“Alofsin tells an exciting story, a cultural drama about power and intrigue, featuring Wright’s ambiguous love/hate relationship with New York City.”— Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
“…one of the small handful of essential books on Wright.” —The New Criterion
PURCHASE NOW. MAY 21, 2019 PUBLICATION DATE.
Wright and New York tells the story of how New York rescued Wright in the late 1920s and early 1930s from the doldrums of his career. In doing so it reveals much about Wright, his circle of friends and colleagues and the whirl of New York at the end of the Jazz Age. It also explores the way the city shaped him into becoming “America’s Architect” and led to him creating iconic structures, such as New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
“A watershed investigation of Wright’s life in the 1920s, when he landed, adrift, in New York. The city proved antagonistic, irresistibly so, and transformed him…”
—Judith Dupre, New York Times bestselling author of Skyscrapers
EDITORIAL REVIEWS:
“An enormously interesting and insightful account, meticulously researched, written in a lively, entertaining and accessible style, and with excellent illustrations. It covers the rest of Wright’s life and work as well, but New York City is at the heart of the book. Highly recommended.” Goodreads.
“Anthony Alofsin’s Wright and New York traces the transitive relationship of the architect and the city, as well as the genesis of the bohemian culture of the East Village."—Patti Smith, New York Times
“Meticulously researched, highly readable . . . Alofsin recounts this disastrous series of events in great detail before chronicling Wright’s gradual rebranding from pariah to hero, a long process that culminated in 1940 with a sweeping retrospective at MoMA.”—Fran Leadon, Gotham
“What makes Alofsin’s book so immensely valuable is its deep dive into the Wright archives held by Columbia University and the Museum of Modern Art. There is much in his book that was new to me. Best of all, Alofsin manages to present as fine-grained a picture of Wright’s times in New York (and in many other places) as we have ever had while never falling into the archive-diving biographer’s vice of long-windedness and needless discursiveness.”—Francis Morrone, New Criterion
“Of the many Wright biographies, Anthony Alofsin’s Wright and New York: The Making of America's Architect is unusual in focusing on the period in which the well-known, though not yet famous Midwesterner—broke, nearly broken, and vulnerable—started again from scratch[ . . . ] New York gave the architect opportunities that transformed a vulnerable, humbled figure into a Mount Rushmore-scale icon, an enduring American monument that Wright himself chiseled and shaped through his own prose.”—Joseph Giovannini, Interior Design Magazine
“Anthony Alofsin engagingly examines Frank Lloyd Wright’s previously unexplored relationship with New York City and the influence one had over the other. Illuminating an atmosphere of turbulent change and a burgeoning bohemian culture, this is the perfect book to read when navigating a city that seems, more than ever, a victim of heartless reconstruction.”—Patti Smith
“A watershed investigation of Wright’s life in the 1920s, when he landed, adrift, in New York. The city proved antagonistic, irresistibly so, and transformed him. Alofsin’s erudition, compelling prose, and first-rate detective work will alter how you perceive both Wright and Manhattan.”—Judith Dupré, New York Times bestselling author of Skyscrapers
"Alofsin chronicles the relationship between America’s greatest architect and its greatest city with the precision of a detective, the perspective of a historian, and the flair of a novelist."—Thomas Mellins, author of New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars
READER REVIEWS:
"…I rather devoured your book; the narrative was compelling, with just the right leavening of story. Its truly impressive quality, though, is shared in a way with the Yourcenar book: you balance an incredible grasp of the details, a burden, as it were, of true weight, with the demands of the chronology and the pleasure of a simple, smooth-moving tale. It doesn’t take much imagination to see you in the background holding the reins of a wild team of horses, keeping them all headed in the same direction, pulling the one chariot. It is an impressive sleight of hand, an alchemy really, turning stone into something so airy. Many congratulations on this achievement, a real tour de force.” Eddie Lewis, author, June 25, 2019.
“What an incredible read! Well researched and so interesting. Every facet of Wright's life is covered and the details of twentieth century New York are amazing! Wright and New York is filled with a stunning amount of wonderful, real photos. If you love architecture, history or are a New York buff-you are going to love every page of this book.” Laura Harrison. Goodreads (March. 2019). Tthe largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world with over 85 million members: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41962916-wright-and-new-yorkx