Customer Reviews

Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Houses

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In the wake of the magnificent "Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses", this followup volume disappoints on several levels. I expected some duplication with the earlier book. Certainly, extended coverage of the iconic works such as Dana, Robie and Coonley was warranted. As pointed out in my review of the previous book, many houses received coverage only via a thumbnail photo appendix. I anticipated these works would receive expanded coverage here, for the most part I was wrong. What we get instead is much duplication with "FLW:The Houses": of the 22 houses presented here 15 were in the previous volume. There is also reuse of many of the same photos, sometimes cropped slightly differently sometimes identical. Also disappointing is the size of the new volume. It is quite a bit smaller in format with the resultant lessening of impact by the still great photos.

To sum up, if I had to buy only one book it would be "FLW: The Houses". This holds true even if my major interest was the Prairie period alone. Will a followup Usonian era volume provide the same needless duplication?

A sequel to the early collaboration of Alan Weintraub and Alan Hess on Frank Lloyd Wright houses, this work focuses on a series of houses the Wright office completed at the first decade of the century, dubbed "Prairie Style." The book contains some brief essays, prefaces, and then a series of phenomenal photographs of what are arguably the most influential group of houses of the twentieth century.

Ironically the impact of these Prairie houses was spread through the lithographs of the "Wasmuth Portfolio" - line drawings of these houses that captivated the European modernists when published in 1910. These line drawings are still the way this group of houses is often reproduced, taught, or shown in slides in art history class. This book stands as an immediate corrective to that.

These photographs are extraordinarily rich, and must be said to complement Wright's work quite well. They include luminous photographs of the interiors, beautiful examples of the exteriors, really these are the next best thing to a trip to Oak Park to see the work directly.

I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Wright, or architecture, and this book sure would make a perfect gift.

As a very minor complaint, compared to the previous book where the subject was Wright's entire career of houses, as this one focuses on the Prairie Style it would have been nice to have some comparisons to the Prairie work other architects were creating in Chicago. Also, the authors make no acknowledgement that Wright created these houses in the context of an architectural studio practice, and so the efforts of his talented contributers such as Marion Mahoney go unmentioned.

I hate buying books sight unseen because you never know what the pages will hold. This book was a pleasant surprise, especially since it was purchased as a gift. Beautiful large photos, interesting commentary, a great book for fostering ideas. The book arrived pristine, well-packed and quickly. Great seller!

This book exceeded my expectations. Lots of very clear interior and exterior photos that I have not seen in other books. Very worthwhile book to have if you are interested in Prairie houses.

Frank Lloyd Wright's work around 1900 developed what are called the Prairie Houses. These houses split off from traditional American architecture to establish themselves as the start of what is truly American. These houses are open with horizontal lines that reflect the prairie from which they get their names.

One surprising thing about the Prairie Houses is that they still look so modern that they could fit into any new sub-division being developed today. They certainly formed the foundations from which the Bungalow designs which followed.

Another surprising thing about the Prairie Houses is that so many of them remain standing, and that so many of them have remained or been restored to as new condition. After all, these houses are a hundred years old, and many of their light fixtures, cabinets, things that get a lot of ware are still around.

The book is beautifully printed and cloth bound. Another recommended book on a Wright Prairie House is Frank Lloyd Wright's Rosenbaum House which describes the house, but also the effort that it took to restore the house to its original form. The house took $14,000 to build, over a half million to restore.

Given the the high quality of Frank Lloyd Wright The Houses, this book was disappointing.