Best known for his strikingly modern structures, Frank Lloyd Wright was also a highly influential landscape designer. The Gardens of Frank Lloyd Wright is the first book in full color to focus on Wright’s four most famous residential landscapes: his first home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois; his magnificent 3,000-acre summer home Taliesin, in Wisconsin; his 600-acre winter home Taliesin West, in Arizona; and Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania, the commission that made him world famous. The product of extended visits to properties associated with Wright, as well as extensive interviews with surviving colleagues and students, the book also explores the Japanese and Mayan landscapes that inspired Wright and his appreciation of the stone meeting circles and naturalistic prairie plantings of the great landscape architect Jens Jensen. Planting plans allow readers to create prairie- and desert-style gardens of their very own.
Showcasing several rarely published Wright houses in new photos, this lavishly illustrated book is devoted to the Prairie Style of domestic design. 225 illustrations.
THE FIRST IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGNS OF “AMERICA’S FAVORITE ARCHITECT” . . . FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT CONTAINS MANY NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPHS AND SITE PLANS “ . . . a comprehensive and intriguing look at the work of Frank Lloyd Wright from the outside. It provides a view from the perspective of his designs in settings or landscapes . . . the point of view is to see how the designs of the outside flow into, out of, around, and in a few classic cases, under the architecture of the building.” -- John Crowley, Dean, College of Environmental Design, University of Georgia Shedding light on a fascinating yet previously unexamined topic, Wrightscapes analyzes 85 of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs paying particular attention to site planning, landscape design, community scale and regional planning. The authors include many original diagrams, rare archival material, and some 200 photographs and site plans, many never published before, detailing Wright’s residential and public work and his urban design initiatives. A true collectors item Wrightscapes is a pleasure to read and a joy to own. Frank Lloyd Wright is perhaps best remembered for his unmatched mastery of the organic style of architecture – where a structure’s form and material blend harmoniously with its natural surroundings. Less well known, but equally inspirational are the contributions Wright brought to landscape and site design. His creations in this area reflect a holistic, sustainable, and environmentally-sensitive utilization of plants, climate, solar power, and natural lighting. Wrightscapes is the first definitive book to address Frank Lloyd Wright’s landscapes and environments. The authors provide a unique new perspective of the man and his work by presenting previously ignored, yet important aspects of his achievements, interests, and career, including little-known facts such as: * Wright originated the visionary concept of a rear living-room opening into a garden terrace -- fifty years before the California architects generally credited with the concept * Wright actually designed the first carport – three decades prior to the date he is said to have “invented” it * During the first forty years of Wright’s career, he personally and professionally interacted with, and was significantly influenced by, designers who today would be described as landscape architects * Wright had a career-long fascination with community-scale planning Wrightscapes also chronicles how and why Wright’s famous ecological sensibilities were established, delving into Japanese and European influences as well as forces that shaped both the young and the mature architect. The authors also demonstrate how his design aspirations went far beyond the accepted definitions of architecture. In order to be as complete as possible, Wrightscapes even includes a detailed listing of “dos and don’ts” for owners of homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright Here is truly groundbreaking, richly-illustrated coverage of an important yet unexplored aspect of Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius.
Built in Chicago in 1914, and demolished in 1929, Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens was a concert garden that included an indoor restaurant and dance hall, a five-tiered, outdoor summer garden with band shell, a tavern, and a private club. In this lavishly illustrated volume, the first to focus solely on Midway Gardens, Paul Kruty traces the project's history. 218 photos. 20 linecuts.
From Minnesota to Moscow — how to grow fresh figs in cold climates Growing Figs in Cold Climates is a complete, full-color, illustrated guide to organic methods for growing delicious figs in cold climates, well outside the traditional hot, arid home of this ancient fruiting tree. Coverage includes: Five methods for growing figs in cold climates including overwintering Cultivar selection for cool and cold climates Pruning techniques for a variety of methods of growing figs in cold climates Pest problems and solutions Harvesting, including ways to speed ripening, identify ripe fruit, and manage an overabundance Small-scale commercial fig production in cold climates. Fresh figs are juicy, full-bodied, and filled with a honey-sweet flavor, and because truly ripe figs are highly perishable, they are only available to those who grow their own. By choosing the right cultivars and techniques, figs can be grown across cool and cold growing zones of North America, Europe, and beyond, putting them within reach of almost every gardener. Easy and delicious — if you can grow a houseplant, you can grow a fig.
"The mid-twentieth century was one of the most productive and inventive periods in Frank Lloyd Wright's career, producing such masterworks as the Guggenheim Museum, Price Tower, Fallingwater, the Usonian Houses, and the Lovness House, as well as a vast array of innovative furniture and object design. With a wide variety of shapes and forms-ranging from honeycombs to spirals-this period defies simplistic definition. Simplicity, democratic designs, and organic forms characterize Mid-Century Modern, and, mentoring such mid-century talents as Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler among others, Wright was one of its most influential proponents. Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-Century Modern is a comprehensive examination of an under-explored period in Wright's career, a time dating from roughly 1935 to 1958, during which this master architect was at his most daring and innovative."--Jacket
Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer house, built in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the early 1950s, is one of Wright's last residential masterpieces. Working from extensive materials gathered by Ann and Leonard Eaton, and from his own fifty-two-year familiarity with the building, Grant Hildebrand crafts the story of Billy and Mary Palmer's extraordinary home. He presents in detail the events surrounding the Palmers' selection of Wright as architect; Wright's personal creation of the design; the challenges, and the craftsmanship, of its construction; the evolution of its garden and teahouse; the role of the house as a setting for the Palmers' lives; and an analysis of its remarkable formal and spatial qualities. With a rich compendium of personal information and an extensive array of photographs, plans, and diagrams created especially for this book, Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer House offers a comprehensive exploration of a living work of art and an intimate portrait of the people who, having brought it into being, treasured its presence in their lives for half a century. Citing the particular synergies of architect and client, house and site, Hildebrand situates the heretofore little-known Palmer house within the context of Wright's overall oeuvre and presents a convincing argument for the inclusion of the Palmer house in the canon of the architect's finest residential designs.
As small Florida Southern College embarked upon an ambitious building program in the 1930s, the serendipitous arrival of Frank Lloyd Wright transformed the future of the school. Pres. Ludd Myrl Spivey was a leader with limitless imagination, and he realized the virtue in bringing an architect of Wright's renown to Lakeland. Wright's first visit to the lakeside campus was in 1938. He envisioned a grand 18-unit "Child of the Sun" campus, where buildings would grow from the Florida sand into the light. The buildings are especially suited to the landscape and are connected thematically by a series of covered walkways Wright called the Esplanade. Over the next 20 years, 12 of these unique structures were constructed at Florida Southern, and today they comprise the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. The campus attracts thousands of visitors annually, and preservation and restoration projects are ongoing. The Florida Southern College Architectural District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Taliesin -- the country estate built by Frank Lloyd Wright between 1911 and 1959 -- has been a self-sufficient farm complex, a boarding school, a world-class architectural studio, and a fellowship for the study of architecture. What was it like to be a part of this vibrant community, to work in close association with the preeminent American architect? Author Frances Nemtin, currently the long-time manager and designer of the Taliesin flower gardens, joined the fellowship in 1946 after she met Wright while arranging a show of his work. Rich in anecdote and precise in description, her charmingly discursive tour of the fellowship includes rarely seen photographs and paintings from the fellowship archives evoking the beauty of Taliesin in all seasons, and the excitement of living in proximity to genius.
