IN THE NATURE OF MATERIALS
THE BUILDINGS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT 1887-1941
Henry-Russell Hitchcock
[Frank Lloyd Wright] Henry-Russell Hitchcock: IN THE NATURE OF MATERIALS: THE BUILDINGS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT 1887-1941. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1942. Third printing. Oblong small thick quarto. Cherokee red cloth embossed and titled in silver. Printed dust jacket. 143 pp. 413 black and white photographs and illustrations. Two small examples of insect etching to jacket front [see scan], otherwise an impossibly well-preserved copy of this deluxe edition: a fine copy in a very good or better dust jacket. Rare in this condition.
8.75 x 8.75 hardcover book with 144 pages and 413 black and white illustrations of Wrights building and homes, interiors and exteriors, and blueprints, all finely printed on plates; chronological list of executed work and projects: 1887-1941; index. Freitag 13687; Lucas p.204; Karpel B1379: "This is one of the best books on Wright to date;" Sharp p. 142: "This book is still the best available on Wright from 1887 to 1941;" Sweeney 573: "Completed with the architect's supervision, and intended as a replacement for the never-published catalogue of the exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940;" Avery's Choice 415; "Remains the standard work on Wright's architecture."
An excellent illustrated study of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural works up to 1941, written by Hitchcock with his usual involvement and attention to detail. Hitchcock had at his disposal all the material from Wright’s office lent to the Wright exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1940, of which no catalogue was ever published.
Includes major works such at the Larkin Building, Unity Temple, Imperial Hotel, Midway Gardens, and dozens of important private houses. A key work in the history of 20th C. American architecture.
"In our country the chief obstacle to any real solution of the moderate-cost house-problem is the fact that our people do not really know how to live, imagining their idiosyncrasies to be their "tastes," their prejudices to be their predilections and their ignorance to be virtue where any beauty of living is concerned." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
From the New York Times, February 20, 1987 “HENRY-RUSSELL HITCHCOCK DEAD AT 83:” One of the country's most distinguished architectural historians and teachers, Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903 – 1987) wrote and co-wrote more than 20 books and innumerable articles, inspired generations of architectural scholars during decades of teaching and also helped shape the architectural sensibility of his time through many influential exhibitions. The most famous was the 1932 International Style show at the Museum of Modern Art, done with the architect Philip Johnson.
“His prolific scholarship made Mr. Hitchcock an institution in his own right, but he also worked, from his student days, at the center of the East Coast cultural establishment, whose institutions gave his work strategic prominence. At Harvard, in the 1920's, he was among a coterie of radical intellectuals who wrote for the student publication, Hound & Horn, which advocated modernism in the arts. His writing there set the stage for his work at the Museum of Modern Art, and later he went on to teach at Vassar College, Wesleyan University, Smith College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Harvard Universities, New York University Institute of Fine Arts and other institutions. He was director of the Smith College Museum of Art from 1949 to 1955.
''Of our generation, he was the leader of us all,'' said Mr. Johnson. ''He set a new standard of architectural scholarship and accuracy of judgment. In my opinion, the standard has yet to be equaled.''
“During more than five decades as an architectural historian, he wrote books that became standard references. ''They are the armature within which many other scholars work,'' said Helen Searing, the architectural historian who, in 1982, organized a festschrift of architectural writing, presented as a tribute by other historians to Mr. Hitchcock.
“While still in his 20's, Mr. Hitchcock wrote a classic work on modernism, ''Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration.'' This was followed by ''The International Style,'' done with Mr. Johnson in 1932, and the ''The Architecture of H. H. Richardson'' (1936). He also wrote ''In the Nature of Materials, the Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright'' (1942), ''Painting Toward Architecture'' (1948), ''Early Victorian Architecture in Britain'' (1954), and ''Architecture: 19th and 20th Centuries'' (1958), among many others.
“His writings at Harvard and later at the Museum of Modern Art helped introduce architectural modernism to the United States as a style rather than as a technical, functional or sociological way of building (as modernism was then being espoused in Europe). His scholarship always reflected the conviction that architecture is an art, and that architectural history proceeds ''genealogically'' through a succession of major and minor masters who directly influence one another.
“Mr. Hitchcock argued that the individual shaped architecture more than broad social forces, and he focused on esthetic and formal aspects of buildings rather than on their political, economic and social context. He mixed academic interpretation of architectural history with criticism.
“Writing for the Hound & Horn -which also attracted Lincoln Kirstein, Alfred Barr, Virgil Thompson, T. S. Eliot, John Walker, Philip Johnson and others who would become apostles of modernism - he coined the term International Style, according to Ms. Searing, the architectural historian.
“While he first actively proselytized for modern architecture, he went on in the 1930's to assume a more detached role as a historian, exploring the architecture of other eras, sometimes as an academic pioneer. His research ranged from medieval architecture through the Renaissance to Frank Lloyd Wright to the modernist period. His work on Victorian architecture rehabilitated a largely discredited style. When he wrote on the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, he not only understood the modernist aspects but also underscored the vernacular influence on the Finnish master.
“But by temperament Mr. Hitchcock was, and remained, an adherent of the avant-garde. He wrote reviews of Proust and Virginia Woolf; he was instrumental in arranging the first performance of Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein's opera, ''Four Saints in Three Acts,'' at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.
“Former students say that, during his teaching career, Mr. Hitchcock always showed great generosity, consistently sharing his scholarship with them (many of his students became his close friends). He was known also for his good memory. Once during a lecture, for example, when a slide failed to drop into a carousel, he simply continued his lecture, describing the next building in vivid detail. He especially appreciated buildings for their physical presence, and made a point of writing only about buildings he had seen. Though he was a voracious traveler, that attitude did force him to limit the selection and diversity of buildings in, for instance, ''The International Style'' (he later said that the portrayal of modern architecture in the show and book was ''monolithic''). While he had a scholarly love of detail, reviewers sometimes criticized him for being unwilling to generalize too much, and for failing to place works within a larger historical framework. He had a charming penchant for turning proper names into stylistic adjectives - Soanian, Puginian, Schinkelesque, LeDolcian.” [Joseph Giovannini]