Purcell & Elmslie: Prairie Progressive Architects

by Patricia Gebhard and David Gebhard

Purcell and Elmslie: Prairie Progressives explores the work of two important members of the organic architecture movement, and celebrates their tremendously important contributions to American... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1423600053
• ISBN13: 9781423600053
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.9" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

An Important History of two of the best Prairie Architects

Too little has been written about the members of the Prairie School other than Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Griffin, Marion Mahoney, John van Bergen and the subjects of this book, Purcell and Elmslie. This book remedies that by providing a history of their brief but productive joint practice. While, like most of the Prairie School, they were predominantly residential architects, this volume also deals with their commercial work, in particular the many small town banks that they designed. It does an admirable job of detailing the interplay between the two men, the sum of whose work together was so much greater than their solo work. In the ten or twelve years they worked together they produced some of the finest interiors of the Prairie School, and this book is an important contribution in keeping their work from being forgotten. The text is accompanied by many high quality photos. One minor quibble is that they are not more closely tied to the text. In a number of cases the text refers to details of a design that just begs for an illustration, but none is presented. Still, this is a minor flaw in a book that provides so much information.

A Different Slant On Prarie Architecture

Purcell & Elmslie Prarie: Progressive Architects is a superb collaboration by Patricia Gebhard compiling her deceased husband, David Gebhard's notes and information. The book gives a different slant on the Prarie style architecture that is generally associated with Frank Lloyd Wright. I personally feel that Purcell & Elmslie were much more aware than Wright that human beings had to live in and utilize their architecture. The book is profusely illustrated with many color and black and white photographs.