Reviews

This book is published on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition of the same name. Coming more than 50 years after the museum's first Wright retrospective, both book and exhibit offer a fresh, comprehensive view of the architect's work. The transfer of the exhibit to book form is only partially successful, however. The book comprises photographs-many in color-of buildings and models, plans and sketches, and newly restored drawings by Wright. These are divided into nine thematic sections, but the themes and sections are not easily deciphered. The sections are neither titled nor listed in the table of contents, making it difficult to locate each individual introduction. Moreover, there are no running titles, so one's only orientation is chronological. And while the plates are truly stunning, the text explaining them is woefully deficient, often leaving the reader puzzled. While the text seems redeemed by the first five essays, comprehensive collections will be better served by William Allin Storrer's The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion (LJ 2/1/94).-Daniel J. Lombardo, Jones Lib., Amherst, Mass.

A major, candid reappraisal of Frank Lloyd Wright's enduring legacy, this handsomely illustrated survey accompanies a retrospective at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. The study probes two sides of Wright: the visionary organic architect steeped in the spiritual idealism of Emerson and Whitman, and the autocratic advocate of a democratic architecture. Wright's fertile dialogue with modernism (which he at times vehemently denied) and his grounding in 19th-century notions of family and community are discussed. Special attention is paid to his designs for housing projects and Broadacre City, an unrealized utopian enclave which reflected his weaknesses in its wasteful overreliance on the automobile, its rigid class hierarchy and its consumerist vision leaving little space for public interaction. Five sensitive essays by noted scholars are accompanied by 484 plates (183 in color) including scores of Wright's color drawings. Riley and Reed co-curated the exhibit. (May)