The
Architecture of Henry John
Klutho
A magnificent book
published by the
Jacksonville Historical Society
Twenty years after its
original 1983 publication,
Robert Broward’s masterwork on Jacksonville architect Henry John Klutho
underwent a dramatic redesign. With more than 500
photographs,
the new 320-page book published by the Jacksonville Historical Society
is a visual feast highlighting the work of the man
many
call Jacksonville’s greatest artist and architect.
The new edition of The Architecture of Henry
John
Klutho is a monumental work and a must-have volume for anyone
interested in Jacksonville history and architecture.
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.
The book was designed by Dr.
Wayne W. Wood,
author and designer of several books on Jacksonville's history,
including Jacksonville's
Architectural Heritage, The Jacksonville Family Album, and The
Great Fire of 1901.
Henry
John Klutho and
Robert C. Broward
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