Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses: The case for organic architecture

Average customer rating:

Very good book for the purpose it was written for.

More Usonians

Nightmare

Usonian Plans and photos

A good place to start

Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses: The case for organic architecture
John Sergeant
Manufacturer: Whitney Library of Design
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Residential | Building Types & Styles | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses (Wright at a Glance Series)

Wright-Sized Houses: Frank Lloyd Wright's Solutions for Making Small Houses Feel Big

Frank Lloyd Wright's Interiors

Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses (Wright at a Glance Series)

The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, Revised Edition

ASIN: 0823071774

Customer Reviews:

Very good book for the purpose it was written for........2007-06-05

This is a very good book for the purpose it was written for. Nice historical information about the development of Wright's Usonian homes.

More Usonians.......2006-07-23

My impetus for purchasing this book last month was a visit to the home my parents built in 1956 in New Jersey. They designed it themselves with a bit of help from books by Frank Lloyd Wright and others (his "Natural House", for instance), but the interpretation was their own. I was a middle-aged adult before I realized that the house could be classed among the "Usonians", although it was not a Wright commission, and this visit stimulated my desire to know more about the "real" ones. I bought this book as a start and agree with the other reviewers here that the book is a bit too "design-driven" to answer all one might want to know. But it is a basic book on the subject (published 1984--about when I discovered the Usonian possibility), and it covers well the principles of the Usonian: affordability, open plan on a grid, built-in essentials, and underfloor/radiant heating. The book's many appendices allow the reader to see how Wright organized his business and related to his clients. Twenty-two years after it was published this book is still a good starting point for learning about the Usonian house and Wright's commitment to 'everyman/woman'.

Nightmare.......2005-07-09

I asked a Usonian "fanatic" about buying this book, and he told me that he owned it, but "never could get through it." I bought it anyway, and now I see what he means. Excerpt from page 62: "Symmetrical implications of the wig-wam roof-form of the living area are immediately combated by the off-center core and built-in seat and table."

WHAT? After five minutes of staring at the floor plan, I finally deduce that this must be some reference to a group of unmarked "things" there in what must be the living room. Of course, nothing is marked, and I still can't be sure what this sentence means because there are no useful photos or sketches to clarify the point. Lack of decent illustrations makes this book a nightmare to read. Another example, Page 68: "... utility... sensations...and...materials all make the Pew house, for me, the greatest of Wright's late career." This is accompanied by a single 3" x 5" high contrast, B&W photo of the house from a distance, partially obscured by trees. The author calls it the greatest work of Wright's career, and it is impossible to tell what it looks like.

Thank goodness I also bought "The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion" so I can actually see some decent photos and floorplans. This book could just as well be written in Braille.

Usonian Plans and photos.......2005-01-21

This book was one of my earlier books on FLLW and used heavily in my undergraduate class at Iowa State University in my early 80's tenure there. The bbok had no other precedent at the time and is still to be considered the most complete text with the reader going away from the book with a good understanding of the usonians unique place in history. The construction method and inclusion of the Oskaloosa IA home is very helpful in understanding the mid 50's time period in America and the people's thoughts and images before them of available home plans at that time. I think the layout was fairly well done and photos were a little poor exposure, blurry, dark on some --however considering the originals were used as photos I don't think it's too badly done. It doesn't have ALL of his work and certainly doesn't show the 'projects' he designed that weren't built however more complete than any current titles which have the words 'USONIA' in them currently. Even though I own the newer 'USONIA' books also they aren't as fulfilling as this original book by Sargent. I'm sure you'll agree.

A good place to start.......2003-01-23

It seems that this important phase in Wright's illustrious career has not been given the attention it deserves. As Frank Sergeant noted, Wright was most proud of his Usonian Homes and actively promoted his vision of a "Broadacre City." Unfortunately, Sergeant's book was the product of the 70's. He offers a good text, but poor photographs and mediocre illustrations that don't give the reader a compelling vision of these homes.

Wright started with the Jacobs House, built in the late 30's, which got the ball rolling. With a lot of sweat and material contributions by the owners, they were able to keep the cost near the $5000 budget Wright had set. He wanted these homes to be affordable, clean, efficient dwellings that reflected his streamlined view of America. Wright abhorred the wasteful society America had become, and envisioned a "Broadacre City" that would satisfy Americans' insatiable appetite for detached homes, without destroying the landscape in the process. He incorporated many passive solar features into these homes, relied on natural materials, and as always created an open plan that characterized the democratic nature of society.

More enticing books are now available on Usonian homes, but Sergeant's book is a good place to start in getting an impression of the quality of these homes, and how they came to shape America's suburban lifestyle.

Average customer rating:
Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses The Case For Organic Architecture
Sergeant John
Manufacturer: Watson-Guptill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UIG772

Average customer rating:
Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses the Case for Organic Architecture
John Sergeant
Manufacturer: Whitney / Watson-Guptill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS4SVE

Average customer rating:
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S USONIAN HOUSES, The Case for Organic Architecture
John Sergeant
Manufacturer: Watson-Guptill Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 085139230X

Average customer rating:
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S USONIAN HOUSES: THE CASE FOR ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE
John SERGEANT
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000L6N8S4

Average customer rating:
Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses: The Case For Organic Architecture

Manufacturer: Whitney Library of Design
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GVBJEY

Average customer rating:

A gem of a book for art lovers

`Conservation of Paintings` - A Concise Jewel

Conservation of Paintings: National Gallery Pocket Guide (National Gallery London Publications)
David Bomford
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Reference | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Restoration of Paintings

Looking at Paintings: A Guide to Technical Terms (Looking At...)

Science for Conservators, Vol. 2: Cleaning (Conservation Science Teaching Series)

Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopedia

Science for Conservators Series: An Introduction to Materials (Heritage : Care-Preservation-Management)

ASIN: 0300073186

Book Description

The philosophy of modern conservation is different from that of previous eras: the emphasis now is on longterm stabilization by methods that alter the structure of a painting as little as possible. Nevertheless, if paintings are obscured by discolored varnishes and old repaints, they are cleaned, and this has often led to anxiety and debate as long-admired images are transformed.

This Guide discusses the material nature of paintings and the ways that they have changed, both naturally and at the hands of previous restorers, and it describes the main types of conservation treatment carried out on panel and canvas paintings and some of the complex issues involved in cleaning and restoration.

Customer Reviews:

A gem of a book for art lovers.......2007-02-21

I purchased this book when I found an old oil painting that needed cleaning. The book really did not address that problem but instead provided a fascinating read about how the British National Gallery cares for and manages their priceless collection of art. This little booklet (80 pages long) gives a narative of various problems the gallery has run into with artwork (like lifting paint, discolored varnish, etc.) and then tells how their conservators solved it. It has terrific pictures of many paintings in various stages of restoration. I had no idea that there was such science and equipment (like a "low pressure suction table"--who knew?) behind painting conservation at the highest levels. Not a book for amateurs (like me) who want tips on cleaning removing grime from a family treasure, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.

`Conservation of Paintings` - A Concise Jewel.......2001-10-26

The `Conservation of Paintings' is undoubtedly one of the best books about the restoration of paintings I have ever read. It is an authentic jewel for it gives you a general approach to the restoration techniques, yet it gives the reader perfect and unique examples from which one can understand better the various restoration techniques and situations.

Constructed with easy to follow format with unique and detailed colour plates, this book is undoubtedly one of the best books on Restoration for begginers. Because of its authenitic characteristics, user friendliness and enormous amounts of up-to-date information, I consider this Pocket Guide to be a real Jewel.

Average customer rating:
Conservation of Paintings: National Gallery Pocket Guide
David Bomford
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORWJPI

Book Description

Acclaimed in the nineteenth century as "the world's most famous landscape photographer," William Henry Jackson and his camera presided over the mapping, bounding, and settling of the American West and the larger American landscape. In this lavishly illustrated study, Peter B. Hales investigates the conversion of America's landscape from myth to scenery and Jackson's effect on this cultural transformation.

In this book Peter B. Hales examines the ways Americans viewed their land, and the ways they acted on their beliefs. A study of how an individual affects and was affected by his culture, this is an engrossing story of the contradictions of American culture, the myths that encompass it and give it meaning, and their transformation over a century.

William Henry Jackson himself is rich material for an authoritative study. Not simply a chronicler, he immersed himself and his photographs in the processes of change that swept America from the 1840s until the 1940s. Official photographer to the Hayden Survey of the American West, early explorer of Yellowstone, and celebrant of the Colorado Rockies, Jackson was instrumental in the mass-marketing of landscape photography at the beginning of the twentieth century. Retired in the 1920s, he was rediscovered by the American Scene enthusiasts of the thirties, and found another career as painter of nostalgic images of America's Golden Age of frontier freedom.

Illustrated with nearly two hundred reproductions of Jackson's photographs, this work makes major contributions to our understanding of photography, of the American land, and of American culture in its broadest, richest sense.

Average customer rating:
William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape
Peter B. Hales
Manufacturer: Temple Univ Press, Philadelphia
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RZJMEI

Book Description

Many will remember Texas History Movies, a cartoon booklet that was distributed to Texas history students from the 1920s through the 1960s by Mobil Oil with its familiar Flying Red Horse logo.

For decades Texas History Movies taught thousands of school children the varied history of Texas, from Columbus to the discovery of oil. Though the original version is now considered racist, it was for many students their first and only taste of Texas history.

It is with great pride that the Texas State Historical Association announces the publication of our newest version of this timeless Texas history classic by the late Jack Jackson, award-winning scholar and illustrator. The New Texas History Movies is a totally revised edition with new cartoon strips and text by Jackson. Jackson gained fame as an underground cartoonist in the 1960s and, later, as an independent scholar who specialized in the history of the Spanish presence in Texas.

Jack took much pride in this revision, for the original Texas History Movies was a great inspiration to him. As Jackson states in the afterword, it was his objective "to create a 'time-machine' effect that would make readers feel like they were there when the events occurred." He hoped that his "rendition of the old classic, Texas History Movies, would 'grab' a few young minds and make them want to learn more about the interesting people and events briefly touched on in this booklet." It could almost be said that Jack's love for Texas history began with Texas History Movies; and it is fitting that his work has come full circle with his rendition of this enduring Texas history classic.

Book Description

Many will remember Texas History Movies, a cartoon booklet that was distributed to Texas history students from the 1920s through the 1960s by Mobil Oil with its familiar Flying Red Horse logo. For decades Texas History Movies taught thousands of school children the varied history of Texas, from Columbus to the discovery of oil. Though the original version is now considered racist, it was for many students their first and only taste of Texas history.

Customer Reviews:

Texas History Can be Fun.......2004-01-23

I received a free copy of this book in grade school, circa 1946. I was surprised to find it still in print. An invaluable aid in the study of Texas history.

Its Texas history in the form of strip cartoons. It's quite entertaining and reasonably accurate.

Texas history movies.......2000-05-07

This book was essential for my short attention span. My father got it for me in sixth grade and it made my way through the otherwise laborious path through Texas history not only bearable but a really fun adventure.

LET'S READ ABOUT TEXAS ~ including a reproduction of "The Texas History Movies" comic strips

Average customer rating:

LET'S READ ABOUT TEXAS ~ including a reproduction of "The Texas History Movies" comic strips
Bertha Mae Cox
Manufacturer: Turner company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

TEXAS HISTORY MOVIES

Manufacturer: Graphic ideas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H4L2R4

Average customer rating:

Texas History Movies
O. O., Jr. Cartoons By Jack Patton Mitchell
Manufacturer: Graphic Ideas Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QY0HOY

TEXAS HISTORY MOVIES. Illustrations by Jack Patton

Average customer rating:

TEXAS HISTORY MOVIES. Illustrations by Jack Patton
John Jr. Rosenfield
Manufacturer: P J M Publishers, Ltd,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N7ECL8

Texas History Movies: Story of the Lone Star State

Average customer rating:

Texas History Movies: Story of the Lone Star State

Manufacturer: Pepper Jones Martinez, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

New Texas History Movies

ASIN: 093575900X

Average customer rating:

Texas history movies
Jack Patton
Manufacturer: PJM Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006YPOI8

Average customer rating:

TEXAS HISTORY MOVIES
Felix D. Jr. Almaraz
Manufacturer: Texas State Historical Ass.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QXBI0C

Book Description

52 Days With What’s Her Name is an intimate diary of an 8 week adventure of a husband and wife who traveled the northwest part of the United States and Canada. During that time they kept a log about their innermost feelings and observations.

With every passing day it became more obvious to each of them that they had attained a unique relationship in today's world. With loving attention, they have produced this chronicle. It is much more than a travelogue. It is the story of deep love and togetherness that two people reveled in and shared without any distractions from friends or relatives. The book's style is one of close friends relating their trip experiences, tips, suggestions, where they ate, stayed and what they did and saw, raving about the excellent, decrying the bad, sliding through the mundane and delving into the special.

Book Description

One in eight American women will learn that she has breast cancer. While survival rates are improving, the diagnosis still wreaks havoc on their lives and families. A complex illness, breast cancer affects all aspects of a woman's life: her physical health and future wellbeing, her primary relationships, her children, her self-esteem, her sexuality.

This informative book serves to enlighten and empower women who have breast cancer, while providing valuable information and insight for those who love them. The book's topics include:

Finding out you have breast cancer
How to get help and find information
Working with your doctor
The emotional aspects of the disease
Treatment options: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation
Physical side effects of treatment
Nurturing yourself and your relationships
Follow-up care
What to expect after treatment ends
Recurrence

Written with honesty and compassion, this book offers women and those who love them a blueprint for taking a proactive part in their treatment and healing.

BREAST CANCER: THE FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DIAGNOSIS, TREATMENT AND BEYOND.

Average customer rating:

BREAST CANCER: THE FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DIAGNOSIS, TREATMENT AND BEYOND.
Pat with Mark Levine. Kelly
Manufacturer: Firefly Books,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Book Description

From the ideas of Clausewitz to contemporary doctrines of containment and cold war, this is a definitive history of modern military thought. A one-volume collection of Azar Gat's acclaimed trilogy, it traces the quest for a general theory of war from its origins in the Enlightenment. Beginning with a provocative critique of Clausewitz's classic work On War, the author unravels the endemic difficulties in Clausewitz's work that have baffled scholars for so long, clearly explaining the development of his ideas against the background of the Napoleonic revolution in war and the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment. He continues the story through the strategic ideas of the Prussian-German military school during the nineteenth century, the factors that shaped the 'cult of the offensive' in the French Army before the First World War, and the competing doctrines which dominated naval warfare during the ages of sail and steam. In the final part of the trilogy, he shows how theories of mechanized war emerged throughout the industrial world in the first decades of the twentieth century and explains why their leading exponents were associated with fascism. Drastically re-evaluating B.H. Liddell Hart's contribution to strategic theory, the author argues that in the wake of the trauma of the First World War, and in response to the Axis challenge, Liddell Hart developed the doctrine of containment and cold war long before the advent of nuclear weapons. He reveals Liddell Hart as a pioneer of the modern western liberal way in warfare which is still with us today.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Book!.......2004-08-19

As a survey of military thought from the Enlightenment up to the Cold War, I found Professor Gat's book to be comprehensive, thought-provoking, well researched, and well written. In particular the effect of established opinions on the nature of war and how it should be waged, and the reaction of succeeding generations to these established opinions is very interesting. Specifically, the military theories developed during the Enlightenment and the reaction of military theorists to the victories of Napoleon (such as Clausewitz) were of special interest. As Professor Gat himself remarks, there is a tendency to treat the period before Clausewitz as a kind of intellectual void, during which there was no discussion of the theory and practice of war at all. In fact there was a great deal of controversy on military matters taking place in both France and Germany. Admittedly this is a specialist book, not for everyone. But for anyone interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book.

Disappointing survey of military thought.......2004-07-06

This is the one-volume collection of Azar Gat's trilogy on military thought. He explores thinking about war and strategy ranging from Machiavelli to the 1950s, relating the ideas to their cultural and historical contexts.

As he writes, "New ideas emerge during periods of revolutionary change or at times of crisis, in response to great historical challenges." The great strategic thinkers Jomini and Clausewitz developed their revolutionary ideas in response to the French Revolution.

Gat argues that World War One's massive slaughter forced a paradigm shift from Clausewitz's ideas to the new idea of limited war. But Julian Corbett, limited war's greatest theorist, first published his ideas before 1914. Corbett argued, like Clausewitz, that wars were means to an end, continuations of policy. But he showed that wars could take many forms, with differing limits, depending on their political aims.

Gat exaggerates the importance of J. F. C. Fuller in the interwar period. Fuller plagiarised Ernest Swinton, who first proposed using tanks offensively in numbers to achieve breakthrough. Fuller fantasised that tanks alone could win wars, without infantry and combined arms.

Gat also over praises Basil Liddell Hart, who idealised limited war, just part of Britain's military experiences. In the 1930s, Hart predicted that wars would become more humane and rational: World War Two was the most destructive war in history.

In this war, the greatest test of Britain's survival as an independent and sovereign nation, Fuller and Hart encouraged Hitler to attack the Soviet Union. Hart opposed the Allies' policy of total war against Hitler, and called for Britain to collaborate with Hitler. Hart claimed that victory was unattainable and that fighting Hitler would `only lead to mutual suicide, and the collapse of civilisation'.

Gat asserts that Hart pioneered a `Western way' of warfare, of limited war, containment and economic coercion, based on the reactionary dreams of European and World Federation. But there is no such `Western way': Western ruling classes waged all sorts of wars against national liberation struggles, annihilatory against Korea, Algeria and Vietnam, relatively limited against Malaya and Kenya.

Average customer rating:
A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War.(Book Review): An article from: The Historian
Brian Holden Reid
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000B9DW50
Release Date: 2005-09-03

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 460 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War.(Book Review)
Author: Brian Holden Reid
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66 Issue: 2 Page: 414(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War

Average customer rating:

A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War
Azar Gat
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKWVB2

Customer Reviews:

comprehensive and scholarly.......2007-01-12

I found this book to be of great interest although it was a bit more scholarly than I expected. Given how little is known about that part of the world and the Oceanic peoples I found it to be full of interesting information.

The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World.: An article from: American Antiquity

Average customer rating:

The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World.: An article from: American Antiquity
Chris Gosden
Manufacturer: Society for American Archaeology
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Antiquity, published by Society for American Archaeology on April 1, 1998. The length of the article is 996 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World.
Author: Chris Gosden
Publication: American Antiquity (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 1998
Publisher: Society for American Archaeology
Volume: v63 Issue: n2 Page: p340(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Aspartic Proteinases: Physiology and Pathology focuses on the advantages and limitations of the use of proteinases and their inhibitors in human pathology. A virus-specific aspartic proteinase enzyme is required for the maturation of a virus. If the enzyme can be eliminated, so can the maturation of the virus. This book reviews the wealth of recently published information sparked by the renewed interest in these enzymes.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books