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The Architecture of Henry John Klutho:
The Prairie School in JacksonvilleFifteen years after its original
publication, Robert Broward’s masterwork
on Jacksonville architect Henry John Klutho has undergone a dramatic
redesign. With more than 500 photographs, the 320-page book is a
visual
feast highlighting the work of the man many call Jacksonville’s
greatest artist
and architect.
The Jacksonville Historical Society is
proud to be the publisher the new
edition of The Architecture of Henry John Klutho.
A pioneer of modern architecture in
America, Henry John Klutho came to
Jacksonville, Florida, in 1901 to help rebuild a city leveled by
fire.
His greatest architectural works, built before World War I, belong to
what was
then a radical movement in American architecture, now called the
Prairie
School. As the photographs, drawings, and text of Robert
Broward's book
unfold, Klutho's legacy in Florida, far removed from the Midwestern
center of
this movement, provides new evidence of the vitality and influence of
the
Prairie School in America.
When he first met Henry John Klutho in
1950, Broward had just returned
from an apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin.
Klutho's work
intrigued Broward because of its similarity to Wright's early work and
to that
of Wright's great master, Louis Sullivan, the poetic genius of modern
architecture. In The Architecture of Henry John Klutho,
Broward
documents Klutho's long and productive career and analyzes Klutho's
innovations. Klutho was the first to use water-jetted steel
caissons for
concrete pilings, and his high-rise buildings were the first
constructed of
reinforced concrete in the South.
The city of Jacksonville had more major
examples of the Prairie School
style than anywhere outside the Midwest. That these buildings
were
designed and constructed there is in large part to H.J. Klutho and to
the
progressive citizens of Jacksonville at the time. The few
remaining
Klutho buildings and others in the Prairie School style may yet be
saved and
put to more good use, especially to further the enrichment of the human
spirit
for which they were designed.
The Architecture of Henry John
Klutho: The Prairie School in
Jacksonville is richly illustrated with over 500 pictures,
drawings, and
plans. In one appendix, Broward's chronological drawings of
Kluthos'
ornamentation trace the highly individualistic development of this
architectural master's embellishments. In others, Broward
presents
information on contemporary architects, other
Prairie School-influenced
buildings still standing in Jacksonville, Klutho's associates in his
Jacksonville offices, and his known projects and designs.
The author, Robert C. Broward, is a native
of Jacksonville. He is
an architect who has practiced in that city since the 1950's. He
and
Klutho were close friends for fourteen years, until Klutho's death in
1964. Deeply involved in historic preservation, especially in
Jacksonville, Broward has worked to preserve the city's Prairie School
buildings.
.....
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