{"id":131,"date":"2021-05-11T14:06:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T14:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hughhoward.com\/?page_id=131"},"modified":"2023-04-05T16:20:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T16:20:46","slug":"books","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/books\/","title":{"rendered":"An Architectural Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Architects of an American Landscape<\/em> is the third volume of an accidental trilogy. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The United States has seen three great architectural avatars. In the Federal era, Thomas Jefferson, tastemaker and amateur designer, made classicism our default national style for public buildings. In the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright shaped an \u201corganic architecture\u201d as he become our best remembered architect. Located chronologically between the other two, Henry Hobson Richardson completed the triumvirate, a man with less name recognition yet one whom architectural historians regard as America\u2019s most important architectural form-giver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson <\/em>(Bloomsbury, 2006), I revisited the life and work of Jefferson.<\/em> Though he was remembered as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and our third resident, Jefferson\u2019s contribution to architecture had been forgotten when a young scholar, Fiske Kimball (1888-1955), found a large cache of architectural renderings. Kimball\u2019s book Thomas Jefferson Architect <\/em>(1916) reestablished the Virginian\u2019s essential place in the history of American building. \u201cHoward argues convincingly that Kimball and Jefferson were the Boswell and Johnson of American architecture. Their conversation managed to leap over two centuries of separation and establish, for the first time, the origins of an indigenous American architectural style. And speaking of style, this book truly has it.\u201d<\/em>\u2014 Joseph J. Ellis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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In Architecture\u2019s Odd Couple <\/em>(Bloomsbury, 2016), I recounted the often-at-odds relationship of Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson. Between their first meeting in 1931 and Wright\u2019s death in April 1959, the two men were positive and negative charges that gave American architecture its compass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArchitecture\u2019s Odd Couple is a book that is distinguished by clarity, narrative energy and evocative description. Architecture\u2019s Odd Couple . . . is an appealing primer in 20th-century American architecture, with myriad insights into the vanity and interpersonal politics of the two men who dominated American architecture for a century.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2014 Philip Kennicott, Washington Post<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHugh Howard\u2019s nimble narrative . . .  is about the on-again off-again relationship between Wright and Philip Johnson, a pairing that a novelist couldn\u2019t have improved upon. \u2026 Howard moves fluidly from Wright to Johnson and back in chapters that alternate between key moments of intersection between the two men and their major works. \u2026 Howard\u2019s epilogue, \u201cA Friendly Wrangle,\u201d is a thoughtful and touching account of the denouement between the two men and a fitting conclusion to a lively and insightful chapter of American architectural history.\u201d <\/em>\u2014 Jack Quinan, Buffalo News<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Architects of an American Landscape is the third volume of an accidental trilogy. The United States has seen three great architectural avatars. In the Federal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-131","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughhoward.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}