Frank Lloyd Wright: Natural Design, Organic Architecture: Lessons for Building Green from an American Original

by Alan Hess (Contributor), Alan Weintraub (Photographer)

This title examines the work of Frank Lloyd Wright as a progenitor of today's 'green movement' in architecture. Green design and general green awareness is a major concern today, and looking at the work of Wright in this context is both timely and instructive.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Art, Photography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Born in California in 1952, Hess received his BA at Principia College, a Master's degree in architecture from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and is a licensed architect. After working with architects William Coburn, and Callister Payne and Bischoff, Hess started his own firm specializing in residential work and historic preservation. His first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture (Chronicle Books 1985) focused on a neglected and popular Modern form. Following books continued to explore overlooked chapters in twentieth-century architecture and urbanism. He is responsible for qualifying several landmark buildings for the National Register of Historic Places, including the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, Stuart Company Plant and Office Building and Bullock's Pasadena in Pasadena, and the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Reviews

[Rosemary Race · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness where have these books been all my life. These designs are what I crave for as a young girl living in a home with a mum, dad, three siblings a beautiful walk in walk out home my parents acquired in a long ago town in the 1950s from highway to the beach its was magnificent Mum complained in washing the walls and vac the hallway a 100 foot long every weekend but oh my gosh those beautiful huge windows were gazed out by me for most of my schooling. Huge green chairs, a full size table tennis table in one room, huge bedrooms with wardrobes, beds and a REAL oak table my brother still has somehow in my sister's garage all these years later...

I digress on purpose these beautiful spacious homes were and still are for LIVING IN being surrounded by huge spaces of natural endemic forests, foreshores, beaches untouched by fossil fuels....

pages 127, 158, 82, 69.....

Well I grew up but somehow managed to live in both ideals in bush Gippsland and fit as much as you can in Mornington, Port Melbourne, Oakleigh and other destinations I lived in with the exception of gorgeous places 6 years ago like Portland, Victoria, Rosedale Victoria now everyone realises the country life is what they all needed not city we can go visit the city on speedy trains even if you work there you might crave a Bairnsdale experience..

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous designs, totally inspirational. I love his balance between fashion (aesthetics) and function. This totally motivates me to visit his other buildings.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author presents Frank Lloyd Wright as an architect before his time. That he was introducing the "green" theory. I don't really buy this, because I think that Frank Lloyd Wright was really more interested in how his buildings reacted with the nature around it. Being "green" was just a fortunate by product of some of his designs.