Wrightscapes : Frank Lloyd Wright's Landscape Designs (Hardcover)

~ Charles and Berdeana Aguar (Author) "Frank Lloyd Wright-christened Frank Lincoln Wright-was born to William and Anna Wright in Richland Center, Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, just two years after the..." (more)
Key Phrases: land development competition, prairie house architecture, quadruple block plan, Berdeana Aguar, Oak Park, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Could there be anything more to say about the 20th century's most written-about architect? Landscape architecture professor Charles Aguar (Univ. of Georgia) and wife Berdeana find a fresh perspective by examining Frank Lloyd Wright's work through the eyes of environmentally conscious landscape designers. Backed by a decade's fieldwork, interviews, and archival sleuthing, the authors offer highly informed critiques of 85 designs that span Wright's 70-year career. Familiar buildings are seen in an entirely new light as the authors scrutinize each structure's interrelationship with its grounds, plantings, and "hardscape" the terraces, walls, and planters Wright used to anchor his buildings to their settings. They emphasize Wright's prescient advocacy of sound environmental planning. Unfortunately, the Aguars' penchant for speculation sometimes leads to head-scratching conclusions Wright as feng-shui master? and the book's cramped typeface, eye-straining illustrations, and perfunctory index detract from a text that deserves much better presentation. However, by and large, this lucid, solidly researched analysis will open new avenues of appreciation and inquiry for Wright fans and scholars. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries, and wherever there is an interest in green architecture and sustainable landscapes. David Soltesz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

...a masterful and exhaustive richly illustrated treatise...the Darwin Martin floriycle is discussed with insightful brilliance... -- The Catalog of Landscape Records in the United States Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2002

...clearly delineates Wright's life...tackles each phase with...level of detail that is impressive...important...progressive and forward thinking -- The Georgia Landscape, July 2003

...consistently sensitive analysis, skillfully applied ... balanced and fair assessment ... welcome addition to the vast ... literature on Wright. -- Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13, 2002

...elegant and exhaustive accounting...well-illustrated text is organized chronologically...special value is the authors' refusal to deify their subject. -- Planning, August 2002

...if only one more book about the world's most frequently published architect is allowed, perhaps this should be it. -- Landscape Architecture, Nov. 2002

...present Wright as "essentially pioneering the new discipline of environmental design." An important book. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. -- Choice, December 2002

a look at the wide range of work Wright created...planned developments, site plans and the influences in his life. -- Herald & Review (Decatur, IL), HOME section, May 11, 2003

definitive study...masterful...extremely informative...eminently readable...of particular interest...appendices containing lists of plant materials designated for...Wright projects. -- Bulletin: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Spring 2003

the Aguars committed to writing the definitive work on Wright…in a way no other volume had. -- Gwinnett Daily News, July 20, 2002

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (May 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071377689
• ISBN-13: 978-0071377683
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,059,454 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential, yet disappointing, July 8, 2003

By	tertius3 (MI United States) - See all my reviews

This is an immense, original, dense, and unique attempt to evaluate what is "outside" of Wright's artful buildings. The authors' 50-year fascination with F.Ll. Wright's vaunted organic architecture and respect for nature results in the first book study of Wright's landscaping-only to discover Wright did hardly any landscaping, and what he did was often illusionary rather than natural (vide: spectacular and dramatic manipulation of artificial urns, planters, terraces, and axial markers)! The Aguars looked in the archives and, aside from impressionistic renderings or geometric exercises, they found hardly a developed site or garden plan from Wright's hand or after his early Prairie years! Consequently, the great bulk of this book is the authors' reconstruction or critical evaluation of the little that is explicit. Most of their attention is perforce upon what exists on the grounds of Wright houses today, 50 or 75 years on. The late Charles Aguar, a landscape architect, interviewed owners (37 original) and subjects 85 sites to intensive site analysis to try to reconstruct what was in Wright's mind and to evaluate the pros and cons of each landscape design. (Of course there's very little about the houses themselves, or their interiors.) Some of the most fascinating designs are Wright's ventures into mass suburban planning, where Aguar can trace the evolution of his thought and practice through a series of (mostly unrealized) housing schemes. Where available he includes original planting information from the archives, but supplies none of his own for the present day. He does address admonitions for maintenance or restoration to current owners of Wright places.

Aguar suggests that Wright was a far better architect than landscaper, that he was strongly influenced at specific points in his career by anti-realistic Japanese landscape design, that he became an "organic" (integrated) designer only with the development of his Taliesin estate, and that he was at his best designing and siting buildings on flat land where his geometries were least constrained by the siting analysis, soil studies, and grading plans he never made.

Text and illustrations complement each other well, but some corners have unfortunately been cut when the co-author had to reduce the text to one volume. Charles Aguar's lifelong devotion to studying Wright is poorly served by the tiny photos and maps, many his own. Despite taking thousands of color slides during their visits to 189 Wright sites, and publishing on heavy glossy paper, the authors include not a single color picture (the dust cover excepted). Gardeners will be immensely disappointed in this book, designers somewhat less so. There are no color schemes and hardly a decent planting scheme (at miniscule scale), but you can compile from the 13 appendices a short list of "Wrightian" species (while recognizing that most of them actually derive from the work of Griffith or Jensen, early collaborators of Wright in Chicago).

For an "environmental" appreciation of Wright's buildings themselves, you might like Grant Hildenbrand's The Wright Space, with its exciting visualizations of shelter, prospect, and procession within his buildings.