Description

This sociological analysis of Wright's architecture examines the interaction between people and the spaces they create. Satler shows how Wright explored a new architectural dimension, the space in which we live.

Focusing on the Larkin Building (1904) and Unity Temple (1907), works that Wright considered important but that have received little attention, Satler delineates the social nature of space. She provides an analytic framework through which to understand Wright's buildings and his writings, revealing how the history of such works and cultural landscapes offer a basis for making social, political, and spatial choices about the future.

Wright's specific architectural works provide a framework for constructing social histories of places and people because his designs represent a natural way to build and to live within a larger social landscape. This original study will appeal to sociologists, architects, urban and architectural historians, urban planners and anthropologists, and those interested in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

About the Author

Gail Satler is Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University and author of Two Tales of a City.

Praise For…

"Unique in the field of Wright studies and architecture."—Robert McCarter, author of Frank Lloyd Wright

"The space within the building is the reality of that building." So says Frank Lloyd Wright in "The Destruction of the Box," an address in which he recalls for his audience the origins of his break with previous architectural thought. According to Satler, Wright's approach, "organic architecture," reveals space as a lived in and living entity, one that achieves its full meaning only when it becomes inscribed with the actual practices of those who inhabit it.

This sociological analysis of Wright's architecture examines the interaction between people and the spaces they create. Satler shows how Wright explored a new architectural dimension, the space in which we live.