Jack Quinan

The first exhaustive survey of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture in Buffalo, New York, as well as projects the architect conceived while in Buffalo for other locales, as clients moved, expanded their domestic vision to summer homes, or took on farflung projects. Includes over 125 photographs and architectural plans and drawings.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building has become an icon of modern architecture. And the fact that it was demolished only forty-six years after its 1904 completion makes Jack Quinan's study of the building - which housed a Buffalo, New York, soap company - all the more valuable. Quinan's history draws on engineering documents, personal accounts of the building, and other papers he acquired from the family of Darwin D. Martin, a Larkin executive who proposed commissioning Wright to design the company's offices. With access to these rare sources, Quinan reveals how a young Wright landed the commission and traces the evolution of his cutting-edge plans. Quinan then takes Wright studies to a new level, examining the Larkin Building as a structure at the center of economic and personal relationships. Illustrated with over one hundred photographs, floor plans, maps, and diagrams, "Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building" provides a concise but complete record of how the building was conceived, built, evaluated, and finally demolished in what has been called a tragic loss for American architecture.