Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait

Toker, Franklin

History

Pennsylvania State University Press

Fallingwater Rising is a biography not of a person but of the most famous house of the twentieth century. Scholars and the public have long extolled the house that Frank Lloyd Wright perched over a Pennsylvania waterfall in 1937, but the full story has never been told. When he got the commission to design the house, Wright was nearing seventy, his youth and his early fame long gone. It was the Depression, and Wright had no work in sight. Into his orbit stepped Edgar J. Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department-store mogul–“the smartest retailer in America”–and a philanthropist with the burning ambition to build a world-famous work of architecture. It was an unlikely collaboration: the Jewish merchant who had little concern for modern architecture and the brilliant modernist who was leery of Jews. But the two men collaborated to produce an extraordinary building of lasting architectural significance that brought international fame to them both and confirmed Wright’s position as the greatest architect of the twentieth century. Fallingwater Rising is also an enthralling family drama, involving Kaufmann, his beautiful cousin/wife, Liliane, and their son, Edgar Jr., whose own role in the creation of Fallingwater and its ongoing reputation is central to the story. Involving such key figures of the l930s as Frida Kahlo, Albert Einstein, Henry R. Luce, William Randolph Hearst, Ayn Rand, and Franklin Roosevelt, Fallingwater Rising shows us how E. J. Kaufmann’s house became not just Wright’s masterpiece but a fundamental icon of American life. One of the pleasures of the book is its rich evocation of the upper-crust society of Pittsburgh–Carnegie, Frick, the Mellons–a society that was socially reactionary but luxury-loving and baronial in its tastes, hobbies, and sexual attitudes (Kaufmann had so many mistresses that his store issued them distinctive charge plates they could use without paying). Franklin Toker has been studying Fallingwater for eighteen years. No one but he could have given us this compelling saga of the most famous private house in the world and the dramatic personal story of the fascinating people who made and used it. A major contribution to both architectural and social history.

Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House

Humor & Entertainment

KNOPF

The Church of Notre-Dame in Montreal;: An architectural history

Arts & Photography

Architecture

McGill-Queen's University Press

In the extensive new preface, Toker examines the approach he took in writing The Church of Notre-Dame in Montreal and reflects on the implications of what has been discovered since the book was first published in 1970.

The Church of Notre Dame in Montreal: An Architectural History

Americas

Buildings of Pittsburgh (Buildings of the United States)

At the forefront of national and international change, Pittsburgh has long been portrayed as a place for innovative architecture. From its origins as a fort built in 1753 at the urging of a twenty-one-year-old George Washington, through its industrial boom, and into contemporary times, when it has become a pioneer for the ideals and philosophy of environmentally friendly architecture, the city has a history of development that exemplifies the transformative nature of America’s built environment. With The Buildings of Pittsburgh, we now have a substantive reference book (organized by area, with subsets of geographical entries) that relates the architectural history of this ever-changing city up to the present day.
 Franklin Toker examines Pittsburgh’s architectural transformations from its early architecture following the Federal and Gothic Revival styles, to the city’s importation in the mid-nineteenth century of new styles in the Romantic tradition, to industrial Pittsburgh with all its factories and huge institutional buildings, and finally to the city’s environmentally conscious renaissance that began in the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he shows why Pittsburgh has consistently been rated among the top three American cities for buildings by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and how the city once famous for embracing industry and pollution is now preaching the gospel of clean air and "green" architecture.

Center for American Places

At the forefront of national and international change, Pittsburgh has long been portrayed as a place for innovative architecture. From its origins as a fort built in 1753 at the urging of a twenty-one-year-old George Washington, through its industrial boom, and into contemporary times, when it has become a pioneer for the ideals and philosophy of environmentally friendly architecture, the city has a history of development that exemplifies the transformative nature of America’s built environment. With The Buildings of Pittsburgh, we now have a substantive reference book (organized by area, with subsets of geographical entries) that relates the architectural history of this ever-changing city up to the present day. Franklin Toker examines Pittsburgh’s architectural transformations from its early architecture following the Federal and Gothic Revival styles, to the city’s importation in the mid-nineteenth century of new styles in the Romantic tradition, to industrial Pittsburgh with all its factories and huge institutional buildings, and finally to the city’s environmentally conscious renaissance that began in the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he shows why Pittsburgh has consistently been rated among the top three American cities for buildings by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and how the city once famous for embracing industry and pollution is now preaching the gospel of clean air and "green" architecture.

From its founding in 1758, Pittsburgh has experienced several epic transformations. It began its existence as a fortress, on a site originally selected by George Washington. A hundred years later, and well into our own time, no other American city was as intensively industrialized, only to be later consigned to “rustbelt” status. Remade as a thriving twenty-first-century city and an international center for science, medicine, biotechnology, and financial services, Pittsburgh is now routinely acclaimed as one of the most promising and livable of America's cities. Franklin Toker shows us why. Toker highlights this remarkable story of urban reinvention by focusing on what makes Pittsburgh so resilient and appealing - its strong neighborhoods and their surprisingly rich architectural history. The many unique, lively urban communities that make up Pittsburgh are a treasure trove of every imaginable style of structure, from Victorian to Bauhaus, Gothic to Art Deco, and from Industrial to Green. These ordinary homes expressed the aspirations of people who came from around the world to settle in Pittsburgh, while they built the city itself into an economic powerhouse. With the wealth generated by this everyday work, local captains of industry could build their own monumental additions to Pittsburgh's urban landscape, including two of America's greatest buildings: H. H. Richardson's Allegheny Courthouse and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. With accessible prose, Toker examines Pittsburgh in its historical context (from Indian settlement to postmodern city), in its regional setting (from the playgrounds of the Laurel Highlands to the hard-working mill towns dotting the landscape), and from the street level (leading the reader on a personal tour through every neighborhood). Lavishly illustrated with photos and maps, Pittsburgh: A New Portrait reveals the true colors of a truly great American city.

Pittsburgh A New Portrait (Regional)

University of Pittsburgh Press

Regional history study of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait (Regional)

Travel

United States

The cathedral or Duomo of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence ranks with the Parthenon in Athens, the Pantheon in Rome, Istanbul's Hagia Sofia, Chartres cathedral, St. Peter's, the Eiffel Tower, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater as the most influential buildings of western architecture. Fitting to their status as modern masterpieces, the Eiffel Tower and Fallingwater were built on sites where nothing had stood before; but the Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance masterpieces on the list all stand over predecessor structures that greatly influenced their shape and function. We are well informed about the predecessor structures for each key building except--until recently--the Florence Duomo. A basilica dedicated to St. Reparata supposedly lay in ruins below S. Maria del Fiore, and the adjoining Baptistery was allegedly reworked from a Roman temple to Mars, but without archaeological excavations or a detailed study of literary sources, little sense could be made of those traditions. That uncertainty changed with the Florence Duomo excavations of 1965-1980 and the ensuing analysis of its structures, artifacts, and surviving texts.The Florence Duomo Project is a study of everything that preceded, and still lies beneath, S. Maria del Fiore and its Baptistery. These four volumes interweave church liturgy, field archaeology, art history, and social and political history to give the Florence Duomo (and, in some cases, early medieval Florence itself) the context that until now it lacked. This second volume, Archaeological Campaigns below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895-1980, gives order to the virtual encyclopedia of medieval art and architecture found below both buildings: mosaics, frescoes, tomb sculptures, armor, ceramics, the extensive layouts of a Roman house and an Early Christian basilica and its Carolingian and Romanesque rebuildings.

Archaeological Campaigns below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895-1980 (Florence Duomo Project)

History & Criticism

Brepols Publishers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Toker, Franklin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Toker, Franklin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Toker, Franklin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait

Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House

The Church of Notre-Dame in Montreal;: An architectural history

The Church of Notre Dame in Montreal: An Architectural History

Buildings of Pittsburgh (Buildings of the United States)

Buildings of Pittsburgh (Buildings of the United States)

Pittsburgh A New Portrait (Regional)

Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait (Regional)

Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House

Archaeological Campaigns below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895-1980 (Florence Duomo Project)