Frank Lloyd Wright : The Early Years : Progressivism : Aesthetics : Cities

Frank Lloyd Wright : The Early Years : Progressivism : Aesthetics : Cities examines Wright's belief that all aspects of human life must embrace and celebrate an aesthetic experience that would thereby lead to necessary social reforms. Inherent in the theory was a belief that reform of nineteenth-century gluttony should include a contemporary interpretation of its material presence, its bulk and space, its architectural landscape.

This book analyzes Wright's innovative, profound theory of architecture that drew upon geometry and notions of pure design and the indigenous as put into practice. It outlines the design methodology that he applied to domestic and non-domestic buildings and presents reasons for the recognition of two Wright Styles and a Wright School. The book also studies how his design method was applied to city planning and implications of historical and theoretical contexts of the period that surely influenced all of Wright's community and city planning.

Part 1: Conditions 1. Reformation and Progressivism Part 2: The Aesthetics of Progress 2. Education 3. Tutelage 4. Design Generators 5. Architectural Synthesis 6. The Wright School Part 3: The City Scientific 7. Rousseau to Professionalism 8. Wright’s Community Planning 9. Contraction Appendices A. Visual Examination of Geometries B. Wright’s Yesler Avenue Hotel C. Further Quadruplets References Index

Donald Leslie Johnson taught at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1972 until retirement in 1988. He has been an adjunct professor of architectural history at the University of South Australia for twenty years. Previously, he practiced architecture in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Tucson and taught theory and design at Arizona, Washington State, and Adelaide universities. He has written extensively about the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin and Canberra, Australian architectural history, and American and Australian city planning history. He was in Lois I. Kahn's masters class of 1960–61 at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson was a member of the American Institute of Architects and is an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects.