This handsome coffee table book consists of nearly forty Wright buildings, most of them​ still standing at the time of publication. A few, such as the Larkin Building and Midway Gardens, no longer exist, but the remaining buildings were documented with brand new photos. The text by Wright scholar Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer is fairly lengthy (especially when compared to William Allin Storrer's catalog of Wright's buildings), so there is much to learn about the architect's many "masterworks" all in one place. ( )

If there is a heaven, then Frank Lloyd Wright is busy designing homes for the god and angels. It constantly amazes me that this man who was born in the heart of Wisconsin could have designed what can only be called Livable Art.

He was the first architect to take the location of the building into consideration while he designed it. Wright not only designed the house, but he also mandated what kind of furniture should be in it and then realized that mandate by designing it. He would have been comfortable in a loft since his houses were very often built in such a way that the walls created all the separation needed. Living rooms merged with bedrooms, and dining rooms segued into living rooms.

When we look through his designs (both those that were built and those for which the engineering has not yet caught up), we see motifs and construction details that are now common, but did not exist before Wright picked up his pen. And let us also remember that, when a great earthquake destroyed practically every building in Japan in the early 1920s, his hotel remained standing. This is an amazing feat given that research into making buildings resistant to moving earth did not begin until 30 years after the architect died.

I live in Madison, Wisconsin, less than 40 miles from where he spent his childhood and to which he returned as a husband and father. He lost his family near here, but changed that grief into new designs. He legacy still lives in the first Usonian church ever created -- a place that makes one feel tiny in contrast to the god worshiped there. And many other buildings, designed by his followers and students dot the city.

This book doesn't look at all of Wright's designs, only at those which the author considers to be Wright's masterworks.But it took 300 pages to cover this small number of his designs. Paging through it, looking at the beauty he created, can refresh one's head and soul. ( )