Frank Lloyd Wright

by Meryle Secrest.

New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

So you hadn't heard of Meryle Secrest until it seemed that every book reviewer was commenting about her biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Well. Secrest's credentials are impeccable. Her interest is biography: great people, genius. seems to be her fetish; Romaine Brooks, Bernard Berenson, Kenneth Clark, Salvador Dali, and now Frank Lloyd Wright. Four of these are very familiar to me, Bernard Berenson from my Harvard years, Kenneth Clark because everyone knows him, and Salvador Dali as one of maybe two twentieth- century artists to whose work I respond strongly and positively. So I'm not certain that Secrest likes great people; she sees dark corners and hiding places everywhere, and reveals them, whether or not the information is useful to the reader's forming an opinion about her subject. One comes away feeling that something is missing from her analysis, and that she prefers common people to great ones who place great demands upon the world around them. Her writing is, nevertheless, everywhere engaging, enjoyable, fun to read.

One problem of writing about a dead person you've never met is that you don't know how something written on paper would have been spoken by the writer. This is critical with Wright, for the twinkle in his eye often belied the sharpness of his speech. Secrest reveals no immunity to Wright's brilliant wit. Nor does she deny his lavish largesse to many around him. Her view is, nevertheless, focused too much on Wright's ancestal connections.

How strange it is that Wright waited until 1956 before he visited Wales. Yet it is the premise of Secrest's book that being of Welsh descent, more than any other single factor, caused Wright to be what he was. It is Wright's Welsh ancestry on which Secrest focuses her efforts, and which she puts forth as central to his complex personality. Thus, she avoids her own dictum, which she takes from one of her earlier biographical studies; "If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a Minister of Housing or the actual buildings put up in his time, I should believe the buildings." Secrest begins chapter 15 with this quote from Kenneth Clark, breaking with her pattern of quoting "Poems from the Old English." (15 of her 20 chapters). It is not by study of the man, but the man's work, by which we can learn from and about genius; that is Kenneth Clark's argument, one that we would all do well to heed. It is equally true that books about people, particularly people who are decidedly more significant in their impact on those around them than are those around them on anyone else, will outsell by 100:1 any book on the works of the person. Sad that we should be more interested in peek-a-boo activities than in self-improvement, and sadder still for the world as a whole.

Secrest does not follow the direction commanded in Clark's quote, but keeps after her man and his life and remembrances of things past. Further, when Secrest does get into some level of interpretation of the master's work, she can be very off-base. She does not sort out the Arizona Biltmore (S.221-222) controversy satisfactorily, missing the point of the design. As examples of Wright's "influence" on the design of the hotel, Secrest notes "the low horizontal lines of the building. . ." Wrong; the building is one story too high wherever Albert McArthur could find a way to add a story to Wright's (lower) elegant, and truly "low," design.

Consider, too, the comment about Wright's work for A. J. Chandler; "All these fascinating experiments of working on a vastly reduced scale would prove their worth ten years later when he came to design his first Usonian houses." Apparently Secrest missed Wright's 1950s statement that the California block houses were his first Usonian houses, an argument that cannot be easily dismissed without denying then that the Usonian Automatics of the 1950s were, indeed, Usonian. Publicist that he was, Wright used "Usonian" to promote Jacobs and later works, but the Usonian premise traces back to California, and up to the two-story Usonian automatic on a pancake-flat site in Detroit for Dorothy Turkel (S.388), then on to the Erdman prefabs, "wood" versions of block automatics.

Later (p.553), Secrest comments about one of the earlier admirers of Wright (and one of our century's great minds); "Mumford rightly observed that many of these innovations for which Wright was now claiming sole credit, the open plan, for instance, were not his inventions, but that he had grasped their significance and made unique uses of their advantages." Is this not what genius is all about? Most of the plays written under the name of Shakespeare were not new in their stories. There were plays on the same topic, even with much the same structure, by lesser playwrites before Shakespeare wrote "his version." There is even an Ur-Hamlet, but Shakespeare (whoever he was) grasped the significance of what "Hamletness" is all about, and made the great play about it. The same is true, for instance, of Rossini and his greatest work, "The Barber of Seville." Paisiello had written a "Barber," and his supporters were enraged by Rossini's arrogance at writing another work on the same subject, and with the same title. Paisiello's work is comparatively superficial; Rossini's resonates with the foibles and beauties of humanity in all its guises.

Though Secrest's arguments would support a specific theory concerning Wright's need to create, she articulates no cogent position. Men create. Women procreate. Men cannot procreate, however much they may share in that which is procreated. Women's ability to both create and procreate is a threat to one domain that men would like to keep as their own, as a balance to woman's biological pre-eminence. Consider this in context of Wright's leaving Catherine as she is ending her procreative sphere of activity, dear reader, and you will see one point completely missed by Secrest. Or, perhaps omitted, as not cogent to her viewpoint.

Secrest puts forth a facade of detailed completeness, yet misses at least one important liaison by Wright. She delineates Wright's long relationship with one important Wisconsonian, yet misses a second family connection that, in an interesting turn of events, caused Wright to blanch white after a Michigan lecture in the early 50s. She could have revealed this.

Secrest, like the British citizenry, enjoys her royalty. At times it seems that everyone with whom Wright associates is a prince, count or duke (or at least a scion of industry). Ms. Secrest is able to paint a convincing portrait of how the last Mrs. Wright set herself and her husband up as a royal family within the Taliesin Fellowship.

Secrest falls heir to the British proclivity for not following their own grammatical rules. While Hollywood all too often uses "I" where "me" is called for (as does president-elect Clinton), internationally circulated British magazines &emdash; GRAMOPHONE is one of my favorites &emdash; continue to mangle "their" language far more than American equivalents &emdash; FANFARE in this instance. Secrest sprinkles her writing with conjunctions at beginnings of sentences, and with "howevers" at every conceivable opportunity. "However" is an adverb (as in, "however much" three paragraphs above), though often used as a conjunction in American (as opposed to British) writing. As a conjunction, it should conjoin two sentences. To use it at the beginning of a sentence, worse yet at the beginning of a paragraph, is to let our written language be debased to the level of spoken colloquial discourse. Minor slip-ups, such as "exemplified by Albert Bush-Brown, as exemplifying. . ." show more of an editorial laziness than anything about Secrest's prose, which is more entertaining than that of most previous writers on Wright. While Secrest's writing is admirably interesting, we must still await a truly elegantly written study of Mr. Wright's life.

Secrest is hardly faultless. She is uncritical in praise of too many second rate authors, making little or no distinction with the first rate ones. For instance, she fails to notice that John Sargeant covers only half of the subject the title of his book promises. Typos and mistakes are hardly uncommon. Try Tomak (p.481). Should be Tomek (S.128). Or a photo (p.504) of five people around Wright, but only four are named. She errs re. Zona Gale (p.302); Zona was not related to the Oak Park Gales. Secrest confuses "module" with "unit." The module is the shape, and but for the 2x4' rectangle and the circular segments, Wright's modules were equilateral, thus could be stated by the geometric shape plus one dimension (either length of side, or altitude).

Secrest devotes only one chapter to Wright's last decade, yet it is in this decade that Wright produced over a quarter of his built work. This is but one sign of Secrest's focus on the man, and denial that the work is what reveals the truth of the man.

If some still wonder about the "FLlW" in this newsletter's masthead, please read p.384 on the subject. There Secrest justifies this as Wright's "final" solution to the way he wrote his initials.

Wherever you go these days, you may find Ms. Secrest promoting her book. She appeared at Taliesin during the September Reunion. On December 7 she is scheduled to give a presentation in the resident associate's program at the Smithsonian.

Do not let my negative comments put you off from reading this book. There is no bio yet available on which I could not give many pages of negative comment. Secrest has provided an entertaining if unbalanced Wright bio. She has left room for yet many other possible approaches to this infinitely fascinating American artist, one that would not place the Welsh heritage above all other influences. Other than Wright's own factually aberrant but truthful An Autobiography, there is no more entertaining biography of America's most famous architect currently available than that by Meryle Secrest. Too many readers bought Brendan Gill's vitriolic account of Wright, not enough will buy the Secrest study, which offers much previously unresearched information from which it derives its premise, and is everywhere entertaining

The Wright State; Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin

edited by Mary Garity LaCharite and Terrance L. Marvel, with articles by Jonathan Lipman and Neil Levine.

Milwaukee, WI; Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992.

So you didn't see the exhibition in Milwaukee. It is only a few years since the Madison exhibition did Madison proud, and now Milwaukee does the whole state. Few of us can get to every activity related to Wright and/or his work. So we have to rely on catalogs. This is the catalog of the show. 50 of Wrights approximately 150 designs for Wisconsin are included, with photos or drawings showing the breadth and depth of the exhibit.

The book, all 96 pages (numbering beginning, oddly, with the title page) features two articles in addition to a 43 page "checklist" or exhibition catalog. The first essay is by Jonathan Lipman, Consulting Curator of the exhibit; "The Architecture of Arcadia." Lipman presents Wright's childhood Arcadia, the great Helena Valley of the Driftless Area (spared from the Wisconsin Ice Sheet's glacial destriction) to which the mature Wright returned after his European sojurn with Mamah Borthwick. Lipman spins a good story, covering Wright's entire architectural career with a specific Wisconsin focus.

In the middle of his essay, Lipman notes "Having moved into Taliesin, Wright never again seriously made his home in a city. This was an almost unprecedented choice of lifestyle for an architect, who receive most of their work through the network of acquaintances and referrals that they build up in an area. Virtually every other architect in modern history has chosen to practice in a metrpolis . . ." This ties directly to the other essay, by Neil Levine, "Under the Aegis of Taliesin," a paen to Wright's greatest Wisconsin structure.

As his topic sentence for his second paragraph, Levine asserts that "Taliesin is not like any other building Wright designed," thus disposing of Narciso Menocal's argument (in Wright Studies, Volume One: Taliesin, 1911-14: Carbondale, IL; Southern Illinois University Press, 1992) that the Gilmore residence (S.146) is some sort of protype of Taliesin. More than that, Levine extends his argument; "Taliesin was as much a representation of Wright's belief system as it was a sign of its artistic efficacy." His argument is brilliantly logical, but will be difficult for many, as the author traces possible (only) sources for Wright's love affair with a place, a poet, a building, an ethos. If Levine takes his argument into esoteric corners, others will follow him. To this writer, it is a bit too academic, too erudite, the product of one who teaches at Harvard, but was never a student there. Yet Levine ends with a clear statement of what all Wrightians feel; "Wright hoped, as he said, to 'allow the child in him to live' so as to be able to "rediscover himself.' That happened enough for us to be able to experience many buildings of his, no matter how many times we visit them, as if always for the first time and, at that time, as if never for the last time."

The catalog section is, of course, a detailed and complete document of the exhibition. One but wishes it were filled with more photographs of the exhibits rather than text explanations, such as was done in Frank Lloyd Wright; Retrospective, the 1991 Japanese exhibition for which Jonathan Lipman was the guest curator. In this matter, however, we cannot expect Milwaukee to match Japan; the Milwaukee exhibit went from idea to show in ten months, and was woefully underfunded. Bravo for such a well-designed book, and forgive the typos considering the pressure under which the museum exhibition staff operated.

The bibliography is divided into Biographies, Surveys of Wright's Architecture and Decorative Designs (Monographs, Studies of Wisconsin buildings), Studies of Wright in context with other architects, Essays, lectures and writings by Wright, and Bibliographies and guides to buildings and archival collections, a useful and helpful approach for most readers. No annotations for the choices are given, and some of the listed choices are hardly worthy of inclusion, such as Harvey Einbinder's rather inept An American Genius: Frank Lloyd Wright. In sum, a suitable document of an exhibition that was around for too short a time.

The Wright Style

by Carla Lind.

New York, NY; Simon & Schuster; 1992.

A specially designed display typeface, spectacularly colorful photos, discussion of Wright followers, all would suggest a new approach to the phenomenon that is Frank Lloyd Wright. The basic premise is one against which the subject himself would have railed. "The Wright Style?" What Wright style? Though Ms. Lind admits to an "irony" in "Wright style," she does nothing to dispell the idea on which her book is premised. She fills a chapter with sources of chairs, rugs and other Wrightinalia with which people could clutter their homes to add some Wright style; is Wright rolling over in his grave, or just laughing?

There is no "Wright style," just the style of each building as related to its client, site, climate. Webster says style is that quality which gives distinctive character and excellence to artistic expression. Is there a single quality which identifies Wright from anyone else? What quality of Prairie is the same as Usonia? If a style can be defined for one artist, it must exclude other possiblities, yet all the multiple qualities Ms. Lind gives us to identify Wright do not guide us to exclude works by Griffin, Byrne, Drummond, Howe, Dow or Green. Ms. Lind leaves more unanswered than answered, and never answers the question of what style is, let alone what comprises Wright's style, or even the more encompassing and, perhaps more easily definable, Prairie style.

Ms. Lind has succeeded in taking a complex subject and making it complicated by trying to present it simply as a collection of items which, together, equal style. Unity, music, nature, geometry, Louis Sullivan, Japanese Design, Organic Architecture, Site, Space, Scale, Materials, Color, Light, Decorative Arts, Furniture, Textiles, Accessories, put them together and we have style. A style? Wright's style? Come on!

Photographs from many sources (Julius Shulman, Balthazar Korab, Yukio Futagawa, Ezra Stoller, Jon Miller of Hedrich-Blessing . . .) are well-chosen in terms of representing buildings, though some of the color photos are unnaturally warm due to use of daylight-balanced film under partial or full tungsten lighting. The photos to develop the theme of "nature" in Wright's work are a strange collection. A photo of "limestone outcroppings" is at odds by 45° with the "naturally laid stone walls at Taliesin." The abstracted sumac in the art glass of the Dana house is in warm autumn colors, yet the comparison photo of live sumac is in full summer green foliage.

Ms. Lind is myopic in her view of Wright and Wrightian studies. She is able to write "For further information about Frank Lloyd Wright and his buildings, contact the following organizations . . ." and then she lists only the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation, completly ignoring the Getty Museum, the Avery Library at Columbia University, the Burnham Architectural Library of the Art Institue of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie School Collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Architectural History Foundation and collections in Kansas City, Evanston and Buffalo, just to name a few. Her bibliography is equally single-minded and lacking in useful diversity. She does not even list the major sources for information on some of the specific buildings included in her book, such as the Stanford University Library for the Hanna's "eight feet of shelf space" in "over fifty ring binders" that constitutes the client's documentation of their house. Her selection of "Classic Wright Houses" seems to be dictated more by buildings to which she had access rather than any choice based on an identifyable principle of "classic." Throughout, she fails to identify her criteria for inclusion of items, topics, whatever, in relation to any standard or defined principles.

For instance, she calls the Hanna House (S.235) Usonian (the Hanna's did not, and advised this writer why it wasn't). If it is Usonian, so are the California block houses. Hanna uses few of the design elements for which the First Jacobs (S.234) is often called the First Usonian design, yet that seems to be Lind's standard. Further, the Palmer House (S.332) should not fit her expectaions of Usonian if the Jacobs is the standard (neither does it fit Sargeant's view, and she lists that book in her Bibliography as her only source on the subject).

In trying to simplify, she sometimes confuses or leaves out essentials. There are no plans to show how Wright arranged his spaces. Under materials she discusses plaster and stucco, but makes no distinction with cement plaster. When she writes of concrete, she states that "It was molded into tactile blocks." They may have been tactile, but the term that is needed is "Textile." She writes of stone as the material Wright "probably spoke about" the most, yet fails to note that he often called textile blocks "stone." She gives no clue to Wright's hierarchy of materials, or of hierachies within material groups (why, for instance, Philippine mahogany replaced cypress in the 1950s).

Ms. Lind makes a major contribution to Wrightian literature by including several examples of those who learned from Wright and practiced organic architecture. There is no apparent reason for her choices other than the availability of the architect for interview and photographs of a "representative" building. John Lautner, with all his curves (Segal House, Malibu, CA), is certifiably more organic than Rudolph Shindler (Shindler's own house, Los Angeles, CA). Where are examples of any of the current members of the Taliesin Architects?

Ms. Lind has taken information from sources to which she gives no credit, either at the point of publication or in her bibliography.

We have been told by some of her subjects that Ms. Lind gained access to their buildings and interviews (she calls them "biblio-visits") by representing herself as the Executive Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. The book does not place that organization on the title page, nor does it profit from sales of the book. Remember that before you hand over $50.00 for the hardcover edition.

The Wright Space, Pattern & Meaning in Frank Lloyd Wright's Homes

by Grant Hildebrand.

Seattle; University of Washington Press, 1991

"The reality of the building consists not in the walls and roof but in the space within to be lived in." This quote, attributed to Laotze, was used often by Frank Lloyd Wright in his discussions of organic architecture. Yet, for the last ten or more years, the vast majority of books written on Wright have concentrated on his personal life, his decorative arts, or the development of his forms. Few have dealt with the reality of his spaces and the philosophies and forms that shaped them.

In this book, Grant Hildebrand discusses the components that shape the spaces of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes and how the experience of those spaces meet subliminal and very fundamental needs of the human condition. It is the fulfillment of those needs that makes his homes so appealing to the general public.

By applying the theory of prospect and refuge, put forth by English geographer Jay Appleton in The Experience of Landscape, to the residential work of Frank Lloyd Wright after 1902, Hildebrand demonstrates that ".when a house combines strong refuge signals, inside and out, with strong prospect signals, inside and out, it may be argued that it provides conditions that human beings are preconditioned by nature to select as pleasurable in their habitations." In other words, "to see without being seen" meets a fundamental human need that dates back to the prehistoric hunter.

Hildebrand also introduces the theories of complexity and order, and hazard and mystery as additional experiences in Wright's homes that impact the emotions. He identifies thirteen characteristics that comprise Frank Lloyd Wright's "pattern," and are used consistently, in varying degrees, in all of his residential work after 1902 (the beginning of the Prairie era). The components of this pattern shape those spaces and shape the way we experience those spaces.

Hildebrand then goes on to apply this pattern and several theories to a variety of homes covering Wright's career from 1902 to 1951. To be sure, he uses the best-known examples, such as the Coonley (S.135), Robie (S.127), Hollyhock (S.208), Hanna (S.235) and both Jacobs houses (S.234, S.283), along with the California block houses (S.214-217) and Fallingwater (S.230). His arguments are, however, always valid and his presentation cogent. Hildebrand's discussion of the spatial experience in the Ennis House (S.217) is extraordinarily enlightening and does much to enhance the qualities of a significant house that has suffered from "bad press."

The text is well-supported by photographs of the specific houses here discussed. In many cases, the houses are illustrated with wonderfully prepared exploded isometric drawings that greatly enhance our understanding of the spaces, particularly for those who have difficulty reading floor plans.

One statement by Hildebrand bears contradiction. He states that the characteristic of placing the major spaces (i.e., living room, dining room) directly under the roof ".began with the Heurtley Residence (S.074, 1902) and was used almost without exception thereafter." In fact, this technique was used intermittently and infrequently until the Usonian houses when it became the rule.

To his credit, Grant Hildebrand is one of the few writers to demonstrate that the principles embodied in the Prairie School house are found in all of Wright's domestic work.

Hildebrand presents this book as a basis for further investigation and discussion. He understands the limitations of a single book on a subject that could generate volumes. Many important characteristics, such as the use of specific materials and changing patterns of ornament, remain undiscussed in this book, and rightfully so. This is a book that deals with space in Frank Lloyd Wright homes, how that space is experienced, and what that experience means to the human condition. It is an important book to anyone interested not only in the work of Wright but in the way we as human beings design and choose our homes. &emdash; Henry G. Zimoch, A.I.A.

Grant Hildebrand responds: "I agree, re. 'major spaces under the roof' that there are indeed major exceptions before 1909, noted n. 6, p. 168, but perhaps they belonged squarely in the text. Thereafter come Taliesin, the five great California houses, etc. where the point seems to hold. But scholarly quibblling is dismal stuff; let me conclude with an expression only of gratitude for a careful and most positive reading."

Many Masks, A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright

by Brendan Gill.

New York; G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1987.

In this book Brendan Gill demonstrates a tremendous ability to manipulate the written word, and combines it with a wealth of information, some not extensively published before, covering Frank Lloyd Wright's long and colorful life. That is why it is doubly disappointing to find that, rather than reading a scholarly work of analysis and interpretation, one is faced with a corrupted account of Wright's life worthy of the tabloid press.

It is beyond the scope of any book review to discuss the various inaccuracies found in Many Masks. It is interesting to note that Gill several times berates the inaccuracies and lies found in Wright's own writing, but doesn't feel compelled to practice what he preaches. This double standard is found throughout. Gill criticizes, and rightfully so, Wright's use of ". . . evangelical gibberish consisting of words like 'search,' 'sentiment,' and 'principle,' none of which he condescended to define." Yet Gill uses such words as "curious," freakish," and "bizarre" to describe certain of Wright's buildings without similar condescension. Also, the dust jacket refers to Gill's "lifelong study of what he has called 'the robust and necessary irrationality of architecture'." This is a phrase that bears explaining. Or perhaps not.

Brendan Gill's style of slanted writing in this book runs from the subtle innuendo to the overtly manipulative. For example, he feels compelled to point out that what Wright called his "private office" adjacent to Louis Sullivan's was "simply a small partitioned-off space." Yet anyone familiar with architectural offices knows, and as Gill's own illustration demonstrates, that this was a very real hierarchal distinction, and worth noting as such by Wright. Regarding the Dana House (S.072), Gill writes "What had begun as the remodeling and expansion of a sturdy Victorian mansion in the Italianate style ended with the total exterior obliteration of the mansion . . . Usurping much of the land on which the mansion had been built. . .: Obliteration? Usurping? One wonders if this is a book about an architect or Attila the Hun.

The photographs that Brendan Gill selected for this book are sometimes curious in themselves. Aside from the issue of poor photographic quality, the most interesting are the family and personal photos. The buildings receive very uneven coverage. For example the Larking Building (S.093) in Buffalo is illustrated by seven photographs and drawings, from well-known shots of the interior and exterior, through a picture taken during its demolition, to a lone remaining pier acting as a gravemarker. On the other hand, the Richard Lloyd Jones house in Tulsa (S.227), one of those described by Gill as a "curious structure" is not illustrated at all. The most curious photograph is the one of the smoking ruins of the Unitarian church in Oak Park later replaced by Unity Temple (S.096).

A mask is a facade. This may seem like an appropriate architectural analogy, however a facade is by nature a two dimensional object. Gill attempts to define Wright as a series of facades. This is more applicable to architecture than to architects, particularly Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright accomplished more by the age of forty-six than most architects accomplish in their lifetimes, and he succeeded, in the forty-six years that followed in surpassing himself. His life was full of happiness and tragedy, success and failure, honor and neglect, love and hate. It was anything but two-dimensional.

It is unfortunate that the power of Gill's writing was not leashed to create a book with substance as well as style. In the years to come, this book will probably be considered one level above the oversimplified and melodramatic 1960s biography on Wright by Finis Farr. For those looking for real information on Frank Lloyd Wright, it is not worth all of the trouble required sorting through the fact and fiction, truth and innuendo, and the overpowering bias contained in this book. &emdash;Henry G. Zimoch, A.I.A.

"At Taliesin" (1934-1937)

ed. Randolph Henning.

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale & Edwardsville, Illinois, 1992.

This compilation is akin to traveling up that long road to the hill-top to visit that Wrightian redoubt, Taliesin, in its third stage (after 1925) of evolutionary transition. Instead of descending into nostalgia, we are ascending the road to spiritual renewal and into an architectural America renaissance. Surely the experiences there in the 1930's must have been exhilarating, haunting, sometimes frustrating and physically exhausting but always an intellectual, aspiring, never to be forgotten education.

This book gathers together the weekly newspaper columns entitled "At Taliesin" which appeared in several Wisconsin papers from 1934 through 1937. The column originally advertised the weekly Taliesin film, written by the early apprentices and in some cases by Wright himself. It later evolved into a larger format which presented an overview of life at Taliesin plus news about the unusual film offerings.

What was the Taliesin Fellowship like in its earliest stages? Newspaper columns written by these very first apprentices give us a clue as to its fiber, texture, and cultural consistency. In the beginning, the column was created to gather a bigger audience and to attract the outside world. The films presented at the Playhouse were some rare viewings of foreign art films or American classics, plus Disney productions and a short subject. Certainly these evenings of varied movie programming were a delight, not only to the Taliesin members but to the citizens of the surrounding agrarian small town areas. One gathers from the many subjects the apprentices dealt with that truly this was in educational undertaking, unique to American and most Wrightian in its scope.

At first sight the book would appear to be one of those tired re-treads of old Wright dug-up material, but that is not the case. I was happily surprised to find a fresh gathering of truly neglected matter and to find the amount and quality to be very worthwhile. One hundred twelve columns are included, several by the Master himself. These columns mirror

the young Fellowship as well as Wright's own struggle to reestablish his stalled career. As a living record of that period in his life, they exemplify his creative, recuperative, powers and his belief in the apprentice "system." Also, it should be noted that the "system" was a clever, shrewd way to have at hand a School of Architecture, pools of manpower, maintenance income from student tuition, and a studio design operation, all provided by the students ("Fellowship") themselves. It enabled Wright to survive those very lean, difficult years until the Second Golden Age appeared (Fallingwater, S.230, and on).

As editor Henning points out, these columns and the "open invitations" to the film event introduced the public to that mysterious arcadian experience, Taliesin. These accounts present a true picture of its very early days and its changing, ever-evolving nature. The Playhouse movies were entertaining, stimulating, and certainly a pleasant way to view an unusual, sometimes exotic, movie. It was also a clever exercise by Wright to advance his unorthodox views on life, and to evangelize his architectural, cultural agenda. The Taliesin milieu as "designed" by Wright is brought into the limelight through these columns. The posture of these first apprentices as reflected in these weekly "pictures" is strong, experimental, and certainly charming. Many names dear to Wrightian followers appear: Bob Moses, Edgar Tafel, John Lautner, William Beye Fyfe, Eugene Masselink, John H. "Jack" Howe, William Wesley Peters, and others as well as Wright himself. The inclusion of rare black & white photos is enlightening.

After reading this revealing study of the early Fellowship, one senses pride, excitement, and a searching energy for true architectural change. Even today, almost sixty years later, the same energy remains, and the pride&emdash;still intact with its fame now world-wide. Time, the world climate of academe, economics, the deaths of Wright and his wife Olgivanna have altered some of the outer "shape" of the experience, but the inner core remains the same. The Fellowship continues to be Wrightian and is an architectural force (now revitalized) as it was yesterday, today, an into architectural tomorrows.

Frank Lloyd Wright - Retrospective, A Catalog.

Sezon Museum of Art (Tokyo) Traveling Exhibit to Kyoto, Yokohama and Kitakyushu

with the Mainichi Newspapers and the Architectural Institute of Japan, 1991.

"The architect engages in both a dialogue and a competition with the past." - Allan Greenberg.

This unusual book, a catalogue, is based on a recent Wright retrospective traveling exhibit organized and only shown in Japan, to be viewed from a Japanese standpoint, and for a Japanese audience. The basic tenet of the book is that Wright's architecture, especially that which was designed in and for Japan should be analysed from a Japanese cultural, academic, professional, architectural attitude.

I admit to be immediately drawn to this intriguing, well-documented search into Wright's Japanese adventure. It is a much-needed expository detailing of Wright's difficult, long (1915-1922) and ambivalent years in Japan, resulting in the execution of the Imperial Hotel (S.194) and five other smaller designs (Imperial Hotel Annex S.195, Hayashi S.206, Fukuhara S.207, Yamamura S.212, Jiyu Gakuen S.213) of which only two stand today (part of Hayashi, Yamamura, and Jiyu Gakuen), plus a reconstructed facade and lobby of the Imperial Hotel.

The material is well-organized and relates to the exhibit's purpose and scope. The artistic composition is excellent; fastidious in particular at the several Chapter Separaters (color photos of pale colorized marble-like textures), executed in Japanese fashion. The English translation appears to be faithful to the original, bringing to the Western world a fresh insight into Wright's faraway architecture.

The accompanying commentary by guest curator Jonathan Lipman is superb and very instructive. His overview of Wright's career, the art and craft of the machine, gives us the necessary background to properly set the stage for the forthcoming Japanese interpretation of Wright, his Japanese designs, and how contemporary Japanese architectural academics view his work.

"Shibaraku&emdash;Wait a Moment!" is proclaimed by the Kabuki actor hero who announces to the theatre audience that he will save the intimidated characters. This role as depicted in Japanese woodblock actor prints was immortalized by the artists whose works were not only extolled by Wright, but highly prized by museums.

What do we learn from this study? It is a radically different picture of Japanese appreciation of Wright's architectural accomplishments. With surprising candor, Japanese scholars, architectural historians, art experts and practicing architects state that Wright was definitely given much attention and was appreciated even before the Imperial Hotel was completed and subsequently opened as The Hotel in Tokyo! Also, much notice was gathered from the publicity around the Hotel's survival of the 1923 earthquake and fire. However, after 1929, LeCorbusier and Modernism were in control of style and Wright went out of influence. He was viewed as a man of the past. It wasn't until 1965 to 1968 that the controversy over preserving the Imperial Hotel became news, and so a revived interest in his organic architecture was born.

Other conflicting facts appear: the question about the 1923 telegram concerning the earthquake/fire. Did Wright receive it from Japan or was it sent via Spring Green to his Los Angeles office? The plans for another Hotel (a resort type built but quickly destroyed), private residences, a theatre and the American Embassy proposal, twelve in all-half of them never got beyond the design rendering stage. Only six were completed. Wright was actually let go (fired) from the Imperial Hotel project before it was finished. Reason: construction delays and increasing costs. Other facts are given as to how Wright, Japanese architects and time have dealt with conceptions of space and volume. Of importance are Japonisme, woodblock prints, and Wright's inspiration derived from these sources.

The exhibit, as listed and as perceived in photos, draws uniquely on various Japanese holdings and the usual fragments, bits and pieces from domestic sources. Rare renderings, drawings and historic photographs from Japanese collections add reality to this work, although in some cases the photos are disappointingly small. There are many historic studies: the Larkin Building (S.093), Unity Temple (S.095), Coonley House (S.135), Wright's Home & Studio (S.002-4), and so forth. Overall, this Catalogue has a positive stance with a sterling quality of unity of thought on Wright's contribution to Japan and its meaning to world design. -- Lyman Shepard

Three American Architects; Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865-1915.

by James F. O'Gorman

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th bring together the forces of dramatic, dynamic change for the urban city and the then-emerging suburbs a change which provides the backdrop for three giant architects to add greatness to the very word "architecture." The changes are architectural, societal, national imagery, urbanization, commercial, industrial, financial, and cultural; yet most of all for the vastly growing middle class of Americans. Their ambitions, needs, aspirations are mirrored in the structures designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Each architect is a connecting link to a chain of events and situations which were already in motion and which their particular stylistic vocabularies would symbolize in the new eras.

The author has tightly controlled his parameters of scope and time sequence (half a century only, 1865-1915) so that this trio of seminal movers of architectural design transformation are his main thrust.

Richardson was the Boston architect whose monumental Marshall Field Wholesale Store design (1885-1887) reshaped Chicago's conception of a commercial building. This structure ignited Sullivan's imagination and daring, leading him to postulate that the tall, tall building must be tall! In Richardson's architecture, Trinity Church Boston, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Courthouse and Jail, Ames Memorial Library (North Easton, MA), Old Colony Railroad Station, Crane Memorial Library (Quincy, MA), Ames Harrison Avenue Store (Boston), Stoughton House (Cambridge, MA), William Watts Sherman House (Newport, RI), Glessner House (Chicago) and many others, the picturesque has been tamed and brought into a new discipline of simplicity. Function and form are dealt with in a direct way so that finally architecture could logically serve the American public. At last here is evolving, yet to come, that form of architecture that is unmistakably American in appearance and substance. Richardson's Romanesque style would go through various phases of reduction and interpretation, but always there would remain the positive power of a structure meant to fulfill its functional design obligation. In his own time, perhaps Richardson's structures were not totally perfected as to detailing, comfort zones, and general aptitude for commercial purposes; but the basic aim was there. Surely his early death at the age of 48 robbed the architectural scene of more great, brilliant designs which would solidify his design position. Incidentally, the East Coast has managed to save nearly all of Richardson's classic structures, but in the Chicago area, which originally had three including Marshall Field, alas, only Glessner House remains. Richardson out-distanced the orthodoxy of the prevailing architectural establishment, creating a form and design to become the flashpoint for Sullivan's designs of progress.

Sullivan, the Irish-American architectural renegade, would go even further than Richardson, for he would insist, "The facade, the outward expression, of the tall office building should in the very nature of things follow the functions of the building, and where the function does not change, the form is not the change." This insistence could possibly work for the systems of use within the building, but certainly not for the steel framework that allows the tall building to be tall. Wright saw this division and recognized it, especially in the Wainwright Building. This whole process would be part of Sullivan's logic, including his standard &emdash; there must be a base, shaft and capital. Sullivan, having Richardson's Field Wholesale Store as a guide, managed in the Auditorium complex to state his objectives strongly and brilliantly, and moved confidently to the Wainwright, yet still searching for his own style. The Guaranty, Chicago Stock Exchange and others showed his signature.

As for Sullivan's use of decoration&emdash;ornament&emdash;his guiding light was not Richardson but rather various sources fostered by Frank Furness of Philadelphia. His developing ornament began to take on a life of its own as it was becoming increasingly divorced from the structural element. Thus Sullivan's ornamental designs can be seen as over-powering the unity and continuity of the total design. As his career shortened and his age lengthened, his last years were spent designing small banks located in out-of-the-way places. The irony of this architect of the tall, tall building was this; he was unable to sustain a relationship with important clients. This and the fact that he was not "in sync" with the advancing times, led to his demise as an architectural force. Thanks to the Preservation Movement, his recognition has grown in recent years.

As the author makes abundantly clear, Wright was, most surely, the insecure student in the very beginning of his relationship with the Master, Sullivan. By the time Wright had departed (1893) he was well on his way to controlling his architectural destiny, yet still experimenting and stylistically unsure. It is also clear that Richardson and Wright are the major design "fasteners" while Sullivan links these seminal figures; the major link was the formulation of an architecture expressive of the steel cage construction.

In Wright's first truly independent design, the Winslow House (S.024), the architect consciously incorporates a Sullivanesque front entryway, with the second floor frieze also typically in the style of his former employer. From Richardson he blends and borrows a modified porte-cochere. Also, the window openings are determined squares&emdash;very Richardson. Keep in mind Wright's approach to the bulk of this building, the hip roof topping off the frieze, banding under which is the tapestry Roman Brick frontal masses and, finally, a strong continuous base as O'Groman implies that Wright really was indebted to Richardson for the interior plan which is inspired by Glessner House.

Later, as Wright's Prairie design is born in different variations, many of these "borrowed" ideas would appear and reappear, only to be defined by Wright as his own. Of course, as author O'Gorman firmly states, Wright was wise enough to create out of these sources a very personal statement, in most cases above and beyond Richardson and Sullivan. Since Wright was inspired by the same "idea men"&emdash;Ruskin, Morris, Ashbee, plus other Arts and Craftsmen, as was Richadson in a more moderate way, there is a common thread woven into their designs. Granted, Richardson was more attuned to the pre-industrial concept than was Wright, but both saw in these dicta the basis for a changing American view of architecture, for its cause is the enrichment of life. -- Lyman Shepard

Frank Lloyd Wright & the Prairie School in Wisconsin; An Architectural Touring Guide

by Kristin Visser.

Madison, WI (Prairie Oak Press), 1992.

Here is a new and valuable twist on the Guidebook and Wright literature phenomenon. Whether a guidebook tells you everything about a single place, or some things about lots of places, whether it judges quality or simply lists options, guidebooks sell well because they help people plan their recreational time. Books on Wright, or Wright and his contemporaries, have sold well ever since husband left wife to live with mistress.

With architects, it is, or should be, the buildings that reveal the true character of the person. Sadly, too often, we can only view the exterior of buildings. While with too many self-annointed architects this exterior view provides a true statement of character, with Wright this is false voyeurism; a room to Wright was its space, and one cannot know that space from the outside. Yet one must begin somewhere and, with plan in hand, a view from the outside can be more revealing than a view limited to book photographs.

Go one step further; don't limit yourself to Wright. After all, half a hundred buildings in one state, only a few of which are open to the public, may not make for good touring. So consider also other Prairie structures that fill in the distances between Wright artifacts. This is what Ms. Visser has done, with admirable enthusiasm. Here is a guidebook to Prairie architecture in Wisconsin, including, even emphasizing, Wright. Yet there are towns in which there is no Wright, but if there is a significant Prairie structure, Ms. Visser points it out to the reader.

The work is presented geographically. After two introductory chapters, one on Wright and the other on the "others," 26 chapters are devoted to towns and the surrounding region. It would have helped had the contents page been followed with a state map showing these 26 regions and the major roads connecting them. Madison and vicinity is given 46 pages, Milwaukee and vicinity 28 and Spring Green 29, while many regions command no more than three pages each.

Besides Wright, works of Louis Sullivan, Purcell and Feick, Purcell and Elmslie, George Maher, Claude and Starck, Percy Dwight Bentley, Russell Barr Williamson and Robert Spencer are included. Interestingly, post-Prairie Wright is included, but no work of organic architects who continued Wright's ethos beyond the Prairie era.

Each work is discussed, not just listed, and placed in an historical framework. Each is also noted as to its availability for visits, with phone numbers. The text avoids controversy, except as noted in the next paragraph, with most of the information available from other reliable sources. Yet here it is presented in a friendly, almost chatty, manner that lends itself to easy summer perusal.

The most interesting anomaly, perhaps, is the listing of the Spring Trail Park Stonework and the Spring Grove Tavern Stonework as "Attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright 1926." By whom? Never stated. These are in the 3700 block of Nakoma Road west of Lake Wingra and near the never-built Nakoma Park Gateway and Country Club. This latter Nakoma project is fully documented by Paul Sprague and his compatriots in Frank Lloyd Wright and Madison: Eight decades of Artistic and Social Interaction without a mention of the "nearby" Spring Trail/Grove stonework. The "style" of stonework is so common in Wright-designed structures that, perhaps, Ms. Visser's final suggestion is the one to live with; ". . .stonemason Philip Volk, who had worked extensively for Wright (including at Taliesin, ed's note), simply did the work in a Wrightian style."

The one disturbing flaw is the photos, most by Ms. Visser, which are for the most part not perspective correct. Good "shift" lenses are not cheap, 35mm versions ranging from $445 (Nikon) to $590 (Canon), and 24mm units from $800 (Olympus) to $990 (Canon EOS). Rectilinear ultra-wide lenses, however, have been available at reasonable prices since the early 1970s; photos made with these, and properly cropped produce perspective-correct photos. From the breakthrough Canon 19mmFL lens to current 20mm lenses &emdash;including a few perfectly corrected wide-angle zooms&emdash; from all major camera manufacturers as well as a number of independant lens manufacturers can be obtained in a price range from $300 to $500. This is not to be particularly harsh on Ms. Viser; she never claims to be a professional photographer nor a trained architectural historian/scholar. What she has achieved is all the more remarkable in that context. There are examples readily available of strict Wright "scholarship" supported by photos that make Ms. Visser's book look nearly professional.

At $16.95 in paper covers, this book is one of the bargains in Wright (plus) literature.

WRIGHT IN ITALIAN

Frank Lloyd Wright, bibliografia e opere

by Augusto Rossari.

Firenze (Florence), Italy, (Alinea), 1992. 16,000 lira, approximately $14.00 (50144 Firenze, via Pierluigi da palestrina 17/19 rosso. FAX 055/331013).

This 12 x 21.5 cm booklet, hardly 3/16 inch thick, contains a wealth of information. For those who read Italian (which was this FLlW UPDATE editor's second PhD language), it should be enormously useful.

This book is, as its title states, a bibliography of Wright publications and a listing of his works. The listing is the first to publish the complete, updated Storrer Catalog Numbering of Wright's built works which will appear (with a few minor changes made too late for inclusion in this volume) next year in The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. Rossari orders the listing chronologically, putting each S# in its year slot. "Casa" has much nicer ring to it than "house" or the more formal "residence." Rossari has bold-faced the entire title of each structure, rather than just the necessary client or building name needed to uniquely identify the specific work (as is done in The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a Complete Catalog). HIs listing is complete and detailed with sufficient documentation to explain seeming anomalies. Such is his note to Casa Frederick C. Robie (S.127) [which he places in 1908, the date when construction was begun] that the project was initiated in 1906 and construction completed in 1909. He has ignored the important redating of the Tomek house (S.128) to 1904, but errors are few, often explainable by the difficulty of proof-reading from an English original to an Italian translation. Casa G.C. Stockman (S.139) is, for instance, located in Manson City and this error is carried through to the City National Bank and Hotel (S.155-157). Russell (S.340)gets spelled with one less "l." He doesn't make NBC and Joel Silver's error re. Auldbrass Plantation; Auldbrass remains one word.

Rossari's listing of organizations and institutions is already outdated. The National Center for the Study of Frank Lloyd Wright is, practically speaking, closed. While many important libraries and archives are mentioned, the Getty Archives in Malibu, which contain copies of the Taliesin archive, are not.

The bibliographic material is extensive. It is first divided into writings by Wright, writings on Wright published in Italy, and writings on Wright published outside Italy between 1977 and 1990. Thus, Rossari picks up where Frank Lloyd Wright, An Annotated Bibliography by Robert L. Sweeney leaves off. Within these three categories the listing is further divided, for instance, under by Wright into books, next catalogs, pamphlets and brochures, then collections of projects, works and designs. Rossari faces the problem of all those who document what is published on Wright; 1992 publication limited listings to 1990 and before; this was piror to announcement of the new Rizzoli series, The Collected Writings of Frank Lloyd Wright. That so much information is contained in this 120 page booklet is quite remarkable.

Rossari does discuss much of the recent literature, and refrains from significant criticism. Those wanting in-depth critiques will have to turn to the pages of this newsletter or the SAH Journal.

Even if you cannot read Italian, the 1977-1990 listings are each in the language in which the publications were written; there may be some surprises or new items here for even the most astute collector of Wright-related literature. This section alone could prompt an English language edition of Frank Lloyd Wright, bibliografia e opere.

An American Cultural Dream Never Quite Fully Realized by Lyman Shepard (Parts of these four following reviews have been published previously by the Ginkgo Tree Bookshop.)

Our Wright cup runneth over! Wright has become academically fashionable within the last few years, ergo the rush and rash of books on his career. Is not Hollyhock House (S.208) one of the most intriguing designs? These studious observations were long overdue. Now they provide a true fourfold portrait of this remarkable structure. These studies reveal the often strained posturing between Wright and Aline Barnsdall, and Schindler, and the cultural energies of that curious time period between the end of World War I and the Jazz age. This is the background that sets the stage for one of Wright's most unusual designs&emdash;and client associations.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House

by Donald Hoffman

New York; Dover Publications, Inc., 1992. $10.95

This is the first of the four studies on this Wright structure, his second executed design in California. Each author has vented his/her own opinions as to historic data, but that has been true since time immemorial. However, what does emerge is a larger, more complete account of the creative course of action, construction development, and finally the client-architect situation within that time frame, which is important not only to the history of Hollyhock House but to Wright's career as well. His persona life was a vortex of unhappy circumstances. His career alternated between the highs and lows of the Imperial Hotel (S.194) commission, the Hollyhock experience, and the realization of his age (near 56 at the end of the project)&emdash;and, in reality, was his career at an end? Subsequently he did execute the four 1923 California textile-block designs (S.214&emdash;S.217; as Wright stated-the first of his Usonian works). Soon his career would be in serious jeopardy. For in the next few years, Wright would only complete four designs!

"There was nothing like it anywhere in the world" said Frank Lloyd Wright of Hollyhock House. One of Wright's legendary and most perplexing designs has finally received the attention it deserves in Donald Hoffman's Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House. Legendary because of the client, Aline Barnsdall's position as a determined advocate of social reform, and a theatrical entrepreneur, and Wright's position that the architect was "all knowing." These two mercurial personalities somehow managed to find a meeting ground in Hollyhock House; most perplexing, because as its history indicates, from the beginning there were ideological differences and clashes of wills. In spite of these obstacles, Hollyhock House does celebrate Wright's design concept and that neutral center of gravity&emdash;Olive Hill.

The author, Donald Hoffman, a very fine Wright scholar and architectural critic (now retired) of high standing, brings together the fascinating facts behind the creation of Hollyhock House. These facts, combined with his acute observations on material gathered from primary sources breaks new ground. This pictorial essay has captured the essence of this extraordinary design in dramatic detail, revealing almost hidden architectural accents and innovations. The black & white photos intensify the power and uniqueness of this structure.

As to the text, many new thoughts and some theories bout the history of this unusual design are disclosed. Especially intriguing is how, when and where Wright first met Aline Barnsdall. Historic conjecture points to Wright's artistic social scene and his atmospheric manner and attitude at the beginning of his relationship with Barnsdall in late August of 1914 (after the fire/murder at Taliesin). The place may have been Mrs. Potter Palmer's garage, or Wright's apartment, or some famous home; but actually Henry Blackman Sell, a theatrical/literary devotee was the first to introduce them to each other. "Mr. Wright would have impressed me more had he not dressed like Elbert Hubbard, and had he not talked like a preacher. What made him want to appear Bohemian? He was the first man I had ever met who looked the way artists are always pictured. He could have walked on stage in "La Boheme" without changing clothes. His personality and conversation had a grand and romantic flavor." This is Wright's stage setting for his often theatrical collaboration with Miss Barnsdall. No wonder the design and subsequent relationship with his client were stormy. Both were playing roles worthy of a Broadway production. It also signifies the stance of Hollyhock House itself, for was it not to be a theatre home and a personal statement about Aline Barnsdall's theatrical ambitions for America.

Now to the heart of the matter: what inspirational style is Hollyhock House? Some architectural historians insist it is Mayan/pre-Columbian in feeling. In its early days, it was described as "Egyptian," or could it be the estate of an ancient Green ruler&emdash;or of a Renaissance villa in Venice? Others proclaimed it "semi-Oriental," and even the prominent Dutch architect, H.P. Berlage wrote that "Hollyhock House was a country house in which Eastern influences were at work."

Now Donald Hoffman brings forth a new version. "Hollyhock House is no more Mayan than such landmarks from earlier in Wright's career as the Avery Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois, or the Midway Gardens in Chicago. It is, in fact, closer to the Indian architecture of the Southwest." He strengthens his conclusion with numerous quotes from Rudolph Schindler (Wright's Los Angeles assistant in charge of Hollyhock's construction while he was in Japan); from Wright's eldest son, Lloyd, in charge of architectural landscaping, and his assistant who said "Hollyhock House was meant to offer a mesa silhouette like those originated by the Pueblo Indians." Wright himself also wrote of the House as "a silhouette up there on Olive Hill," and its ornament as "desert abstraction." So where does this leave us? I would say between Mayan and Southwest Indian influences&emdash;could it not be both? Furthermore, Wright called his California designs "California Romanza." (In the soon-to-be-published The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, FLlW UPDATE editor Storrer provides the specific incident of Mayan influence upon Wright.)

This study enlarges and refocuses our view of Hollyhock House as well as that period of time, 1916 to 1923, when Wright was struggling not only with the Japanese agenda, i.e. the Imperial Hotel design, but wit the design concepts for his California outreach. Concurrently, there was the strife with the awkward, traumatic Miriam Noel problem, too. Over-burdened, he was not in the best of positions. Yet, despite the negatives, Hollyhock remains a positive Wrightian statement.

As other architectural histories have stated, Hollyhock House is a Pueblo-type concept with some Mayan massing and detailing. In Wright's own words, "Primitive American architecture&emdash;long slumbering remains of lost cultures; mighty abstractions of man's nature" (A Testament, 1957).

Frank Lloyd Wright, Hollyhock House and Olive Hill: Buildings and Projects for Aline Barnsdall

by Kathryn Smith

New York; Rizzoli International, 1992. $45.00

This eagerly awaited publication is a most comprehensive study and a consummate labor of love by its author, Kathryn Smith, professor of Architectural History at Southern California Institute of Architecture, a book above and beyond the usual case study of a Wright structure. It is a dynamic, very revealing drawing by drawing, fascinating "picture" of the contest and inner relationship between client Aline Barnsdall and architect Wright. The resulting conflicts are like a tug of war&emdash;to keep Wright in control of the central idea, i.e., to design and construct a theatre/home and other theatrical structures for a very determined by erratic client. The history of the quixotic, independent Aline Barnsdall is as complex as it is dramatic and, at times, a juxtaposed portrayal of the emerging feminist movement.

From Wright's Autobiography we learn of his "own regret of the conflict between imagination and execution." This statement is the very essence of the struggle between Barnsdall, the theatrical entrepreneur, and Wright, the equally entrepreneurial architect. As Kathryn Smith points out, "the Hollyhock/Olive Hill commission was really to include an experimental theatre, plus adjacent work spaces and several allied structures." All of this suggests that Wright was indeed involved in a huge, ever-changing commission which, in its larger concepts, was a kind of planned theatrical community park.

This book clearly reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the leading characters and, above all, the continued fight to keep the project alive. Barnsdall was forever in flight to some place else, with a new project on her mind and Wright was in Japan working on the Imperial Hotel about 60% of the time while the Olive Hill project was in progress, striving to keep up the dialogue with his Los Angeles office through cablegrams and ever-soo-slow-mail. The proposed site for the project changed; it was to be in Los Angeles, than San Francisco, then Seattle. The design for Hollyhock House was also in flux, and the suggested subordinate structures were in working process, then drastically altered or discarded&emdash;a stressful, time-consuming emotionally draining process. It appears to be a script for a melodrama, yet through this travail, there does emerge a stunning structure, Hollyhock House.

The author has gathered a superior archival showing of the many Wright drawings for the various Olive Hill projects, most of which were drastically altered or never executed. Hundreds of drawings of wonderful "dream designs" for the project were made by Wright's Los Angeles staff and even by Wright while in Japan. They included Studio Residence A (S.210, the "Director's House"), Actor's abode, Little Dipper Kindergarten-Community Playhouse, terrace, and stores. (Today only Hollyhock House, Studio A and S.209, "Spring House"&emdash;this latter not mentioned in any of these four texts&emdash;remain.) The many drawings shown indicate that Wright's main interest at this time was the Imperial Hotel commission. The drawings are accompanied by extended text, providing us with a running commentary on Wright's design struggle. The many buildings involved in the Olive Hill project were individually designed for specific uses but considered always part of the greater scheme. The complex which Miss Barnsdall gave to the city of Los Angeles in 1927, seems to always be under some reconstruction or restoration process. Eric Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright is the architect in charge of restoration.

Ms. Smith's book also reinforces the now-accepted hypothesis that the design motifs of Hollyhock House are Mayan in inspirations. At various times Wright used Mayan themes; in the early German Warehouse (S.183), the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity House project (both in Wisconsin) as well as parts of the Imperial Hotel and Taliesin West.

Kathryn Smith beautifully states "Although Hollyhock House is not one of Wright's best buildings, either in design or execution, it is certainly his most interesting." She points to its flaws, obvious and due to many factors but, in its experimental nature, it creates a bridge between his most productive period to date, the Prairie era, and the concurrent Imperial Hotel design. Also concurrent were new ventures, new directions, and actually a new life for, finally, came a divorce from Catherine and marriage to Miriam Noel, after an eight-year live-in arrangement, a marriage which lasted about six months. "While the Hollyhock House was then an end, it was also a beginning."

Barnsdall House; Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture in Detail

by James Steele

London; Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1992. $29.95

Now, the third book on this most fascinating and sometimes baffling tour-de-force. One can speculate; if Wright had had a more on-target, cooperative client, and if he had concentrated solely on the Hollyhock design, what might have been the outcome? Perhaps this is one of those "ifs" that makes this structure's history so appealing, and at times inscrutable.

One wonders what more can be said about this extraordinary design statement. Perhaps it is not what is said, but how many different facts can be featured. Since the other three books are also here reviewed, what about this particular attempt to analyze Hollyhock's meaning?

Again, the photography here, black & white or color is outstanding, the commentary excellent, and the general information solid, factual, and engaging. Why read more? Because there is always a chance for more gems and gleanings. The up-close cover of this book is dramatic, displaying the geometric hollyhock symbol with its organic overtones. And don't miss the detailed drawings of plans, elevations and studies on decorative designs.

The author, James Steele, lectures on architecture at the University of Southern California and writes for Architectural Design. Perhaps we can hope for a future book on, specifically, the four Textile Block Homes of 1923, a comparative and extensive unit study.

From this book one can learn new variations on a theme. For example; Olive Hill was a 36 acre tract of land, called an "eminence," and really was an olive orchard for some 30 years before Barnsdall purchased it. Even today it retains its insular, isolated quality while down below is the total urbanization of the California lifestyle. There is a synthesis of both Japanese aesthetics and Mayan, pre-Columbian structure attitudes prevailing within its massive walls. "Wright and Miss Barnsdall envisaged it as a verdant acropolis" with theatrical overtones. Wright brought together the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, especially dramatized in the living room's hearth-fireplace mural. Its design is composed of randomly sized, smoothly dressed blocks that tell a story. This pictogram is meant to portray Aline Barnsdall as an Indian Princess sitting on a throne, looking out over a desert to mesas in the distance.

Throughout the long design process, some indications of an early 1913 design are evident, extending into 1921 for final construction. Wright and Miss Barnsdall were always at odds due to his commitment to the Imperial Hotel and her need to be "free" and "an agent of the arts." How amazing that this theatre home was ever completed and that Aline physically lived in it, though for a short time, compared to its long design history! Their relationship could be described as a friendly war between two extremely self-centered, equally determined individuals.

This exotic appearing structure was, in many ways for Wright and his client, both an enthusiastic beginning and a definitely unhappy ending; the beginning of Wright's new career in California, becoming the California Romanza Textile Block period, and the end of the Prairie years. For Aline Barnsdall and the beginning of her California forever-changing theatrical experience and her client relationship with Wright, there was the demise of both these experiences. It ended in a mutual cold-war cease-fire for Wright; for Aline, it was off to Europe or some other place for rejuvenation and "time to breathe."

Concrete Abstractions&emdash;Details of Hollyhock House: Los Angeles, California

by Craig Cowan

Los Angeles; Couturier Gallery, 1992. $20.00

Now to the last of the four critical examinations on the genesis of "that" Olive Hill structure. This is a photo-dramatic analysis of its concrete images, viewed by the camera. The seventeen architectural images are of the decorative abstractions and their structural designs.

Craig Cowan's Concrete Abstractions. . .is a photographic study of selected design details which interpret the spiritual and material components inherent in the architecture. The process, using hand-coated platinum-palladium printing and lightly textured paper brings out the granularity of the concrete. The various shots are dramatic, stark and, at times, breath-taking, but&emdash;always&emdash;in the sense of the Hollyhock House presence. It's the kind of photographic intensity that would benefit Unity Temple&emdash;specifically the Hollyhock columns.

This study should be read in coordination with the three other books on Hollyhock house here discussed. Bringing these various sources together as a unit, one is astonished at the scholarly and truly unique knowledge amassed. Twenty years ago, little or no information on major structures was available. Now it is difficult to keep up with the academic releases on Wright's work.

Do these scholarly excursions bring new meaning, and do they explain and explore the mysteries of this enigmatic Wright design?

Yes, much of the "hidden agenda" is finally uncovered! Thus the building now emerges increasingly friendly, less arcane, more open. Yet the structure's magic remains. Those of us who have visited Hollyhock House know the experience that awaits you. It may not be Wright's best design, but surely it is one of his most haunting evocation of a place to be.

Now as to the three books plus one booklet; it is difficult to evaluate them one on one. Rather, let's view them as an ongoing study. This appears true, since all were published within the aforementioned eight months.

The two heavies, Kathryn Smith and Donald Hoffmann, have much in common; detailed research, excellent photos and drawings, all with superb accompanying texts. Smith's book is bigger, more developed, with an incredible backup of historic Wright drawings. Also, the panoramic photography in both black & white and color is very effective in its investigation of the building's self. Again, the texts clearly indicate years of toil, endless research and, most of all, Smith's intense desire to make its history alive rather than just a house "museum narration." Also, the price difference between this hard-bound book and Hoffmann's Dover modest-priced edition is a fact to be considered; price should be judged by total value. Smith's publication packs a tremendous Wright wallop!

There are trivial differences between Smith and Hoffmann in the building's history, but that only adds to its mystique. One photo note; the porte-cochere is a strangely shaped niche ("It can be seen as either a step pyramid or an inverted corbel to an archaic earth-architecture"). This niche is viewed with the Bodhisattva in place, and then empty, a comment or one of Hoffmann's discerning artistic glances backward. Did Wright design this and other unique references to exotic backgrounds as deliberate "architectural entractes" while the main production was to be the Hollyhock residence? Was it to be a theatre-home, or a stage setting, or both perhaps.

James Steele's over-sized book is an assessment of the Hollyhock House background, and repeats the basic information (as all three of these book studies do). We must look further into Steele's observations, for he is an architect/lecturer. Consequently, his viewpoints are more technical. While he adds nothing new on the subject, he does offer a condensed story of the structure's long, difficult path of creation and final construction. Also, I found the cover to be absolutely powerful! It is a close-up view of the Hollyhock decorative sequence, front right side elevation. The drawings, plans, and elevations in all three studies are most helpful in understanding the complexities of this, one of Wright's most agonized designs.

In Wright's own words, and his last statement on it (from An Autobiography), "Hollyhock House disintegrates, listening to those artists as they chide, complain, and admonish. So it admonishes them. Perhaps&emdash;as its donor meant it should do&emdash;it goes along with their personal issues into fresh life in a new key, looking gratefully toward her, who home it once was."

Hollyhock House seemed to Aline Barnsdall too big; she preferred Residence B. Of Hollyhock House she said, "its more ornate beauty never satisfied me" and she went on to admit, "my heart was not in it," followed by this revealing statement, "I never felt well on Olive Hill and I was still on my quest for Arcadia in the U.S.A."

Regarding the Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide series of Tom Heinz;

While there are some very fine aspects of the series, I am disappointed for Tom Heinz and his four-volume "Field Guide" project. Heinz's love for Wright is unquestionable, but his books don't reveal the care that I had expected he'd lavish on such a project to make it stand the test of time. Instead, the project looks to have been done to beat any possible competition to the press. This, then, ultimately leaves it more open to a challenger that can undercut Heinz in price and quality.

One of the biggest problems with the Heinz Field Guides is that the photos, some of which are very fine, is that others are truly awful (cf. Vol 1 pps. 134 and 101-103 which do not show the part of the structures that remain much as Wright designed them, and p. 122 which is not perspective corrected, are a sampling of what the author is responsible for [the too-dark printing of some images may be the fault of the publisher, not Heinz, unless, of course, he "gang shot" Heinz's photos, and their exposures were too varied from correct]). Too often it appears that Heinz took what he found, rather than making sufficient excursions to a site to get a usefully publishable photo. Cars appear in too many of his images (cf. Vol 1 pps. 118, 85, 27 and 21 provide a sampling); they always date a publication and with Wright that can be disastrous. Very few cars look right in a Wright driveway. If one cannot get the cooperation of owners to move their cars,one may have to wait for them to go on vacation! Heinz's books will look dated by the millenium.

His maps and geopositioning information appear accurate, though I shall do some checking for my own Field Guide (to be added to The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a complete catalog, 3rd edition).I considered adding geopositioning information to my map GUIDE to Extant Structures, but found that the geopositioning units available to the public were quite unreliable. Some Wright structures which are well-hidden from roadways need very accurate coordinates to guide would-be visitors. I tried a geopositioning unit from Sony, and with two of the houses in New Jersey, it proved useless. I could stand within a hundred feet of the building, get a reading, then move only 25 feet and get a reading 300 feet different. Heinz takes no note of this problem.

Heinz also seems to have found in A. Dale Northup's (apparentlly now out of print) Frank Lloyd Wright in Michigan facts not to be found in my or other books. I am still searching for anything in this publication that is accurate but not already in my book, and I have found many things that are false and highly misleading.

Heinz renames some of the houses in the Sherman Booth project in Glencoe, Illinois. These names differ from both the Taliesin listing as published in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer's Monograph series and The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a complete catalog as well as The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. The names I employed are the first-known permanent owners who are known to have lived in the houses, rather than purchasing them on speculation or as temporary residences while the owners were looking for "better" properties. Is there really a need to change such things, when Taliesin and I agree on nomenclature?

Heinz's choice of "Wright sites" and how he reveals them raises some interesting questions. He omits some buildings designed by Wright, and includes others that were not. For instance, at Whitehall, Michigan, he omits the original Thomas Gale structure (S.088.0), and he has photos of the three Gale units (S.088.1 - 088.3) that show the alterations, not what remains of Wright, and a photo of the fourth cottage for Walter Gerts (S.078) that shows it only in its totally altered form, without telling his readers that there is nothing of Wright visible. It is interesting that Heinz lists a home as the Anna L Wright house, though it was not built for her or designed by her son. She lived in it, and so did her son and his new wife for a short time, and so it may have curiosity value for Wright-watchers. There are other equally curious listings, most of which seem to have some relationship to Wright, but which should have been more obviously marked as "of derivative interest only" or "not by Wright." The Leo Bramson Dress Shop site seems particularly a strange listing, when there is no evidence the work was ever built and Heinz provides no drawing or other visual information. The Pebbles & Balch Shop (S.131), also on Lake Street, was built, as was the Bassett Remodeling (S.027); all three are listed on the same page.

The W H Freeman house (p. 100) is noted in both of my books (under S.092), and is specifically stated as "not built." Sorry, there are no Wright plans that properly fit this house. Heinz also gets the information on the Frederick Nichols house (p. 108) (S.119) wrong. Wright often misspelled client names and here Nicholas was Nichols, who was involved with the Como Orchard projects (S.144). The Hebert residence (S.098) still shows evidence of Wright's remodelling, but other projects for this client that Heinz includes were, at best, done by Wright's office help; I have yet to see any reliable documentation of Wright's direct involvement in them.

Some of Heinz's extra non-Wright-designed sites reveal neighborhoods where Catherine Tobin grew up and the likes, and may be worth the noting. But once this path is trod, one must ask why significant sites of demolished buildings are not listed, such as the most important proto-Prairie structure, the Husser house (S.046), or one of Wright's most famous buildings, the Midway Gardens (S.180).

Regarding Storrer catalog numbers (S.xxx) and the Taliesin archive numbers. The Taliesin numbers have been misinterpreted by many, including Heinz. They are not chronological, except in the broadest sense. The first two numbers in the four digit identification are the year in which the project plan was drawn. The remaining two digits are the projects within that year in alphabetical, NOT chronological, order. I worked with an early version of this which represents the purest Taliesin system. Anthony Alofsin helped Taliesin archivist Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer turn this system into an accession system of cataloging Wright's work. There are alterations to the early "pure" system in such listings as Taliesin West, where the early system dated later additions to the year of their plan. The Alofsin-Pfeiffer system groups projects at a given location under a common accession number based on the date of the first project for the site (which system I also follow where it clarifies design and other qualities, as is noted below). Each system has its advantages.

The S-number system is much like Köchel for Mozart or Deutsch for Schubert or Pincherle for Vivaldi. It lists finished works. It lists only, and completely, the built work of Frank Lloyd Wright. It refers to the work AS BUILT, while the T (Taliesin) number is a number for the project as designed, which in some instances is far from the finished project. My number, the S-number, identifies a plan and work that stands on a site. Originally I published an "addenda" to allow for works by the Taliesin (Associated) Architects that were produced from Wright's original drawings. I later decided against this idea, as none of these works were free of alterations that we cannot say would have met with Wright's approval. This can, of course, open a hornets nest of questions, such as, "should we include the Erdman Pre-fabs that had basements added by Erdman?" The simplest answer to this is, "yes, because they were built within Wright's lifetime."

The T-number also gets mired in another problem, namely, in some works it woefully mis-states the project's dating. The Guggenheim Museum (S.400) project began in 1943, and the T-number is 4305. Yet the 1943 design is but a ghost by the time New York City gave approval to a Wright design, which had gone through several generations of change. The design that was built dates from 1956. Thus, the S-number system takes this into account and places the Guggenheim much later in the chronology. The S-number system does combine projects which are part of an integral grouping (such as the cottages at Whitehall, or Galesburg Country Homes and Parkwyn Village, even when individual homes were designed at various dates, which dates are given along with the S and T numbers in The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion).

A further problem occurs, and Heinz does not clear himself here either. Many buildings were, even by (Henry-Russell) Hitchcock, assigned to Wright that were not designed by Wright. When I was doing the Catalog, Hitchcock opened his files to me and told me how Wright could drive around Chicago pointing out houses that he designed but which no one new about. There is still a question of what Wright may have designed in St Louis while there as Louis Sullivan's on-site supervisor. We may never know unless we discover a/the architect who signed the plans Wright drew, covering for Wright as did Cecil S. Corwin in Chicago. Evein in the new millenium, a Wright-Corbin collaboration has been discovered, and nearly a dozen possible Wright works are being studied.

Notable among items that Hitchcock said were by Wright but are not are works by Marion Mahoney (pronounced by her family as MAH-honey, not Muh-HONE-eee) usually done while she and Herman V. von Holst ran Wright's office when the architect was resident in Italy or traveling in Europe. The Amberg house in Grand Rapids and the Mueller in Decater fit this description. Anyone who looks at the Mahoney design for Henry Ford at Fairlane in Dearborn will recognize the geometry of the Amberg, and realize that it is Mahoney and could not be by Wright (I have a geometric analysis that shows Mahoney's imprint in the layout, a layout that goes against several of Wright's basic planimetric principles. I will send same to anyone wishing a copy for a $5 fee).

The Moe house in Gary, Indiana, is also not by Wright, but most likely a version of the Brown house north of Chicago (S.110) altered by von Holst under Mahoney's guidance (I cannot easily imagine her allowing the porch roof supports that so clearly defy the second principle of Wrightian design as coached to me by Lloyd Wright as ". . . and the cantilever." The Brown cantilever is 9 feet with but a short anchor, yet the Moe needs this ugly and, if it were a Wright structure, unnecessary support). The Moe thus fits into a category occupied by such a work as the Lovness cottage [which from the ground up follows a Wright design, but from the floor down does not]. Lovness built a full basement under his cottage. The floor heating, which is so comforting to the hundreds of visitors now flocking to the Seth Peteson Cottage (S.430), of which the Lovness is a version, cannot work properly in a building whose floor is not set on solid ground but instead floats over a basement. Sorry, Don and Virginia, you have a beautiful Wright look-alike, but not a Wright work by any standard that would be applied by a properly-trained art curator.

So, people, if you want an honest discussion of a Wright design, ask whether the person discussing same is talking about T.XXXX or S.xxx. If s/he cannot or will not tell you, stop listening. Thank you.

Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan

by Kevin Nute. (NY; Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994). $59.95. Reissued (NY: Taylor and Francis Books, 2000) $42.95

JAPAN. If any word resonates in the mind of Wrightians relative influences that may have affected architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it is Japan. Now we have a book devoted entirely to what one scholar (and readers know I use that word sparingly) thinks that influence may have been. Infuriating at times, enchanting at others, here is a talented young scholar unearting new territory.

". . .Japan would seem to have served Wright primarily as a kind of 'magnifying mirror,' on to which he projected many of his own 'organic ' principles, and from which he received these ideals back again with a sense of enhanced credibility. Like so many westerners both before and since, then Wright appears to have seen in Japan essentially what he wanted to see. And in his case this was a standard of organic character so well developed that he simply could not resist the temptation, not to copy it, but to attempt to live up to it. The remarkable fact is that in his mature work he actually did manage to emulate this ideal organic standard &emdash; without ever imitating it." This is Nute's ultimate conclusion; if only he had stuck to it throughout his detailed, often well-written and entertaining study!

The author's intent is stated as (with editor's emphasis provided by underlining) "Clarifying the nature of [the] role [of Japanese art and architecture], then, is the primary objective of this book. More specifically, it is intended to show exactly how Wright's acknowledged admiration for traditional Japanese art and architecture related to his own 'organic' philosophy, and precisely how he made use of particular Japanese architectural forms. . . .These objectives. . .(reveal) universal social and aesthetic ideals. . . .That [Wright] was an original is not in question. It is the precise nature of his originality which I hope will become somewhat clearer in the pages which follow." Had Nute taken the first part of his stated goal to heart, and avoided some insistent need to get specific, he might have reached different, more compelling conclusions.

Why must "we," or any author, "prove" that Wright had specific, precise, or exact identifiable sources in other's earlier work for his designs? Why in fact must anyone make such an argument when it pertains to "creative activity" or genius? Every genius "takes" from earlier work, and it well might be argued that there is no such thing as a totally original work of art. Shakespeare's Hamlet is derived from an earlier work well-known in its time. In fact, there seems to have been an earlier source for every one of his plays. It is what he did with the earlier ideas that is important, not what that source was.

Take Disney's Beauty and the Beast. At one point Belle bursts out onto a mountaintop in a direct parody of Julie Andrews in Sound of Music. Lumiere is based on Maurice Chevalier. The great dance sequence of the dinnerware is Disney's paean to Busby Berkeley musicals of the 1930s with Lumiere-Chevalier as its lead. None of this detracts from the genius applied to its creation. While Nute, perhaps grudgingly, admits this, he always does it after using the parallels to reduce Wright's stature, thus himself parodying Vincent Scully (who always so it would seem, liked to bring Wright into a discussion only to denigrate him).

The book might better have been titled "Parallels in thinking between Wright, Ernest Fenellosa, Arthur Dow, Edward Morse, Kakuzo Okakura, Frederick Gookin, Peter Bonnet Wight, Hegel and others." Here is where Nute is his strongest in argument, full of details.

What was on Wright's bookshelf at the times Nute writes about? That is a question never answered. Is there any evidence by what was on his bookshelf in later life, what shows in interior photos of Wright's various domiciles, what is mentioned by his many children, what is in any known lists of books he owned, and so forth. Is there any concrete evidence that any of Nute's conjecture is directly connected in known fact? Otherwise, the parallels Nute finds are nothing more than happens in any great artist's life.

Parallel versus sequential discovery/develop- ment theory shows that two manifestations of a common idea may be derived one from the other, or totally independently from a third, possibly unfound source. Nute does not clarify this problem in terms of his thesis.

Nute never answers question of genius or creative thinking. Had Nute an interdisciplinary background, rather than the literary-linear academic viewpoint obtained from the likes of Vincent Scully, he might have solved his quandary between the part and the whole, or how Wright could accept any regularization as an individual desiring freedom. The regular grid was Wright's solution to aesthetically beautiful design within the normal constraints of building construction. It was to him no more constraining than the staff and bar lines of a musical score, and that must be understood in order to assay Wright's design philosophy.

"It would have been unthinkable, then, for him to use a form without regard to the concept which it embodied, and it is this crucial point which seems to have lain behind Wright's fierce objection to what he clearly perceived as the charge of adapting Japanese forms, the term 'adapting' implying a use of forms in spite of, rather than because of, the ideas which they encapsulated." So states Nute, and he is quite right. Why, then, does he use analogies between Wright's plans and Japanese plans that range from flimsy to untenable. The Yakushi-ji pagoda analogy to the Johnson Research Tower (S.238) does not hold because the structural principle is utterly unrelated. Nute chooses the Schwartz residence (S.271) as one of his examples. Yet he does not then show that the Gordon residence (S.419) satisfies the same criteria, even though its plan is based on the same LIFE magazine design. And so it goes.

Nute notes that the Japanese rejected other Western architects and their Orientalized western designs, yet accepted Wright. He gives as probable reason for this that Wright had found the spirit of Japanese art. Why then aren't the Japanese projects other than the Imperial Hotel more in keeping with this spirit? According to Nute; p.156 "a number of smaller projects in Japan. . .(p.157) Hayashi. . .Fukuhara. . .were essentially in the Prairie style." Whoa!!! ". . .the Yamamura residence near Kobe (1910) anticipated the stuccoed aesthetic of the Hollyhock house." How? Where is the "Japanese spirit" in these works that Nute has written is necessary for a design to be accepted in Japan?

Nute defines "early Prairie" as 1893-1909. Wow. Revisionism run rampant. In 1900 Wright was still designing proto-Prairie, the first Prairie house being the Ward Willits (S.054) of 1901. Heller (S.038, 1896), Husser (S.046, 1899) and Bradley (S.052, 1900) are big steps to Prairie, but are not yet Prairie. What does Nute call Wright's earliest two dozen works up to Winslow (S.024, 1893)? And is then what Nute calls "mature" designs" post 1909." Actually, I might buy that, for I still believe that Usonia represents Wright's truest mature period, the ultimate development of an American democratic architecture.

Time and again Nute starts an argument "as we have seen" when we haven't. He will devote a whole chapter to arguing a point by circumstantial evidence without one bit of concrete connection. Then he will, in a later chapter, use his "as we have seen" about that previous chapter as if it ended Q.E.D. Whether or not one agrees with the earlier argument's conclusion, the continuation does not stand by itself as equally proven. Nute is playing rather loose with his conclusions.

In his foreword, John Sergeant states "The one missing piece of the jig-saw, which is of course outside Nute's enquiry, must be the power of that fireplace." Well, Nute does touch on it, and leaves Sergeant standing defenseless. For Nute, the location of the fireplace, the "hearth" as he calls it, is important in the design schema. Since Nute writes about symbolic meanings, he should have picked up on Western-Greek thought about Earth, Air, Fire and Water, the elements to which so much of Wright's architecture is related. He set his Prairie houses ON, not in, the earth. Wherever water flowed at the site, the house was related to it as intimately as practical (must I mention Fallingwater, without also mentioning Griggs, Gordon, Rayward, Walter. . . ). Fire, then, is central, the gathering place, the place around which wagon trains circled on cold nights. Wright took the fireplace, located on the outside of most houses of the time, and moved it dead center, not at the rear of living and sitting behind dining and study. To continue this point, on page 166 Nute tries to draw a parallel between the Ho-o-den, which Wright "must" have seen at the World's Columbian Exposition, and a generic plan configuration of the early Prairie house. The generic version is patently wrong. Nute places the Dining and Study spaces to the sides, which is correct, but in front of a generic sitting space which is itself in front of the hearth. Wrong. In his drawing, the hearth should be dead center between Dining and Study; this faulty drawing destroys his analogy.

This book may infuriate you, or enchant you. The publisher suggests that this book "fills the only remaining gap in Wright studies." No, it does not. Alofsin's Frank Lloyd Wright; the Lost Years, 1909-1922 is that gap-filler, Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan a comparative footnote.

Frank Lloyd Wright &emdash; The Lost Years, 1910-1922

by Anthony Alofsin. Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1993. $35.00

Subtitled "A Study of Influence," Sid Richardson Centennial Fellow in Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, Anthony Alofsin, tackles the biggest canker sore in historical research, the problem of influences, but not from the usual, and all too disastrous, linear approach. Instead, following the great example of Rudolf Wittkower, Prof. Alofsin considers not just linear transference of ideas, but the principle of diffusion and parallelism. (To understand how important a step this in in the study of Wright, particularly his "lost years" between 1910 and 1922, the FLlW UPDATE editor refers his readers to the article by Tom Rickard on fallacies of Mayan influence as "documented" linearly by Dimitri Tselos and Vincent Scully.) Alofsin takes a bold step, much needed, for artists such as Wright do not think linearly, therefore, do not "inherit" their influences linearly.

Alofsin states his position thusly; "My purpose here is to show that the standard assertions about the influence of the Wasmuth publications were part of an elaborate misunderstanding by historians and architects; that the historical record of Wright's experience of Europe is far more complex than was previously believed; that contact with Europe in 1909-11 had a greater impact on Wright than he had on European architecture; and that Wright's work from 1910 until the early 1920s had a richness which has not yet been understood."

Alofsin develops the richness of Wright's inspirational sources, to stand against the barreness of the simple visual analogies to which Dimitri Tselos, Vincent Scully et al (Eastern Establishment) would shackle him. Alofsin shows, contrary to much accepted opinion, that 1910-1922 was not a fallow period in Wright's life, but richer, more diverse and creative, than the Prairie era (which accepted opinion would have us believe was Wright's greatest period). {And if this is true, we must consider that what followed&emdash;when the critics admit creativity returned&emdash;was yet greater than the Prairie era, a position this editor has argued for two decades.}

Alofsin's purpose is achieved and, without trying to reveal the whole of the book's content or method, I wish here to quote extensively from the author's summary, altering it to make it read as "introductory" rather than valedictory.

The Wasmuth monograph and the Sonderheft [Ausgefurte Bauten. . .] have become the misunderstood icons of the myth of Wright's influence in Europe and the key to Europe's influence on Wright. This study [shows] that Wright absorbed and transformed the artistic influences of Europe without suffering creative blockages of anxiety. Just as he had assimilated the styles of American architecture at the turn of the century, by 1922 Wright had absorbed the lessons of Europe and moved on. he ahd redefined his artistic self in terms of those lessons. And this resolution was so complete that Wright tended to deny it had ever occurred. This denial was reinforced by his perception, after 1922, of his influence in Europe, which was manifest in the 1920s.

Wright had dealt with the problem of influence by absorbing the motifs of the Secession and transforming them into his own medium. His absorption and transfomrationof the Viennese developments reveals an aspect of his creativity that has been little understood: he was a master interpreter. He could recognize the brilliance of fundamental architectural solutions and had the ability to test, accept, and reject a tremendous range of artistic ideas from other sources. Despite differences betwen Wright's motivations and those of the Secessionists, an affinity developed between them. Misunderstanding itself can lead to creativity. As Rudolf Wittkower noted, "Misinterpretation is the real secret of the vitality of European cosmopolitanism in the arts," an observation that could alos apply to American artistic vitality.

Wright's heightened sensitivity to being "influenced" was clear in his man denials of influence. His reproach to Charles Ashbee for the suggestion that Wright was influenced by Japanese art&emdash;"a false accusation and against my very religion"&emdash;was only one of several denials. The proces by which these sources were absorbed cannot be described by the vague term "influence" or by the specific term "imitation." Wright claimed to have "digested" his sources. He himself suggested a way out of the problematics of influence: not imitation, but emulation and transformation.

The fundamental difficulty in lproving artistic influence is that similar ideas may appear simultaneously throughout many cultures. There are no single sources or simple, linear pathways. . .Usually, superficial examples of influence provide no mechanism of transmission or theory of explanation. . . Explorations of questions about the transformation of ideas, the existence of contradictions, and the role of misunderstanding may be more fruitful for understanding an artist's creative provesses than facile assertions of influence. Wright's creative processes may be far more informative than a search for influences alone. . .

Experimentation freed Wright to resolve his own problems of influence. . .

. . .Wright had a modernist yearning for the artist to lead and transform society. He saw the architect in the role of poet, priest, and social reformer. To Wright, the artist was a rebel whose efforts should continue regardless of personal defeat and social rejection. He saw art not as an end in itself but as a means of tuching humanity, not just the single soul of an individual. . .

. . .Like a seeker of the Grail and the artists of the Secesssion, Frank Lloyd Wright had entered a search for a world that, in the words of Herman Bahr, "never was nor ever will be his." But in that search Wright found aspects of his artistic and moral self. Europe, in 1910, had brught Wright inspiration for that search.

Too many readers avoid author introductions. That is a big mistake, for it is here that the best of writers reveal their modus vivendi. Alofsin makes some of his strongest points about how ideas are perceived by and transmitted from and to cultures in his 8 page Introduction. Read it before you buy the book if you can; it will either convince you that here is a major intellect, rather than a run-of-the-mill academic, or a complete looney! It will be the latter only if you are bound to linear modes of perception. For Alofsin demonstrates both parallelism and diffusion at work.

How interesting to find that two books, both officially published in February 1994 by the University of Chicago Press by two authors, Alofsin and this FLlW UPDATE editor, support similar viewpoints, though the two authors have never discussed these points (thus, a perfect proof of parallelism). Case in point; the Petit Palais in Paris. Each of us has the same source, Lloyd Wright, tho in different circumstances, to prove Wright's visit to this Beaux-Arts citadel, wherein he saw the floor designs that led to the Coonley Playhouse (S.174) windows. Or the argument this editor has presented for over a decade, that Wright had "failed" to achieve his Democratic, American architecture by 1909, which fact led to his leaving America. Alofsin brings this up with a quote from An Auto- biography; "It was despair that I could not achieve what I had undertaken as Ideal." (Wright's "ideal" was American Democratic architecture.)

Time and again Alofsin punctures balloons of "connections" and "influences" that others have handed down to us as proof that Wright was in some way derivative, that he "used" some other source for his works (rather than transforming multiple ideas so completely that the originals, if any, cannot be discovered). When Alofsin does so, he does it gently, footnoting the miscreant rather than demolishing him/her publicly. Here is an example, p.36:

In one of the rare instances when a historian has considered the influence of European architecture on Wright, the communal studio of 1899 - 1901 has been described as a building that influenced Wright's design for this Midway Gardens of 1913 - 14.* Using the logic of visual analogy, the historian claims that Wright adapted the facade of the studio for the long facade at Midway, that Olbrich's entry arch appears within the Gardens, and that the overhang of the studio eaves gave Wright the idea for using the cantilever as a building element.** However, this visual influence does not hold up well under scrutiny. The front facade of the artists' colony appears exceedingly long in historic photographs, but the appearance is deceptive. Although the studio is proportionately long relative to its height, a visitor standing in front of the building is not struck by its length; Midway Gardens was the width of a city bloc.*** The overhang at the studio is only about four feet. Although technically a cantilever, it would have been achieved with conventional construction and is not similar to Wright's cantilevers, which were intended to be much longer and were intended to be constructed with steel.****

(Footnote *&emdash;#46 in this chapter&emdash;identifies Vincent Scully as the perpetrator of this misinformation. The second assertion, footnote **&emdash;#47&emdash;is also from Scully. Footnotes *** and **** document the actual Olbrich building.)

What fun Alofsin must have had producing this book, traveling all over western Europe trying to retrace Wright's travels, which the architect had so carefully disguised after being "found out' in Berlin with Mamah Cheney. Alofsin covers every place Wright is known to have traveled, and unearthed a few with whichwe may not have been familiar (Darmstadt, for instance), as his photos of many places and buildings attest. He shows us Fiesole (a five mile electric train ride northeast of Florence), where Wright had his studio with his son Lloyd and draftsman Taylor Woolley while they drew the Wasmuth graphics.

Alofsin demonstrates clearly and in great detail Wright's transformation from a representational sculptor to one of pure geometric abstraction, which coincided with his maturing from Prairie to early Usonia. He shows how ill-informed were earlier academics re. world architecture, or they would have known better visual equivalents than those they chose to quote. This suggests a "political" agenda on the part of these establishment academicians, absent from Alofsin's broader perspective.

Wright learned how to transform realism into geometry. "transferal of motifs was possible because the primary abstract character of the forms allowed Wright to use the same design processes for different sites and building programs." (p.256) This is why Usonia is an advance upon Prairie, because Prairie is "Pre-transferal." "For Wright, the transformation of form becomes more important that its referential qualit8ies." (p.259)) Namely, Wright moves beyond historical references, which in the early 90s he proved he could do as well as anyone else, to changing forms for his own purposes without reference. Wright, of course, said this, but 'til now no one has offered the proof as neatly as does Alofsin. "He [Wright] broke down the rigid system of symmetry. . .and a new diagonality enters his work." (p.260) Wright thus advances beyond Prairie, in a decade others have criticised as backward looking, with a jumble of architectural types showing no progress. Neil Levine especially purports this ("Frank Lloyd Wright's Diagonal Planning," in Helen Searing, ed., In Search of Modern Architecture: A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock. [New York; Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982], pp.245-77. Ed. note; how interesting that the Eastern Establishment AHF and Searing chose a number of people to "honor" Hitchcock, but avoided some writers whom Hitchcock himself decided were carrying on his tradition), ranting against Wright's use of symmetry in the 1910 decade. Alofsin rightly points out that such symmetry was in public buildings and that "symmetrical plans often facilitate the circulation systems of large public buildings." Alfosin's assertion is true, and proven down the line in the Johnson Wax Building (S.238) and the Marin Civic Center (S.216-217), where Wright employs a double (mirrored) inline configuration.

There are few things I would want to change or revise in this presentation, perhaps most notably I wish that every German word or phrase had received translation, for the wider audience that this book deserves outside the academic world needs that help.

Donald Leslie Johnson in his Frank Lloyd Wright versus America considered the thirties "Lost Years," but Alofsin is right in titling his book with those words, for Europe did influence Wright. Even if we were to limit that influence to a reassuring of Wright that he was on the right track to the future of American architecture and should not give up the pursuit, that alone would validate Alofsin's position. But it is far more than that. Wright learned "conventionalization," a means of abstracting from reality its principles, its elemental forms, and this gave new impetus to his creative path.

For many years this writer has argued that Wright left for Europe not just because his marriage was breaking up, but more importantly, his direction in architecture, the building of a Democratic American Architecture, had so far failed. Alofsin now provides in great detail the evidence that this was so, that what he saw and learned in Europe reassured Wright, gave him the strength and resolution to pursue this dream. Wright moved from representational sculpture that clashed with his rectilinear architecture to geometric interpretatons of reality that were organic with his architecture. Wright turned from symmetry to diagonal planning. Wright moved from constraining Prairie to and exploratory approach to architectural design that led, ultimately, to freeing Usonia.

Alofsin also gives eloquent demonstration that the idea of "linear influence" or influence by direct visual analogy is largely a blind alley. This, however, is the meat and potatoes of past generations of traditional academics, included such revered (on the East Coast) figures as Vincent Scully. Linear influence&emdash;transivity&emdash;is the product of linear (literate, scientific, but not creative) minds, which cannot comprehend the nature of the creative act (itself a totally non-linear activity).

If connections are not visually obvious&emdash;visual analogy is too simple&emdash;can the complex of true and meaningful influences upon genius be discrned? Yes, but not if we try to do so in a linear continuum. If we are truly open, the unity in diversity of the non-linear creative mentality may reveal itself. This is why Wright never revealed "his," or any else's, "system." Instead, he told his acolytes to go out into the fields (or the nearby desert at Taliesin West) and see for themselves what nature reveals. This is how this reviewer saw the "almond-shaped" (Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer's analogy) hemicycles in a cactus in the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena California.

Is architecture and art, or at best a craft or technique. Wright believed it to be an art; if so, it must be taught by creative people, not left-brain academics. If not, it is merely building; should it then be taught in our academies of higher learning, or only in technical schools?

This book should be required reading of everyone at Taliesin, or anyone who aspires to, or thinks s/he is teaching, organic architecture.