Architecture Book Club IV

The Paris Architect is a 2013 novel by American architect, writer and historian, Charles Belfoure, and the author’s debut in fiction writing. Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, it follows the story of French architect Lucien Bernard, who is paid to create temporary hiding places for Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris. The book reached The New York Times best seller list in July 2015.

When Philip Johnson died in 2005 at the age of 98, he was still one of the most recognisable – and influential – figures on the American cultural landscape. The first recipient of the Pritzker Prize and MoMA’s founding architectural curator, Johnson made his mark as one of America’s leading architects with his famous Glass House in New Caanan, CT, and his controversial AT&T Building in NYC, among many others in nearly every city in the country – but his most natural role was as a consummate power broker and shaper of public opinion. Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster’s The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson’s controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A rollercoaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful, and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.

Loving Frank is an American novel by Nancy Horan published in 2007. It tells the story of Mamah Borthwick and her illicit love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright amidst the public shame they experienced in early twentieth century America. This fictional account told from a new perspective, that of little known Mamah, is based on research conducted by first time novelist, Nancy Horan. It relates events in Mamah’s life as it became inextricably intertwined with that of Wright between the years of 1907 through 1914. By following the artistic aspirations and travels of the two main protagonists, the novel sheds light on the social mores of the times in the U.S. and Europe.