Purcell and Elmslie: Prairie Progressives explores the work of two important members of the organic architecture movement, and celebrates their tremendously important contributions to American
architecture and the Prairie School. Wishing to return to simplicity and honesty, Purcell and Elmslie created homes and buildings that were consistent with a democratic society-simple forms,
the natural use of textural materials and decoration, and buildings that accommodated the nature of a site. As did Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Purcell and Elmslie held the conviction
that a building does not end with its simple structure, but reaches its final and logical culmination in the clothing-color, situation and natural environment, together with its decoration of
glass, terra-cotta, and other textural materials.
