The Master of Taliesin

WRITINGS ON WRIGHT: Selected Comments on Frank Lloyd Wright Edited by H. Allen Brooks '49 M.I.T. Press, 1981. 229 pp. $17.50

Writings on Wright is a small but significant book on America's greatest architect and one of the most fascinating personalities in the entire history of art. Frank Lloyd Wright was more than just the architect as hero, the flamboyant prophet (distinguished by his pork-pie hat, flowing mane, and dramatic cape), and the model for the defiant protagonist of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. But his unorthodox and often outrageous public image should not obscure the fact that it was Wright who changed the traditional concept of the room that "existed - unchallenged since the earliest habitations," and who designed some of the most remarkable buildings of the 20th century.

Even though he was 75 when the first book on him in English appeared, the bibliography on Wright is quite extensive. Few architects have been more written about, while Wright himself wrote a great deal about his work and his "one-man experiment in democracy." Yet this book is not a typical anthology. Rather, it is intended "to dispel fable" and "to reveal the truth" in order to provide increased understanding of the artist, his . art, and his time. Simply stated, it attempts to answer the ultimate question about Wright: "What did he achieve and how did he achieve it?"

Writings on Wright, with its rich selection of articles, interviews, and reminiscences by architects, students, and critics, is of especial interest to scholars. But in offering a broad range of contributions that include the impressions of fellow designers, theoretical statements, letters, diaries, and newscasts, and even pieces by popular writers like Alexander Woollcott of TheNew Yorker, the book is of value to anyone interested in Wright. A newcomer to the field, for example, will benefit from the comprehensive background material provided by Professor Brooks.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this study of Wright is that written by and about Wright's clients. He truly believed that "a beautiful building can help man dissolve the conflicts of his life," and this is best exemplified in the design and construction of clients' homes. The Wright that emerges from these selections is not the arrogant, difficult prima donna, but a kindly and perceptive psychologist with'a profound understanding of the human psyche. All his clients initially had doubts about working with Wright and were somewhat fearful about what he might build. Yet they also reveal the love affairs they subsequently had with their houses and how Wright's design changed and shaped their lives.

Wright fashioned some of the major monuments of world art (such as the Larkin building, the Guggenheim Museum, and the headquarters for Johnson's Wax), but it was as a domestic designer that he made his most revolutionary and lasting contributions. In his own essay, "Wright and the Destruction of the Box," Brooks explains exactly how Wright dissolved the corners of his houses by dismembering intermediary walls, ceilings, and even floors, and how he "reassembled the shattered pieces (images) in a different spatial context." Many scholars, critics, and practitioners have accepted Wright's pioneering results, but none before has undertaken to dissect and precisely analyze how Wright re-defined the concept of the individual dwelling.

Professor Brooks, who teaches at the University of Toronto, has successfuly and sensitively pulled together a lot of diverse and unusual material about a complex figure. In the writing of his doctoral dissertation on Wright, Brooks visited Taliesin, the architect's home and studio in Arizona. While there, the unusually short Wright turned to the basketball-playersized Brooks and remarked: "Allen, if I were as tall as you, the whole history of modern architecture would have been different." Because of Allen Brooks, one chapter in that history has been made more readable, more accessible, and more understandable.

Architectural historian and former architectureeditor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, William Morgan teaches the history of architectureat the Allen R. Hite Art Institute of the University of Louisville.