Customer Reviews

Frank Lloyd Wright: A Gatefold Portfolio

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This volume presents 16 gatefold illustrations of as many outstanding buildings by architect Frank Ll. Wright, along with photos and brief appreciations. The gatefolds are Wright's own presentation drawings. You can almost see the individual bits of texture in the colored drawing leads. These pastel colored drawings have some beauty in themselves--Wright was a man of many talents--and are valuable to show what the architect found the centers of interest in each project.

The layout of the portfolio is ingenious: bound loose-leaf and prefaced by a page of appreciation, the gatefolds on medium stock will lay flat to the right for examination, or can be wholly removed. The reverse side of each contains another page of discussion, a small plan by William Storrer, and colored photos of interior as well as exterior views. I suppose one could cut off and frame the long drawings. All the text can be read without opening the gatefolds. Text and headings are set in a most attractive, 1930-ish Wrightian typeface ("Eaglefeather," I believe). This is not an essential study of Wright, but for the price it is impossible to go wrong with this quick overview of his most spectacular works.

This incredible fold-out book (called a gatefold) presents 16 of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. Each structure is rendered (the original drawing)in a sepia tone that pulls out to a 2.5 foot gatefold.

On the other side of this gatefold are full-color photos of the structure, as well as a floor plan. The accompanying text describes how the commission was obtained, the construction, etc.

The book includes some of Wright's most famous residences, religious buildings, and public structures.

While not a complete overview of Wright's work, I gave it 5 stars because of the uniqueness of its presentation. I was just fascinated by the book's design-- it is beautiful, elegant, and informative.

Hardcover spiral notebook with, "Thirty-two pages of gatefold pull-outs with sisteen full-color renderings". There is a big page photo of Wright and two pages of Introduction.

What this book gives you that no other does is, finally, a chance to see sixteen of Wright's architectural drawings each on 3 full pages. This is the heart of this book. All other large FLW photo books present the drawings from small to medium to full paged and still never accomplish what this book does. It is not until you see these drawings this big that you finally get to see so much detail. It makes you marvel at Wright's ability to make detailed drawings.

Each entry is 4 full folded paged beginning with a single page of text then folding out to the 3 other pages of drawing. On the back of that long fold out page is 4 pages of what you ordinarily find in large FLW picuture books, in this case, about 10 excellent color photos over the 4 pages with a descriptive sentence for each photo and a floor plan as well as one of the pages being more informational text along with a color photo.

The author does a great service to FLW fans. Given that there have been so many books published regarding his works, one could have asked, what was not yet available. This was it, 3 page long full page drawings. An absolute delight. I'm generally stingy with 5 star ratings but this gives something that was missing that could only be presented with size and this book delivers.