Frank Lloyd Wright; America's Greatest Architect

New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc, 1965. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Douglas Fuchs (Author photograph). The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.25 inches. 223, [1] pages. Illus. Notes. Index. DJ has some wear, soiling, small tears and chips. Stamp of previous owner (Mauro E. Mujica!) on fep. Mr. Mauro E. Mujica holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Architecture from Columbia University and studied architecture, art, and the Middle Ages at Cambridge University, England. Mr. Mujica is an international architect whose career spans 35 years. An accomplished businessman, Mr. Mujica is a partner and investor with company interests ranging from architecture to real estate, investment banking and the arts. Herbert A. Jacobs (April 8, 1903 - May 20, 1987) was a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal and later a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Jacobs was a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. Jacobs and his wife Katherine commissioned Wright to design a house for them. This house, the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, was notable as the first example of Usonian architecture. They commissioned Wright to design another house for them. Jacobs was present in Berkeley during the Berkeley riots. It was at this time that he devised a method for measuring crowd size, the Jacobs Method: Jacobs came up with some rules of thumb that still are used today for crowd estimation. A loose crowd, one where each person is an arm's length from the body of his or her nearest neighbors, needs 10 square feet per person. A more tightly packed crowd fills 4.5 square feet per person. A truly scary mob of mosh-pit density would get about 2.5 square feet per person. Derived from a Kirkus review: Frank Lloyd Wright had as spectacular and distinctive a flair for living as for designing buildings. He was almost ninety when he died but right up to the end he was able to produce daring, far-sighted plans; and for the greater part of his life his eccentric personality and unorthodox private life was a popular source of flashy newspaper copy. Wright as an architect and Wright as a man are discussed interchangeably here with no skimping of detail on either score. The author is a Wisconsin journalist who came into close contact with Wright when he commissioned the architect to build him a residence on a limited budget, a house which later became a widely copied model for functional, attractive, low-cost housing; he became a friend of Wright's and has written numerous articles about him. His judgments of Wright and of his work are almost entirely favorable, nevertheless the adverse criticism of his work has been noted, and there is frank recognition of his many wives and affairs. The book is always good reading. The fact that it spans Wright's entire life will make it more generally useful.