What do you think?
Rate this book
50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright
50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright begins with a simple question. What lessons can designers today learn from Frank Lloyd Wright?
Unlike recent books focusing on Wright’s tumultuous personal life and the Taliesin Fellowship, and equally unlike certain works that paint Wright as a mythical hero or genius, this handsome and valuable volume aims to reveal some of the design tools Wright used to create exceptional architecture, interiors, and landscapes—and how we may glean insight from an American master and find inspiration for the thoughtful design of our own homes. By means of succinct examples, pithy texts by noted architecture experts Aaron Betsky and Gideon Fink Shapiro, and evocative visuals provided by photographer Andrew Pielage, they share fifty lessons, or "learning points," with an eye to Wright-designed houses and interiors, ranging from "Let Nature Inspire You," "Screen, Don’t Close," and "Embroider Rooms with Textiles," to "Look to Asia," "Design for Resilience" and "Balance the Whole."
Each lesson is accompanied by color photographs, original Wright drawings, newly commissioned diagrams, thoughtful analysis by the authors, and pearls of wisdom gathered from the master's trove of writings on architecture and design.
Beyond specific lessons, this volume offers an informal yet richly detailed introduction to this seminal figure, world-famous for his romantic Fallingwater and magical Guggenheim Museum, and will be of much interest to the budding architecture enthusiast as well as to the interior designer, to those seeking ideas for their own homes, and to fans of Frank Lloyd Wright looking for just the right book.
Unlike recent books focusing on Wright’s tumultuous personal life and the Taliesin Fellowship, and equally unlike certain works that paint Wright as a mythical hero or genius, this handsome and valuable volume aims to reveal some of the design tools Wright used to create exceptional architecture, interiors, and landscapes—and how we may glean insight from an American master and find inspiration for the thoughtful design of our own homes. By means of succinct examples, pithy texts by noted architecture experts Aaron Betsky and Gideon Fink Shapiro, and evocative visuals provided by photographer Andrew Pielage, they share fifty lessons, or "learning points," with an eye to Wright-designed houses and interiors, ranging from "Let Nature Inspire You," "Screen, Don’t Close," and "Embroider Rooms with Textiles," to "Look to Asia," "Design for Resilience" and "Balance the Whole."
Each lesson is accompanied by color photographs, original Wright drawings, newly commissioned diagrams, thoughtful analysis by the authors, and pearls of wisdom gathered from the master's trove of writings on architecture and design.
Beyond specific lessons, this volume offers an informal yet richly detailed introduction to this seminal figure, world-famous for his romantic Fallingwater and magical Guggenheim Museum, and will be of much interest to the budding architecture enthusiast as well as to the interior designer, to those seeking ideas for their own homes, and to fans of Frank Lloyd Wright looking for just the right book.
- GenresArchitectureNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
Published April 13, 2021
6 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Betsky
124 books18 followersAaron Betsky is an American critic on art, architecture and design. He was the director of Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design until early 2022.
Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, he is the author of over a dozen books, including Architecture Matters, Making It Modern, Landscrapers: Building With the Land, Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, Queer Space, Revelatory Landscapes, and Architecture Must Burn. Internationally known as a lecturer, curator, reviewer and commentator, he writes the blog "Beyond Buildings" for Architect Magazine. Director of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, he has also been president and Dean of the School of Architecture at Taliesin (originally the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture), director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006) the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014), and was founding Curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). As an unlicensed architect, he worked for Frank O. Gehry and Associates and Hodgetts + Fung. In 2003, he co-curated "Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio" at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, he is the author of over a dozen books, including Architecture Matters, Making It Modern, Landscrapers: Building With the Land, Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, Queer Space, Revelatory Landscapes, and Architecture Must Burn. Internationally known as a lecturer, curator, reviewer and commentator, he writes the blog "Beyond Buildings" for Architect Magazine. Director of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, he has also been president and Dean of the School of Architecture at Taliesin (originally the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture), director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006) the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014), and was founding Curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). As an unlicensed architect, he worked for Frank O. Gehry and Associates and Hodgetts + Fung. In 2003, he co-curated "Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio" at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 29, 2021
Beautiful photos, and I love the way it breaks down and discusses Wright's architectural themes from a design perspective. I appreciated the discussion of his work in a broader cultural context and his overall impact on design, as well as recognizing the controversial and problematic elements present in his work.
As an artist I am really inspired by wright's modern geometric application of nature into design.
As an artist I am really inspired by wright's modern geometric application of nature into design.
December 27, 2022
The perfect combination of text and photos for understanding the architectural genius of FLW. I'm not an expert on the man, so I don't know if these lessons are the right ones or not, but it does seem that the book covers most of what one will see/observe in a Wright building; it feels fairly accurate from that perspective.
January 20, 2025
This was a “coffee table”-style book I bought at Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, which we visited during our 2024 road trip. The book is a a nice summary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career, and many of his famous designs. I learned a lot about Wright, and architecture in general.
It is clear the authors are big fans of Wright - at first I was concerned that they might be a bit too worshipful of Wright. But I guess this is to be expected from a book like this - since only fans of Wright would buy something like this. Athough towards the end the authors do include their opinions of some things that are not so great about Wright and his designs - which I did appreciate.
This was a nice book since each of the 50 “chapters” could be stand-alone - although I guess they did gradually build on previous chapters. The photos are really high quality, and nicely illustrate the specific points in the given chapter.
It is clear the authors are big fans of Wright - at first I was concerned that they might be a bit too worshipful of Wright. But I guess this is to be expected from a book like this - since only fans of Wright would buy something like this. Athough towards the end the authors do include their opinions of some things that are not so great about Wright and his designs - which I did appreciate.
This was a nice book since each of the 50 “chapters” could be stand-alone - although I guess they did gradually build on previous chapters. The photos are really high quality, and nicely illustrate the specific points in the given chapter.
June 1, 2021
The many books concerning Wright's life and work continue. This beautiful book published by Rizzoli includes photos of his architectural masterpieces, smaller projects, and drawings of unbuilt projects. The work uses Wright's philosophy to explain his architecture with seven themes such as site and landscape, design and society, building, and body. The overriding theme to his work is "Break the box", and those familiar with Wright's life know that he succeeded.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews