Kaufmann

1955 · ref. 79356 — New York NY: Bramhall House 1955. First Printing Stated. Hardcover. Good. 269 5 pages. Oversized volume measuring 12-1/2 inches by 9 inches. Includes 262 black and white illustrations of works by Frank Lloyd Wright. Cover has some soiling and fading. Some page discoloration and spotting. Topics covered include Organic Structure in Nature Creativity The Place of the Machine in Architecture Architecture is Poetry The Law of Change Earth-line and Human scale The Architect's Limitations Case Histories including The Larkin Building Unity Temple Taliesin The Small House Where Principle is Put to Work There Will Always Be Style and the Future of Organic Architecture. Also includes Source List Acknowledgments and Photographers' Credits. This work was edited by the son of the man who commissioned perhaps Wright's greatest architectural masterpiece--Falling Water Edgar Kaufmann Jr. April 9 1910 - July 31 1989 was an American architect lecturer author and an adjunct professor of architecture and art history at Columbia University. Kaufmann Jr. attended the School for Arts and Crafts at the Austrian Museum of Applied Art in Vienna in the late 1920s. He studied painting and typography for three years with Victor Hammer in Florence. After reading Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography Kaufmann decided to become a resident apprentice in architecture at Wright's Taliesin East School and Studio from 1933 to 1934. When he left Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in 1935 he joined the family business and became merchandise manager for home furnishings and in 1938 was elected secretary of the Kaufmann Department Stores Inc.5 In 1940 Edgar wrote to Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art proposing the Organic Design in Home Furnishings Competition won by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. That same year he left Kaufmann's to join the Museum of Modern Art. He served with the Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946 during World War II. Afterwards he was director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art MOMA in New York City. Edgar's greatest accomplishment during his tenure at MOMA was the 'Good Design' program of 1950 to 1955 in which the museum joined with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago promoting good design in household objects and furnishings. From 1963 to 1986 Kaufmann was an adjunct professor of Architecture and Art History at Columbia University. He authored several books on Wright architecture and modern designand was a contributor to Arts Architecture journal and Encyclopedia Britannica. Bramhall House hardcover