Tag Archives: william allin storrer

New Books for Winter Reading

First, I would like to call attention to William Allin Storrer’s two new books on Frank Lloyd Wright that just arrived – Frank Lloyd Wright: Creating American Architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright: Designing Democratic America. Storrer notes in both works, “It is, too, a personal memoir and distillation of what my 66 years ‘with Frank Lloyd Wright’ has come to mean to me” (Designing Democratic America, IV; Creating American Architecture, III). Each work focuses on domestic architecture – Creating American Architecture specifically on Wright’s Prairie architecture and Designing Democratic America on his Usonian designs.

Storrer, William Allin. Frank Lloyd Wright: Creating American Architecture. With D. Dominique Watts and Rich Johnson. Traverse City, MI: WineWright Media, 2015. Storrer, William Allin. Frank Lloyd Wright Designing Democratic America. Traverse City, MI: WineWright Media, 2015.

The other two books I selected to share pertain to cities – Chicago and Florence, though they will be of interest to  historians, architects, and urban planners.

Betancur, John J. and Janet L. Smith. Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016.

betancurBetancur and Smith examine Chicago as a case study for understanding the history and future of neighborhoods. They write:

We argue that current theories – the tools used by academics and policy makers to explain how and why neighborhoods change – limit our ability to interpret what is actually happening while at the same time advancing in a veiled form a specific position or point of view and mandate. In particular, long-standing assumptions about what a neighborhood is and its importance in our lives rely on an image from the past that never existed and ignores or hides the realities on the ground. (pg. vii)

Atkinson, Niall. The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 2016.

I am particularly excited about Niall Atkinson’s book on Renaissance Florence.  While I was not anticipating his work, I find medieval and Renaissance Florence incredibly engaging and it is always one of my favorite sections to teach. I am curious how The Noisy Renaissance will either act as a companion piece to Marvin Trachtenberg’s Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence by enhancing our understanding of Renaissance Florence or perhaps challenge Trachtenberg’s interpretation of the city experience. Atkinson writes:

The Renaissance city was by no means a quiet place. In a variety of ways atkinsonit spoke directly to its inhabitants, who, irresistibly, were drawn to speak back. With its buildings and spaces, walls and gates, doors and windows, it facilitated and obstructed the flow of information, the dissemination of official messages, the telling of stories, the performance of music, the rhythm of prayer, the trade in secrets, and the low-frequency murmur of rumors, lies, and gossip. The built environment was not a stage upon which a discordant urban drama played out, but the very medium that gave that drama form, shaped its meaning, and modulated its towns. The city expressed the most compelling aspects of its design when people danced on its surfaces, crowded its spaces, poked holes in its walls, and upended its hierarchical organizations. And it is through these exchanges that we can learn a great deal not only about how contemporaries understand the buildings and spaces that surrounded them, but how they participated in a collective dialogue that continually reinforced, undermined, and reconfigured architectural meaning (pg. 4).

William A. Storrer collection donated to the University of Texas at Austin

Storr
William Allin Storrer at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. William A. Storrer Collection.

Noted Frank Lloyd Wright scholar, Dr. William Allin Storrer, has donated his manuscript, research and reference archive to the University of Texas at Austin Libraries. The collection consists of photographic prints, negatives, slides, drawings, papers, books and periodicals that led to his groundbreaking publications: The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: a Complete CatalogThe Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: a Guide to Extant Structures; and The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. Storrer chose the University of Texas at Austin because of its School of Architecture’s “focus on organic and environmentally viable architecture and because of the presence of Wright scholars Anthony Alofsin and Richard Cleary among its faculty.”

The Storrer Collection joins nearly one hundred other archival collections consisting of more than a quarter of a million drawings and thousands of photographs and related materials in the Alexander Architectural Archive and more than 88,000 volumes in the Architecture and Planning Library.

Marin County Hall of Justice
Frank Lloyd Wright. Marin County Hall of Justice, San Rafael, CA (S.417). William A. Storrer Collection.

Storrer produced the first comprehensive catalog, along with a definitive numbering system, of Wright’s nearly 500 built works. The 3rd edition of the Catalog identifies in photo or drawing every extant constructed project. It also incorporates the maps and directions from his earlier Guide (1991). Storrer’s Companion (1993) provides an additional textual component, plans, and photographs, as well as new documentation on nearly 100 properties that have been destroyed. The range of this documentation makes his publications essential tools for all Wright scholars.

“The Storrer Collection represents the most comprehensive documentation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s built work that has ever been assembled outside Wright’s own archive,” states Alofsin. “It will provide generations of scholars with an incomparable foundation upon which to base future Wright research and study. Having the Storrer collection in the Alexander Architectural Archive confirms the University of Texas at Austin as the primary location for advanced scholarly research on Wright, America’s best known architect and a major cultural figure of the twentieth century.”

interior of residence
Frank Lloyd Wright. Interior of the John Storrer residence, Hollywood, CA (S.215). William A. Storrer Collection.

“Dr. Storrer’s generous contribution marks a significant opportunity for the School of Architecture,” emphasizes Dean Fritz Steiner. “With Storrer’s appointment as Adjunct Professor of Architecture, the University of Texas at Austin now offers graduate students seeking to pursue advanced scholarship on Frank Lloyd Wright unparalleled expertise and a range and depth of archival materials found at no other institution of higher education.”

Once processed and cataloged, the Storrer collection will be available by appointment within the Alexander Architectural Archive.