The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 (review)

apprentices and other eyewitnesses, sometimes combative letters between architect and client and all kinds of behind-the-scenes sources, it really does read like a novel while also maintaining the more serious tone of scholarly sleuthing. Of particular interest is Lipman’s insightful discussion of Wright’s Prairie Style residential buildings (which were “extroverted and integrated with the landscape”) in contrast to his public buildings, the Johnson Wax buildings among them, which were almost always closed off from their surroundings (being “introspective and virtually windowless”). As in any book about the colorful and then-controversial architect, amusing anecdotes abound, such as the short-lived suggestion by the company’s board of directors that the finished building should be identified by a neon sign. One of Wright’s underlings answered: “When this building is finished it is going to be such a contribution that you won’t need any sign. After all, there’s no sign on the Washington Monument.” (Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 19, No. 4, Summer 2004.)