The Tender Detail: Ornament and Sentimentality in the Architecture of Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright
Ebook
Ebooks are designed for reading and have few connections to your library.
Overview
The Tender Detail tells a story about the repression of sentimentality through architectural ornament. The protagonists are Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, two of the most important architects and designers of ornament in American history.
Interweaving close readings of their architecture and writings with wide-ranging discussions about sexuality, gender, and philosophy, the book explores how both men worked to solve the problem of late nineteenth-century ornamentation. It suggests that their solutions, while widely different, were both intimately rooted in the tender emotions of sentimentality. Viewing ornament in this way reveals much, not only about Sullivan and Wright’s artistic intentions, but also about the role of affect, the value of beauty, and the agency and ontology of objects.
Illuminated by personal stories from their respective autobiographies, which add a level of human interest unusual in an academic work, The Tender Detail is a readable, scholarly study which sheds fresh light on Sullivan and Wright’s relationship, their work, and on the nature of ornament itself.
Examining Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright’s solutions to the problem of an ornament.
An architectural history of two of America’s most famous architects
Reflects increased contemporary interest in ornament, both as a concept and as a practical matter for designers
Enlivened by personal stories from Sullivan and Wright’s autobiographies, which bolster the argument as well as add a human interest unusual in an academic book
Addresses Sullivan and Wright’s friendship, and also looks at matters of gender and sexuality
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 Introduction: Frank Lloyd Wright, “sentimentalizing over the dead”
Part One: Louis H. Sullivan
2 “the plastic decorations are distinctly architectural in conception”
3 “that object he became”
4 “feminity”
Part Two: Frank Lloyd Wright
5 “no damned sentimentality either”
6 “Integral Ornament at Last”
7 “‘like a man’”
Part Three: Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright
8 “that supreme erotic adventure of the mind”
9 Ornament “purely as such”
10 Epilogue: “when we are dead”
Bibliography
Index
My first thought was that it is impossible to say anything new about Sullivan and Wright. I was wrong: the book is original, creative and a pleasure to read. There is no doubt in my mind that it moves the conversation forward - on a number of major topics - in significant ways.
Snyder writes in such an illuminating, often moving way about, not just Sullivan and Wright, or ornament and architecture, but the human condition… A very personal, moving and illuminating book.
- Title: The Tender Detail: Ornament and Sentimentality in the Architecture of Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright
- Author: Daniel E. Snyder
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 304
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350099630, 9781350236714, 1350236713, 1350099635
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350099630
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T12:09:47Z
Daniel Snyder is an independent scholar and Principal in Daniel E. Snyder Architect, P.C.