Loving Frank - read Chapter One online at the New York Times

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I haven't yet received my copy of the hot new book Loving Frank, so I was thrilled to find out that I can read Chapter One online at the New York Times.

In case you've been out of the loop, Loving Frank (compare prices) is Nancy Horan's controversial new novel that tells the mostly true story of Frank Lloyd Wright's love life.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about Wright's affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. But if Horan's novel can help explain Wright's genuis, it's worth a read. Especially when the read is free.

"Modern ornamentation is a burlesque of the beautiful, as pitiful as it is costly." Frank Lloyd Wright's voice echoed through the cavernous hall. Mamah craned her neck, trying to see around and above the hats in front of her that bobbed like cakes on platters. Impulsively, she stuffed her coat beneath her bottom to get a better view.
"The measure of a man's culture is the measure of his appreciation," he said. "We are ourselves what we appreciate and no more."
She could see that there was something different about him. His hair was shorter. Had he lost weight? She studied the narrow belted waist of his Norfolk jacket. No, he looked healthy, as always. His eyes were merry in his grave, boyish face.
"We are living today encrusted with dead things," he was saying, "forms from which the soul is gone. And we are devoted to them, trying to get joy out of them, trying to believe them still potent."
Frank stepped down from the platform and stood close to the front row. His hands were open and moving now, his voice so gentle he might have been speaking to a crowd of children. She knew the message so well. He had spoken nearly the same words to her when she first met him at his studio. Ornament is not about prettifying the outside of something, he was saying. It should possess "fitness, proportion, harmony, the result of all of which is repose." (...)

Fonte: AboutArchitecture and The New York Times