Elizabeth Scheu Close: A Life in Modern Architecture
Elizabeth "Lisl" Scheu Close (1912-2011) was a pioneering woman architect in Minnesota--and one of the first modern architects to practice in the state. She was the first woman to receive AIA Minnesota's Gold Medal for her significant body of work.
Born in Vienna, Austria, Lisl was raised in a striking modern house designed for her parents by architect Adolf Loos. The experience of growing up in the house--and exchanges with the many international visitors who frequented it--led to her determination to pursue a career in architecture at a time when few women were able to do so. Forced to leave Austria during Hitler's rise to power, Lisl continued her architectural education at MIT.
She moved to Minnesota in 1936, where, with her husband Winston, she established the first practice in the state dedicated to modern design. Over the course of her long career, she designed more than 250 buildings and residences.
Through her talent, resilience, and hard work, Lisl overcame any obstacle that stood between her and her architectural aspirations. As a successful woman in the field of architecture, she was an inspiration for generations of women to follow.
University of MInnesota Press, 2020
Awards
Winner, Modernism in America Award of Excellence, 2024
Docomomo US
Winner, David Stanley Gebhard Award, 2022
Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians
Finalist, Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, 2021
Minnesota Book Awards
John H. Howe, Architect
In 1932, nineteen-year-old John H. Howe arrived at Taliesin as a charter member of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship. He would remain there for the next thirty-two years, earning a reputation as "the pencil in Wright's hand" before establishing his own architectural practice in Minnesota.
This is the first book to tell Howe's story and also the first full account of his place in the history of modern architecture––as chief draftsman and valued interpreter of Wright's designs and as a prolific architect in his own right. The book is illustrated throughout with Howe's sublime drawings.
Co-authored with Tim Quigley
University of Minnesota Press 2015
Awards
Finalist, General Non-Fiction, 2016
Minnesota Book Awards
Honorable Mention, David Stanley Gebhard Award, 2016
Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians
The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park
For more than a decade, Ruth and Russell Kraus focused all their time and energy on one shard goal: To build and live in the house designed for them by Frank Lloyd Wright in Kirkwood, Missouri. The Kraus House, now known as the Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park (FLWHEP), is a finely crafted example of Wright's vision for the postwar Usonian House.
Just as the Krauses originally labored to build the house, years later, a non-profit struggled to save it and restore it to its original condition. Today, the FLWHEP is a house museum recognized locally, nationally, and internationally for the quality of its design and restoration--and a testament to the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park and Pomegranate Communications 2015
Wright on the Park Documentary
When it opened in 1910, Frank Lloyd Wright's City National Bank and Hotel was the architectural pride of Mason City, Iowa. Yet, less than sixteen years later it had begun a long, slow decline to near ruin.
This is the story of one of Wright's most distinctive commissions, determined efforts by a community to save it, and the 21st Century restoration of the last remaining hotel by American's foremost architect.
Written and produced with William Byrne Olexy
Modern House Productions, 2013
Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years, 1954 - 1959
The book examines the momentous five-year period when one of the world's greatest architects and one of the world's greatest cities dynamically coexisted. It explores the contradiction between Wright's often-voiced disdain of New York and his pride and pleasure living in a great Manhattan landmark: the Plaza Hotel. From his suite, or "Taliesin East," as it became known, Wright negotiated an astonishing array of exchanges with the city's architects, artists, journalists, celebrities, and power brokers. Most significantly, he shepherded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1943–1959), his New York masterwork, to near completion during his final years.
Co-authored with Debra Pickrel
Gibbs Smith, Publisher 2007
Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design
Ralph Rapson was the most influential Minnestoa architect of the twentieth century. Architect, artist, furniture designer, and educator, he played a leading role in the development and practice of modern architecture and design both nationally and internationally.
Rapson studied at Cranbrook under Eliel Saarinen where he became famous for his rapid, exquisite renderings and his creative reexamination of traditional furniture and housing forms. He contributed designs to numerous architectural competitions and experimental programs including the Case Study House Program in 1945. In postwar Europe, his designs for nine U.S. embassy projects established a new international modern for the American embassy abroad. Rapson served as head of the school of architecture at the University of MInnesota for thirty years.
Co-authored with Rip Rapson and Bruce N. Wright
Afton Historical Society Press 1999
Awards
David Stanley Gebhard Award, 1999
Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians
AIA Minnesota Special Award, 1999
Award in Architecture, 2000
Independent Publishers Book Award