After several months, I finally finished Meryle Secrest's Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, a dense, well-researched, mostly engaging 564-page doorstop of a book.
I put the book on my wish list after reading T.C. Boyle's The Women, a fictional account of the world-famous architect's tangled web of romantic relationships. Boyle's a gifted writer, and I've read and enjoyed many of his books, but while I was reading The Women, I found myself wanting to read a biography, wondering, "How true to life is this stuff? Were Wright and his wives and mistresses really as crazy as Boyle makes them out to be?"
Turns out, they were.
I'm not going to write a review of the book, because it's too damn long and I'm not a real strong critical writer. But I want to talk about a few things that I learned about Wright (who often signed his name "FLlW"), and discuss some of his amazing buildings, a few of which I hope to visit in my lifetime.
Wright was a complete and total narcissist, arrogant and too quick to judge and fight back against any perceived slight. He was absolutely terrible with money, often refusing to pay everyone from local grocers to building supply companies, and other times insisting that he be given things such as cars simply because he was famous, and the retailer would gain more value from being associated with him than they could if he paid them.
He fell easily for those who flattered him. It was not difficult, especially if you were a woman, to manipulate him.
Wright insisted that nobody had influenced his use of open floor plans, cantilevered roofs and non-traditional materials in the houses he designed, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Many of his buildings, especially houses, suffered from leaky roofs, drafty windows and poor heating and cooling systems.
Still, there's no denying Wright's incredible vision, and his tenacity in getting projects done the way he wanted. He is one of the most well-known architects in the world, alongside I.M. Pei, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry.
Many of his most fantastic projects were never built, such as Washington, D.C.'s Crystal Heights apartment, hotel and shopping complex, and of those that were, many have either been torn down, or destroyed by fire or natural disasters.
Just last month, a house that FLlW designed for one of his sons in Phoenix was saved from the wrecking ball.
But, thankfully, so many great houses, office buildings and museums that he designed still stand.
I've been to New York City with my family each of the last three Aprils, but somehow have never made it to Wright's Guggenheim Museum. The next time I go to the Big Apple, I'm definitely checking out the museum.
Taliesin West, Wright's second home, is located in Arizona. I haven't been to the Southwest since my brief time living in New Mexico in 1988. It's time for a return, with the family.
Wright's primary residence for decades was Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. This building fascinates me for its architecture, of course, but also because the home was the place where Wright spent much of his adult life, where he designed so many projects, where he mentored architects and others in the building trades, and where tragedy visited his family on too many occasions (fires, murders).
Finally, I have to visit Fallingwater, the amazing house that Wright built over a river in western Pennsylvania. Just take a look at the video above, and at the pictures at the house's web site and you'll understand why I want to go.
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