I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction...

Thirty-eight of Wright's architectural designs, ranging from his early work in the 1890s to his daring creations of the 1940s, show each building's evolution from conceptual sketch, plan, or drawings to finished masterwork.