Frank Lloyd Wright & Lewis Mumford: Thirty Years of Correspondence [Hardcover]

Robert Wojtowicz (Author), Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2001

What began as a simple letter--a mid-career architect's comments to a young writer--turned into a 32-year correspondence, by turns amusing, inflamed, and conciliatory. Frank Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford, two pivotal figures in 20th-century American architecture and urbanism, were both passionate writers, keenly aware of world events. Their 150 letters from 1926--1958 covered a wide range of topics, including Wright's position in the history of American architecture and contemporary practice, their friends and rivals, the invention and spread of the International Style, and political events in Europe and the US. A fallout over isolationist politics in the early 1940s led to a 10-year gap in their exchange, and when it resumed, the two were on an entirely different footing: Wright, the elder dean of American architecture at the height of his creative powers, and Mumford, an established critic in late middle age deeply committed to rebuilding a humanist outlook in the aftermath of World War II. Frank Lloyd Wright & Lewis Mumford offers an intimate look inside the minds and hearts of these two cultural giants, deepening our understanding of the men and the society they helped shape.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The meeting of two great 20th-century architectural minds is recorded in Frank Lloyd Wright & Lewis Mumford: Thirty Years of Correspondence, edited by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Archives Director at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and Robert Wojtowicz, chair of the Art Department at Old Dominion University. Wright first wrote to Mumford in 1926, when he was in his 50s and already renowned, and Mumford was in his 30s and making his name in cultural criticism. Mumford, who focused much of his writing on architecture and urban planning, greatly admired Wright's work as "the exemplar of organic design, built in accordance with the rhythms of modern life"; the two men shared ideas and interests, though Mumford resisted getting too intimate in order to preserve his critical integrity. Their friendship weathered political, aesthetic and personal disagreements (including a 10-year rift regarding U.S. intervention in WWII), but up until Wright's death in 1959 they maintained fondness and admiration for one another. B&w photos.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

This rich exchange between two fiery American iconoclasts began in 1926, when Wright was at a low point in his career. In desperate need of renewed critical interest in his work, he approached Mumford with an admiring note, and they developed an often wary friendship that meanders from growing intimacy to a bitter break over the Second World War and then to a gradual reconciliation. The collection stands out in particular for the intensity of the pair's intellectual discourse. Both Wright and Mumford rejected the harsh orthodoxy of modernists like Le Corbusier and shared a kind of Emersonian wish that architecture and technology should better serve humanistic ideals. The reader is left with a rueful sense of how little of that architectural vision prevailed in the postwar era.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568982917
• ISBN-13: 978-1568982915
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,536,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.