Frank Lloyd Wright's foray into affordable housing--the American System-Built Homes--is frequently overlooked. When Nicholas and Angela Hayes became stewards of one of them, they began to unearth evidence that revealed a one-hundred-year-old fiasco fueled by competing ambitions and conflicting visions that eventually gave way to Wright's most creative period.

Mostly colored photographs with captions examine construction techniques and the detailing of some of the well-known architect's home designs.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed and realized over 500 buildings between 1886 and 1959 for a wide range of clients. In Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House, architect Steven M. Reiss presents the updated and detailed story of one of Wright's few Virginia commissions. Designed and built for Loren and Charlotte Pope and later purchased by Marjorie and Robert Leighey, the Pope-Leighey House stands as a stunning example of an innovative form of shelter--which Wright called Usonian--for families beset by the Great Depression. Here, and elsewhere, Wright offered a unique and unprecedented approach for homes that would be small yet architecturally significant, carefully sited, and constructed of readily available local materials. He believed that anyone with an acre of land should have the opportunity to own a Usonian home. Set in Northern Virginia, the Pope-Leighey House has an unusual history in that it has been moved twice, first to the grounds of the National Trust's Woodlawn to rescue it from the path of Route 66 in Falls Church, then to re-site it to better correspond to its original orientation. Wright's mission was to remind us that "we need to see life in simpler terms." In this amply illustrated book, Reiss echoes Wright's reminder that small, carefully built structures should be the starting point of sustainable and environmentally responsible house design.

A summary of Wright's life and career as well as dramatic color photographs of his three homes capture the essence of this innovative man who forever changed the way we look at the spaces around us.

"The mid-twentieth century was one of the most productive and inventive periods in Frank Lloyd Wright's career, producing such masterworks as the Guggenheim Museum, Price Tower, Fallingwater, the Usonian Houses, and the Lovness House, as well as a vast array of innovative furniture and object design. With a wide variety of shapes and forms-ranging from honeycombs to spirals-this period defies simplistic definition. Simplicity, democratic designs, and organic forms characterize Mid-Century Modern, and, mentoring such mid-century talents as Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler among others, Wright was one of its most influential proponents. Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-Century Modern is a comprehensive examination of an under-explored period in Wright's career, a time dating from roughly 1935 to 1958, during which this master architect was at his most daring and innovative."--Jacket

A Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People * A NSTA/CBC Best STEM Book Frank Lloyd Wright, a young boy from the prairie, becomes America's first world-famous architect in this inspirational nonfiction picture book introducing organic architecture -- a style he created based on the relationship between buildings and the natural world -- which transformed the American home. Frank Lloyd Wright loved the Wisconsin prairie where he was born, with its wide-open sky and waves of tall grass. As his family moved across the United States, young Frank found his own home in shapes: rectangles, triangles, half-moons, and circles. When he returned to his beloved prairie, Frank pursued a career in architecture. But he didn't think the Victorian-era homes found there fit the prairie landscape. Using his knowledge and love of shapes, Frank created houses more organic to the land. He redesigned the American home inside and out, developing a truly unique architecture style that celebrated the country's landscape and lifestyle. Author Barb Rosenstock and artist Christopher Silas Neal explore the early life and creative genius of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, highlighting his passion, imagination, and ingenuity.

Long before designing his signature Usonian houses, Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned an earlier series of affordable models for the middle class: The American System-Built Homes. He developed seven floorplans of varying size and layout, standardized so that materials could be precut at the factory to reduce costs. Only a few years after the project began, the United States entered World War I, and all home construction was stalled due to lumber shortages. Wright then turned his attention to other projects, and with fewer than twenty built, the American System-Built Homes were all but forgotten.In 2011, Jason Loper and Michael Schreiber purchased the only American System-Built Home constructed in Iowa, the Meier House, which set them on a course of refurbishing and researching their new residence. In This American House, Loper and Schreiber trace the history of the Meier House through its previous owners, and shed light on this underexplored period of Wright's oeuvre. With a preface by John H. Waters, the Preservation Programs Manager of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, This American House addresses what it means to be the stewards of a piece of history.

Oak Park and River Forest are a mecca for Wright scholars and enthusiasts. Nowhere else can one visit so many Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and experience the architect's Prairie-style philosophy so fully. Hometown Architect is a thorough chronicle of that experience. Even if you have not had the good fortune to see these houses firsthand, the textual and photographic tours comprising this book will make you feel as though you have. Hometown Architect presents twenty-seven Wright homes, and Unity Temple, documenting one of the architect's most influential periods of his career. The last chapter surveys eight lost, altered, and possibly Wright homes. More than ninety photographs of the buildings' exteriors and interiors are accompanied by descriptive captions, while introductory text to each chapter details the story behind each commission, addressing Wright's relationships with his clients, the importance of each building in Wright's oeuvre, and the characteristics that make each house unique. The endpapers of this book feature a map locating all the sites discussed. By Patrick F. Cannon, introduction by Paul Kruty, photography by James Caulfield. Published in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.

This is the only book on the master architect that focuses on the house of moderate cost, turning the spotlight on Frank Lloyd Wright's ingenious solutions to make homes look and feel large.