Arts & Crafts  / Prairie School

Books

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Houses
by Alan Hess: Rizzoli, 2006
A focus on the interiors and details of over 70 extant buildings of the Prairie School years. The author explains how Wright broke from Beaux Arts symmetry to create “a tartan plaid of main spaces and secondary spaces, of public rooms and circulation spaces”—with brilliant results.

Purcell & Elmslie, Prairie Progressive Architects
by David Gebhard: Gibbs Smith, 2006
A comprehensive look at the work of Wright contemporaries William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie. Their progressive firm was the most productive of the era’s Chicago-area architectural offices. Photos record the appeal of simple forms, textures, and organic decoration in buildings suited to their sites.

Hometown Architect: The Complete Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park and River Forest, Illinois
by Patrick F. Cannon: Pomegranate, 2006
The very first house that FLW designed was in Oak Park in 1889. His last commission in that town, in 1913, was one of the final houses of his Prairie period. This book takes you on the pilgrimage that so many people from all over the world make, to stroll reverently in neighborhoods filled with these handsome, influential houses. Unlike other books about Wright’s 70-year career, this one has a single and homely purpose: to document, in chronological order, 27 Wright houses built in Oak Park and River Forest during the Prairie years. Photographs include interiors.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Interiors
by Thomas A. Heinz: Gramercy Books, 2002
Shown are 1000 interiors, including not only houses but also public and corporate buildings, from throughout Wright’s career. Horizontal lines, natural elements, concrete, and a brilliant use of three dimensions informs all of the work.

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses
by Alan Hess: Rizzoli, 2005
From the 1908 Prairie School Robie house in Chicago through his textile-block houses in Los Angeles, and on to Fallingwater and Taliesin West, here are FLW’s residential commissions all in one huge volume.