Even if you don’t have a clue about architecture, you know the name Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright: Complete Works, Vol. 1, 1885-1916 ($126) is the start of an upcoming three-volume study on Wright’s roughly 1100 designs, only about half of which ever came to fruition. Done in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Archives and written by Wright’s apprentice, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, this first volume covers the start of his career in Chicago and his perfection of the so-called “prairie house”. Standouts he developed during this period include the Larkin Soap Company and the Avery Coonley residence (shown on the cover). This first volume also ends just after the 1914 axe murdering spree by Wright’s servant that resulted in the deaths of seven people and the first burning of Wright’s Taliesin studios. Of course if reading isn’t your thing, you can always channel his brilliance through Legos.
