Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and the Skyscraper

Rating:
Summary: good insight into their buildings
Review: In this book, noted architectural scholar Donald Hoffman outlines the contributions of these two men and others to the fledgling skyscraper movement. Among the topics examined are the profit motive behind skyscraper construction, the importance of light in skyscraper design, Sullivan's soaring idealism, the "anti-skyscraper," exemplified by Wright's Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and many more.

Accompanying the perceptive, carefully researched text are 100 excellent illustrations, including rare photographs, floor plans, and renderings that document such important structures as Sullivan's Wainwright Building in St. Louis, along with his Masonic Temple, Reliance Building, and Marshall Field Wholesale Store in Chicago; the A.T. Stewart store in New York; the San Francisco Call Project; Wright's Larkin Building in Buffalo, New York, as well as his dazzling but never-constructed National Life Insurance Company project, Chicago, and St. Mark's Tower project, New York.

Architecture enthusiasts will find this comprehensive, authoritative study filled not only with an abundance of insights into the early development of the skyscraper but also with the ideas and influence of two master builders who played key roles in one of the most revolutionary developments in modern architecture.