Frank Lloyd Wright: Designing Democratic AmericaFrom his earliest days, Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to be an architect. More than that, he wanted to create a truly Democratic American Architecture.He achieved half of that goal in his Prairie designs. But only half. To Wright, Prairie was, ultimately, a failure. Why? Because it catered to the rich, and was unaffordable to the middle-class American.In 1909 Wright decamped to Europe and wrote his homage to, and epitaph for, the Prairie School, his Wasmuth Portfolio. Upon returning to American he set out to create the Democratic element necessary to the fulfilling of his dream of a Democratic and American Architecture.This book is about that ascension from Prairie to Usonian, his Democratic American architecture, and its fulfillment. It draws heavily upon the reference standard, The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion but, in arranging the materials around design themes, makes what in the Companion is often technical, here open to the neophyte. Yet, in its approach to Wright's source of creativity, it offers new insights to the best-read Wrightian.There are further delights in the graphics of the book. The plans from the Companion are here reoriented so that north is always at the top, making for easy comprehension of Wright's use of the sun by even those who previously blanched at trying to read a plan. The appendix with same-size plans of all Usonian houses and selected earlier work should be a revelation to all readers.Most revelatory should be how Wright's source of inspiration for his Usonian designs derived from his use of geometric abstraction in his Prairie years.1. Designing Democratic America is the first study to state and prove the SOURCE of Wright's inspiration for his residential designs; abstraction. First in geometry in the Prairie era, then from the site itself in the Usonian era. The proof of this is in Wright's statement to Milton Stricker, one of whose chapters in his own book (never published, but which I edited and formatted) is presented in this book.2. Designing Democratic America is the ONLY study to offer the entire Usonian era residential work in full color and with plans.3. The plans are oriented with north always at the top. Even those with no knowledge of architectural drawing practices can quickly recognize how the sun falls on the building. 4. This book is the first to include the entire Usonian opus in logical design groupings (Storrer's Frank Lloyd Wright Companion was the first to include all of Usonia with plans, but was nominally chronological) by plan topology. No other book on Usonia covers even half of the Usonian opus.5. This book is the first to show all of Wright's Usonian built designs to a common scale for easy comparison. Also, there are many pre-Usonian works that are included at the same scale for further comparative investigation. To my knowledge, , this common-scale presentation has never been done before for any major architect's work.