Overview

Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer house, built in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the early 1950s, is one of Wright's last residential masterpieces. Working from extensive materials gathered by Ann and Leonard Eaton, and from his own fifty-two-year familiarity with the building, Grant Hildebrand crafts the story of Billy and Mary Palmer's extraordinary home. He presents in detail the events surrounding the Palmers' selection of Wright as architect; Wright's personal creation of the design; the challenges, and the craftsmanship, of its construction; the evolution of its garden and teahouse; the role of the house as a setting for the Palmers' lives; and an analysis of its remarkable formal and spatial qualities. With a rich compendium of personal information and an extensive array of photographs, plans, and diagrams created especially for this book, Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer House offers a comprehensive exploration of a living work of art and an intimate portrait of the people who, having brought it into being, treasured its presence in their lives for half a century. Citing the particular synergies of architect and client, house and site, Hildebrand situates the heretofore little-known Palmer house within the context of Wright's overall oeuvre and presents a convincing argument for the inclusion of the Palmer house in the canon of the architect's finest residential designs.

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9780295986401

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Reviews

This is a book that offers a wide variety of perspectives; it has appeal on a personal level--the story of designing and building a particular house--and contributes to Frank Lloyd Wright scholarship. Hildebrand and Eaton are two of the leading Wright specialists in the United States. -Richard Guy Wilson, University of Virginia A book that will delight all lovers of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer House provides a rare example of sympathetic in-depth analysis of an important building from the highly personal position of both client and historian. -Jennifer Taylor, Queensland University of Technology

Hildebrand, an authority on Wright's use of space, contributes an astute, absorbing analysis of the design and construction of the house. This is a study of a series of fortuitous relationships: of Mary and Billy Palmer, of an architect and his clients, and of writers who have seamlessly and gracefully joined their disparate interests..Highly recommended. Choice The Palmer book-like the Palmers themselves-will appeal to intellectually inclined readers who are interested in the ideas behind Wright's cypress board and batten walls. Hildebrand discusses the design in terms of music, fractal geometry, light and space, and shows the Palmers' love of gardening (especially Japanese gardens), which added depth and texture to the overall experience of the house. CAA Reviews

Author Information

Grant Hildebrand is a University of Washington professor emeritus of architecture and art history and author of The Wright Space: Pattern and Meaning in Frank Lloyd Wright's Houses. He is a recipient of the Washington Governor's Writers Award, for work of literary merit and lasting value. Leonard K. Eaton is a University of Michigan professor emeritus of architecture and author of Two Chicago Architects and Their Clients: Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard van Doren Shaw. He and his wife, Ann Eaton, now live on the Oregon coast.

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