Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years, 1910-1922 uncovers the real story of Wright's travels in Europe. By examining this elusive and influential period in Wright's development, Alofsin restores an important chapter to the history of modern architecture. Bringing new definition and insight to the story of Frank Lloyd Wright, this book has become a standard work on America's greatest architect.

"Alofsin has set out to explain the impact of European culture on Wright by integrating its artistic influence with the tumultuous events in his private life. . . . [He] succeeds in this ambitious goal."--Kevin Nute, Architects' Journal

"A convincing and well-documented case that these were in fact crucial and fruitful years in Wright's development as an architect. . . . Absorbing."--Catherine Maclay, San Jose Mercury News

"One of the best."--Robert Fulford, Toronto Globe and Mail

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Points of Departure: Wright Before 1909
• 2 Wright in Europe
• 3 Squaring the Self with Life: Return from Europe
• 4 The Lessons of Europe
• 5 A Lesson in Primitivism
• 6 A Lesson in Figural Sculpture: "Conventionalizing the Flesh"
• 7 A Lesson in Primary Forms
• 8 A Lesson in Iconography
• 9 A Lesson in Diagonality
• 10 Continuities and Discontinuities
• Appendix A Chronology
• Appendix B Documents
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Photo Credits

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

An important contribution to the literature on Frank Lloyd Wright and a model of architectural history scholarship. Alofsin combines original archival research with a sensitive reading of Wright's designs to produce a persuasive interpretation of Wright's career between 1910 and 1922. Wright remains a central figure in the history of American architecture, and the Wright literature continues to grow with new biographies and detailed monographs devoted to individual buildings. Alofsin previously edited the five-volume Frank Lloyd Wright: An Index to the Taliesin Correspondence (1988). His detailed treatment of Wright's life and work during the 1910s fills a critical gap between Grant Carpenter Manson's classic study Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910 (1958) and Donald Leslie Johnson's recent Frank Lloyd Wright Versus America: The 1930s (CH, Jun'91). The book is handsomely produced and includes extensive footnotes, a thoughtfully organized bibliography, and appendixes. It is especially noteworthy for the selection of comparative visual material and the inclusion of numerous sketches by Wright, which shed intriguing light on Wright's design process and philosophy. This study will appeal to designers and historians. Advanced undergraduate through professional. D. P. Doordan; University of Notre Dame

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Anthony Alofsin is the Roland Gommel Roessner Centennial Professor of Architecture and professor of art and art history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of When Buildings Speak: Architecture as Language in the Habsburg Empire and Its Aftermath, 1867-1933 , and The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard . He is also editor of Frank Lloyd Wright: Europe and Beyond .