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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spectacular Photographs and Essays of Brilliant Glass Use!, 9 May 2004
This book deserves more than five stars for overall excellence and its ability to extend your appreciation of how glass can improve our ability to enjoy public buildings and homes. The photographs and essays could not have been better, more in point, or easy to understand.If you are like me, you feel that Frank Lloyd Wright's use of glass was one of his most distinctive and attractive features. He employed glass to create a "quality of repose" by diffusing light, and using "window curtains" to separate spaces without denying light by employing patterns in the glass. In doing this, he wanted to create a "vista without, vista within." For many of his urban homes (especially those in Oak Park, Illinois), there was no opportunity to have much of a vista without. In those circumstances, he emphasized creating internal vistas, and using access to the sky through skylights and elevated windows for the external ones. In the S.C. Johnson Administrative Building, he relied on pyrex glass to let the light enter while providing structural support. The geometric shapes (often in color) on his art glass also added eye appeal. The book contains many wonderful designs such as his famous tree of life and of hollyhocks. Glass was also an integral part of his lighting fixtures, which often evoke Japanese lanterns. The bulk of Mr. Wright's buildings are in private hands, which you cannot visit very easily to see the insides. So much of the beautiful use of glass is hidden except in the external windows viewable from ground level. This book is a remarkable resource to overcome that handicap. If you are like me, you will come away especially impressed with the Dana-Thomas house glass in Springfield, Illinois. The book is superb for beautifully displaying and exploring these many dimensions of Mr. Wright's use of glass. After you finish enjoying this volume, I suggest that you think about how you could use some of Mr. Wright's ideas to make where you live more filled with vistas and repose. For example, can you use cellophane and constuction paper to create art glass effects when placed atop windows? See the light in more beautiful ways!
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