This house was purchased even though city inspectors thought it was beyond saving. This book tells the story of the building's design, construction, remodelling and restoration.

One of the architectural challenges for Frank Lloyd Wright was how to provide moderate-cost houses that were as good as expensive ones. His solution was the Usonian house--a term he coined for the United States of North America. With their horizontal floor-plans, open living spaces, walls of windows, carports, and patios, these houses became models for many houses that now cover the American landscape. Here are a dozen examples of Wright's Usonian house.

The author's boyhood home in Alabama, one of Wright's Usonian houses, is the point of departure for the narrative, which interweaves intriguing details of Ford's interest in setting up a planned community and, later, of the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the single most important regional development in the United States. Just as the Roosevelt administration was putting together its plans for TVA, Wright was imagining an American utopia - Broadacre City - where every family would be guaranteed a lush green acre of land.

"The mid-twentieth century was one of the most productive and inventive periods in Frank Lloyd Wright's career, producing such masterworks as the Guggenheim Museum, Price Tower, Fallingwater, the Usonian Houses, and the Lovness House, as well as a vast array of innovative furniture and object design. With a wide variety of shapes and forms-ranging from honeycombs to spirals-this period defies simplistic definition. Simplicity, democratic designs, and organic forms characterize Mid-Century Modern, and, mentoring such mid-century talents as Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler among others, Wright was one of its most influential proponents. Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-Century Modern is a comprehensive examination of an under-explored period in Wright's career, a time dating from roughly 1935 to 1958, during which this master architect was at his most daring and innovative."--Jacket