Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: American Architecture in the Depression Era

New Deal Book Award 2022 Honourable Mention

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater explores the relationship between the economic tumult in the United States in the 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the construction of his most famous house, Fallingwater.

The book reinterprets the history of this iconic building, recognizing it as a Depression-era monument that stands as a testimony to what an American architect could achieve with the right site, client, and circumstance, even in desperate economic circumstances. Using newly available resources, author Catherine W. Zipf examines Wright’s work before and after Fallingwater to show how it was influenced by the economic climate, public architectural projects of the Great Depression, and America’s changing relationship with Modernist style and technology.

Including over 50 black-and-white images, this book will be of great interest to students, historians, and researchers of art, architecture, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Catherine W. Zipf, PhD, is an award winning architectural historian and author of Professional Pursuits: Women and the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Her research examines the history of race and gender in the built environment and has been supported by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. An active contributor to a range of print and online publications, Zipf is already at work on her third book, Making a Home of Her Own: Newport’s Architectural Patronesses, 1850-1940. She presently serves as the Executive Director of the Bristol Historical & Preservation Society.