There was a 60-year long civic struggle to build one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most significant designs in the architect's hometown in Wisconsin's capital on the shores of Lake Monona. The book, a prodigious effort to document the history of an epic struggle, is part political, part historical, and traces the interaction of all the forces converging to make the design - a project which Wright worked on for more than 21 years - possible. Monona Terrace was only one of 700 building commissions for Wright, but, as the work notes, was the product of 13 designs, thousands of drawings, 5 local referenda, 10 lawsuits, and several acts of the state legislature.

For history buffs, the lavishly-illustrated tome brings to life a feat unique in the study of American urbanism and urban planning, revealing in tracing the relationship of architecture and politics in the century we are now leaving behind.

Monona Terrace was conceived as a link between two lakes crucial in the early history of Wisconsin's territorial capital. While Wright based most of his work in Chicago, the returned frequently to Madison, cementing his relationship with the city and its residents.

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, beginning his second term in 1989, entered the fray to keep the project alive - twenty years after Wright's death - and to propel plans forward in the face of lawsuits.

In July, 1997, 59 years after Wright proposed his first design, his futuristic vision became a reality.

The amount of documentation is tastefully arranged and contains an amazing variety: local maps, newspaper accounts, cartoons, photographs, architectural drawings, letters and project files.

The massive research is complemented by an interesting historical narrative, but, above all, a testimony to both Wright and the determination of Madison to triumph against what, on occasion, must have been seen as impossible odds.