At Home on the Prairie: The Houses of Purcell & Elmslie

by Dixie Legler, Christian Korab, Christian Korab

Book Overview

The houses of William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmsliebuilt mainly in the Midwest and Northeastare the embodiment of the early 20th century marriage of fine craftsmanship and modern technology.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811850412
• ISBN13: 9780811850414
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA)
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 2.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.8" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Filling a Gap

This book helps to address the problem of a dearth of material on Prairie School architecture by anyone other than Frank Lloyd Wright. Not that Wright wasn't an important proponent of the school, but he was far from the only architect of this style. More needs to be done to document the works of the others such as Griffin, Mahoney, Tallmadge and Watson, and Purcell and Elmslie. This book does an admirable job of this in regards to the latter two architects and their brief but productive joint practice. The two produced a remarkable number of very liveable houses in the space of ten years, houses that are notable for the quality of detail often achieved on quite modest budgets. The book itself includes a brief history of the practice and then a description and pictures of a selection of many of the houses that they designed. The pictures are first rate. The descriptions, though necessarily brief, cover not only the construction and features of the house but some of their subsequent history as well. I found this book an important and welcome addition to my collection of books on the Prairie School.

A Step Leading towards Today's Homes

The partnership between Purcell and Elmslie lasted only about a dozen years (1909-1921). But during that time their firm was second only to Frank Lloyd Wright 's in the number of houses they designed. In addition, the work of Purcell and Elmslie, to me anyway, seems to have generated more features seen intoday's architecture than the houses of any other architect of the period. To be sure the Purcell & Elmslie lack the dramatic styling features of say 'Falling Water.' But then so does everything else. The Purcell & Elmslie features that I see today include the internal fireplace (dramatically designed), the wide use of windows, built in cabinets, open designs that lead from room to room, and more. This book is a beautifully photographed and printed review of some two dozen Purcell & Elmslie homes. Most of the homes included are of the prarie home style extremely common in the midwest, but in reality seen from coast to coast and Canada to Louisiana. It is a beautiful book. I can only ask that Korab and Legler consider another book on Purcell's later work when he moved to Portland, Oregon and designed houses the fit into a more urban setting.

NO WORDS COULD SAY

I am a child of a single parent home, and I am a single parent, I'm also amazingly enough a Youth Development Counselor, and I'll tell you!!!!!!! No words can explain how this books puts into perspective what life is like being a single parent. From children, to divorce, and even to a single parents health. Dealing with Crisis situations and recognizing signs of depression and hopelessness are all in this book. I can guarantee you, that by the time you read the second chapter, you will find some of yourself in this book.