The long-gone but never forgotten architect Frank Lloyd Wright continues to leave traces of himself to thrill his diehard fans. After the recent restoration of his long-neglected Park Inn hotel in Mason City, Iowa, Wright followers have a book to look forward to: "Frank Lloyd Wright Designs: The Sketches, Plans, and Drawings."
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY / Courtesy of Rizzoli New York
Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, a former Wright apprentice and the director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, tapped into the organization's archives, a vault of more than 300,000 correspondence documents and 22,000 drawings, to put this book together. As a gift to Wright's fans, he's published dozens of images of sketches and designs, offering a privileged glimpse into the legend's visionary intellect through his expressions on paper. Familiar and much-loved dwellings, places of worship, hotels, and more -- including Fallingwater, the Coonley House, and the Imperial Hotel -- grace its pages. Among the book's most notable contents are previously unpublished and unfamiliar works, finished with the iconic red square that served as his signature.
In addition to his floorplans, renderings, and wayside doodles in the margins of other books, the pages disclose a detailed history of his life: his birth; his praise for Solomon R. Guggenheim, indicating a deep admiration; his unrealized dreams of building the the mile-high Illinois skyscraper; and his inspiration for the rug he designed to match the house he built for his son, among myriad other details.
Rizzoli releases "Frank Lloyd Wright Designs: The Sketches" this October.
-Janelle Zara, ARTINFO
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