Coll Writings V 4fl Wright

Handsomely illustrated with photographs, architectural drawings and plans, this fourth volume of Wright's collected writings bristles with his prickly, opinionated views. The architect's outspoken pacifism and isolationism, voiced in repetitious, often strident essays, led him to stubbornly misperceive Hitler's Germany as a distant economic threat rather than as a totalitarian power bent on world domination. The years covered here saw Wright's dissemination of his utopian plan for Broadacre City, which embodied his dream for a decentralized, liberated society that would blend agrarian and urban pursuits without the wasteful consumerism which he saw as rampant in the American way of life. Also included are an extended autobiographical sketch; a highly personal tribute to his mentor, Louis Sullivan; a broadside aimed at then New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses, whose proposals for high-rise housing were anathema to Wright; and Wright's reflections on his design for Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum. Pfeiffer is director of archives for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., and author of Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks. (Jan.)