Frank Furness

By returning Frank Furness to his central position at the birth of Modern architecture in America, George Thomas helps us understand the depth of the American roots of Modernism . . . [and] reminds us of how many significant turning points occurred when insights into contemporary life, culture, and technology became a spring board for creative design. His Modernism-and Frank Furness's-is not merely a theory but a mirror held up to society. -Alan Hess, from the Foreword Through his examination of Furness, Thomas provides an important reminder of the narrowness of the existing historiography of American architecture (as opposed to that of modern architecture more broadly), which continues to draw on a limited cast of characters and locales . . . >Frank Furnessshould provide us with incentive to rediscover the architects and cities that together created a more complex and nuanced architectural and historical landscape. -Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians [A] brilliant study by the architectural and cultural historian George E. Thomas, who contends that the unprecedented mechanization of the Victorian Era was central to the advance of architecture . . . Thomas further secures his reputation as our leading authority on the architect, and places his subject squarely in a social setting too often missing when researchers obsess over stylistic and formal matters . . . [H]alf a century after the rediscovery of the fiery Furness, the impassioned advocacy of George Thomas continues to reveal the genius of this magnificent misfit. -The New York Review of Books Frank Furness's architecture brought together two seemingly opposed realms: one derived from the newly developing industrial machine, the other from nature. There is a fantastical juxtaposition of ferocious hissing, steam-driven piston power coupled with lyrically delicate ornament derived from leaves and stems of plant life (and, almost paradoxically, implanted in stone by the then newly invented steam-powered chisel). George Thomas's book places Furness's architecture in the apocalyptic climax of this moment when nature and industry could be thought of as one organic, dynamic whole. -Turner Brooks, Yale School of Architecture George Thomas' book is a useful corrective to [Furness'] popular image. His Furness is not a rogue architect, but a product of the distinctive culture of Philadelphia architecture . . . [An] original and imaginative study of architectural patronage, which significantly enhances our understanding of Furness, of Philadelphia, and of American architecture. -Pennsylvania Heritage