Frank Lloyd Wright and San Francisco
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Although Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) famously disliked cities, he had a genuine affinity for San Francisco. Paul V. Turner's unprecendented book looks at the architect's complex and evolving relationship with the city, surveying the full body of Wright's work in the Bay Area-- roughly thirty projects, a third of which were built. Spanning from 1900 to 1959, they include houses, a gift shop, a civic center, a skyscraper, a church, and industrial building, a mortuary, a brigde across the San Francisco Bay, and even a dog house. The unbuilt structures are among Wright's most innovative, and the diverse reason for their failure counter long-held stereotypes about the architect and his client relationships. Wright's Bay Area projects are published together here for the first time, along with previously unpublished correspondence between Wright and his clients, as well as his Bay Area associate Aaron Green. Stories from San Francisco newspapers portray the media's changing positions on Wright -- from his early personal scandals to his later roles as eccentric provocateur and celebrated creative genius." -- Book jacket.