Issue 11  September 21st 2016

Wright's Sondern House For Rent

A couple of issues ago, we highlighted some Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses for rent. Now you can add Wright's Sondern House in Kansas City, MO to that list. Follow the link to learn more and to rent this Usonian gem. Read more.

Click for more details: airbnb.com  

An Afternoon With Frank Lloyd Wright

Plan on attending the Friends of Cedar Rock's "An Afternoon with Frank Lloyd Wright" symposium on Saturday, October 15, 2016 from 1:00pm-4:00pm at the American Legion Hall (102 Water Street) in Quasqueton, Iowa.

Presentations include "Child of the Sun, Great American Campus" by Mark Tlachac, retired director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor's Center, Florida Southern College, Lakeland Florida and "Frank Lloyd Wright and Kenneth Laurent: One man's vision to better another man's life" by Jerry Heinzroth, president, Laurent House Foundation, Rockford, Illinois. Follow the link to get your tickets. Read more

Click for more details: friendsofcedarrock.org  

Bandera Dude Ranch To Preserve Wrightian Works

The Houston Chronicle reports that the owners of the Flying L Guest Ranch in Bandera, Texas, said to have been designed by associates of Frank Lloyd Wright are wanting to raise the funds to create a museum dedicated to Wright's work and the cowboy-oriented tourist trade it helped establish. Follow the link to learn more. Read more

Having secured a Texas Historical Marker for the site this summer, the Jenkinses are ramping up efforts to raise money to convert the lounge into a museum to display artifacts about the ranch, Wright's work there and local history.

Click for more details: houstonchronicle.com  

Van Bergen's Irving House Moved And Now For Sale

The John S. Van Bergen James Irving residence that was saved from demolition in Wilmette, IL and moved in pieces to Evanston is now put back together and back on the market for $625,000. Follow the link to check out the listing and more photos. Read more.

Click for more details: estately.com  

Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks Review

David Jameson of the ArchiTech Online Gallery was kind enough to review for the Wright Society Newsletter the new book Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks by author and historian John Zukowsky (which, of course, covers works by Louis Sullivan, Wright, and others):

Reading John Zukowsky’s new book, Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks reminds me of accompanying out-of-town visitors on their summer trek around Chicago. You plan for an architectural river cruise and walking tours of the Loop. But when you accompany them to these attractions and smugly stand at the back listening as the Chicago expert you’ve become to them, you may secretly think “Golly. I didn’t know that!”

Luckily, Zukowsky’s follow-up to his co-authored 2004 Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture used the photographic archives of the Chicago History Museum in this 2016 book instead of the previous volume’s use of the drawings archives at the Art Institute’s Department of Architecture, which he founded. This handsome book is a better match.

The History Museum’s antique prints and the vintage Hedrich Blessing photographs, especially, paint a picture of Chicago that not only showed itself distanced from New York in mileage but also in architecture. By being almost 800 miles away from that East Coast center, its sense of innovation was cooked in. And unlike New York, its individual citizens seemed to have a civic mindset of a striving town from the start.

At first glance, the buildings are similar but a careful reading of Zukowsky’s Introduction and eight essays reveal that they are very different because of this innovation and civic planning. Because he is such an expert, Zukowsky is like the very smartest tour guide telling you just what you can handle. And because they are longer, his small-type captions act as specific backstories.

This book may resemble an elegant visual for your living room or a visitor’s memory of his great summer vacation but it might also be merely the first primer for what could become your new architecture library and should stay just so on your coffee table.

But if your summer visitors finally get it in the mail at the holidays, they probably won’t look at all the selfies they took in front of Chicago’s landmarks but this well-thumbed book instead and think “Golly!”

Follow the link to learn more about Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks and order your copy. Read more.

Click for more details: rizzoliusa.com