos MI 48864
Dr. R. Bradford and Ina Morriss Harper residence
207 Sunnybank Rd., St. Joseph MI 49085
Dr. H. and Dorothy H. Turkel residence
2760 W. Seven Mile Rd., Detroit MI 48221
