The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an intransigent young architect, who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Roark embodies what Rand believed to be the ideal man, and his struggle reflects Rand's belief that individualism is superior to collectivism.

Roark is opposed by what he calls "second-handers", who value conformity over independence and integrity. These include Roark's former classmate, Peter Keating, who succeeds by following popular styles but turns to Roark for help with design problems. Ellsworth Toohey, a socialist architecture critic who uses his influence to promote his political and social agenda, tries to destroy Roark's career. Tabloid newspaper publisher Gail Wynand seeks to shape popular opinion; he befriends Roark, then betrays him when public opinion turns in a direction he cannot control. The novel's most controversial character is Roark's lover, Dominique Francon. She believes that non-conformity has no chance of winning, so she alternates between helping Roark and working to undermine him.

Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript before an editor at the Bobbs-Merrill Company risked his job to get it published. Contemporary reviewers' opinions were polarized. Some praised the novel as a powerful paean to individualism, while others thought it overlong and lacking sympathetic characters. Initial sales were slow, but the book gained a following by word of mouth and became a bestseller. More than 6.5 million copies of The Fountainhead have been sold worldwide and it has been translated into more than 20 languages. The novel attracted a new following for Rand and has enjoyed a lasting influence, especially among architects, entrepreneurs, American conservatives and libertarians.

The novel has been adapted into other media several times. An illustrated version was syndicated in newspapers in 1945. Warner Bros. produced a film version in 1949; Rand wrote the screenplay, and Gary Cooper played Roark. Critics panned the film, which did not recoup its budget; several directors and writers have considered developing a new film adaptation. In 2014, Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove created a stage adaptation, which has received mostly positive reviews.

In early 1922, Howard Roark is expelled from the architecture department of the Stanton Institute of Technology because he has not adhered to the school's preference for historical convention in building design. Roark goes to New York City and gets a job with Henry Cameron. Cameron was once a renowned architect, but now gets few commissions. In the meantime, Roark's popular, but vacuous, fellow student and housemate Peter Keating (whom Roark sometimes helped with projects) graduates with high honors. He too moves to New York, where he has been offered a position with the prestigious architecture firm, Francon & Heyer. Keating ingratiates himself with Guy Francon and works to remove rivals among his coworkers. After Francon's partner, Lucius Heyer, suffers a fatal stroke brought on by Keating's antagonism, Francon chooses Keating to replace him. Meanwhile, Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but struggle financially.

Ayn Rand in 1943

After Cameron retires, Keating hires Roark, whom Francon soon fires for refusing to design a building in the classical style. Roark works briefly at another firm, then opens his own office but has trouble finding clients and closes it down. He gets a job in a granite quarry owned by Francon. There he meets Francon's daughter Dominique, a columnist for The New York Banner, while she is staying at her family's estate nearby. They are immediately attracted to each other, leading to a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later calls a rape. Shortly after, Roark is notified that a client is ready to start a new building, and he returns to New York. Dominique also returns to New York and learns Roark is an architect. She attacks his work in public, but visits him for secret sexual encounters.

Ellsworth M. Toohey, who writes a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who shapes public opinion through his column and a circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign. He recommends Roark to Hopton Stoddard, a wealthy acquaintance who wants to build a Temple of the Human Spirit. Roark's unusual design includes a nude statue modeled on Dominique; Toohey persuades Stoddard to sue Roark for malpractice. Toohey and several architects (including Keating) testify at the trial that Roark is incompetent as an architect due to his rejection of historical styles. Dominique also argues for the prosecution in tones that can be interpreted to be speaking more in Roark's defense than for the plaintiff, but he loses the case. Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants, in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness, she will live entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She marries Keating and turns herself over to him, doing and saying whatever he wants, and actively persuading potential clients to hire him instead of Roark.

To win Keating a prestigious commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand is so strongly attracted to Dominique that he pays Keating to divorce her, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wanting to build a home for himself and his new wife, Wynand discovers that Roark designed every building he likes and so hires him. Roark and Wynand become close friends; Wynand is unaware of Roark's past relationship with Dominique.

Washed up and out of the public eye, Keating pleads with Toohey to use his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed. After taking a long vacation with Wynand, Roark returns to find that Keating was not able to prevent major changes from being made in Cortlandt's construction. Roark dynamites the project to prevent the subversion of his vision.

Roark is arrested and his action is widely condemned, but Wynand decides to use his papers to defend his friend. This unpopular stance hurts the circulation of his newspapers, and Wynand's employees go on strike after Wynand dismisses Toohey for disobeying him and criticizing Roark. Faced with the prospect of closing the paper, Wynand gives in and publishes a denunciation of Roark. At his trial, Roark makes a lengthy speech about the value of ego and integrity, and he is found not guilty. Dominique leaves Wynand for Roark. Wynand, who has betrayed his own values by attacking Roark, finally grasps the nature of the power he thought he held. He shuts down the Banner and commissions a final building from Roark, a skyscraper that will serve as a monument to human achievement. Eighteen months later, the Wynand Building is under construction. Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.

Rand's stated goal in writing fiction was to portray her vision of an ideal man.The character of Howard Roark, the protagonist of The Fountainhead, was the first instance where she believed she had achieved this.Roark embodies Rand's egoistic moral ideals,especially the virtues of independence and integrity.

In writing the character of Howard Roark, Rand was inspired by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The character of Roark was at least partly inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Rand described the inspiration as limited to specific ideas he had about architecture and "the pattern of his career".She denied that Wright had anything to do with the philosophy expressed by Roark or the events of the plot. Rand's denials have not stopped commentators from claiming stronger connections between Wright and Roark.Wright e

quivocated about whether he thought Roark was based on him, sometimes implying that he did, at other times denying it.Wright biographer Ada Louise Huxtable described significant differences between Wright's philosophy and Rand's, and quoted him declaring, "I deny the paternity and refuse to marry the mother."Architecture critic Martin Filler said that Roark resembles the Swiss-French modernist architect Le Corbusier more closely than Wright.

In contrast to the individualistic Roark, Peter Keating is a conformist who bases his choices on what others want. Introduced to the reader as Roark's classmate in architecture school, Keating does not really want to be an architect. He loves painting, but his mother steers him toward architecture instead.In this as in all his decisions, Keating does what others expect rather than follow his personal interests. He becomes a social climber, focused on improving his career and social standing using a combination of personal manipulation and conformity to popular styles.e follows a similar path in his private life: he chooses a loveless marriage to Dominique instead of marrying the woman he loves—who lacks Dominique's beauty and social connections. By middle age, Keating's career is in decline and he is unhappy with his path, but it is too late for him to change.

Rand did not use a specific architect as a model for Keating.Her inspiration for the character came from a neighbor she knew while working in Hollywood in the early 1930s. Rand asked this young woman to explain her goals in life. The woman's response was focused on social comparisons: the neighbor wanted her material possessions and social standing to equal or exceed those of other people. Rand created Keating as an archetype of this motivation, which she saw as the opposite of self-interest.

Dominique Francon is the heroine of The Fountainhead, described by Rand as "the woman for a man like Howard Roark".Rand described Dominique as similar to herself "in a bad mood".For most of the novel, the character operates from what Rand viewed as wrong ideas.Believing that the values she admires cannot survive in the real world, she chooses to turn away from them so that the world cannot harm her. Only at the end of the novel does she accept that she can be happy and survive.

Patricia Neal played Dominique Francon in the film adaptation.

The character has provoked varied reactions from commentators. Philosopher Chris Matthew Sciabarra called her "one of the more bizarre characters in the novel".Literature scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein called her "an interesting case study in perverseness".Writer Tore Boeckmann described her as a character with conflicting beliefs and saw her actions as a logical representation of how those conflicts might play out.

Gail Wynand is a wealthy newspaper mogul who rose from a destitute childhood in the ghettoes of New York (Hell's Kitchen) to control much of the city's print media. While Wynand shares many of the character qualities of Roark, his success is dependent upon his ability to pander to public opinion. Rand presents this as a tragic flaw that eventually leads to his downfall. In her journals Rand described Wynand as "the man who could have been" a heroic individualist, contrasting him to Roark, "the man who can be and is".Some elements of Wynand's character were inspired by real-life newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst,including Hearst's yellow journalism and mixed success in attempts to gain political influence.Wynand ultimately fails in his attempts to wield power, losing his newspaper, his wife (Dominique), and his friendship with Roark. The character has been interpreted as a representation of the master morality described by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche;his tragic nature illustrates Rand's rejection of Nietzsche's philosophy.In Rand's view, a person like Wynand, who seeks power over others, is as much a "second-hander" as a conformist such as Keating.

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey is Roark's antagonist. He is Rand's personification of evil—the most active and self-aware villain in any of her novels.Toohey is a socialist, and represents the spirit of collectivism more generally. He styles himself as representative of the will of the masses, but his actual desire is for power over otherse controls individual victims by destroying their sense of self-worth, and seeks broader power (over "the world", as he declares to Keating in a moment of candor) by promoting the ideals of ethical altruism and a rigorous egalitarianism that treats all people and achievements as equally valuable.Rand used her memory of the democratic socialist British Labour Party Chairman Harold Laski to help her imagine what Toohey would do in a given situation. She attended a New York lecture by Laski as part of gathering material for the novel, following which she changed the physical appearance of the character to be similar to that of Laski. New York intellectuals Lewis Mumford and Clifton Fadiman also helped inspire the

Harold Laski was one of Rand's inspirations for the character of Ellsworth Toohey.

When Rand first arrived in New York as an immigrant from the Soviet Union in 1926, she was greatly impressed by the Manhattan skyline's towering skyscrapers, which she saw as symbols of freedom, and resolved that she would write about them.n 1927, Rand was working as a junior screenwriter for movie producer Cecil B. DeMille when he asked her to write a script for what would become the 1928 film Skyscraper. The original story by Dudley Murphy was about two construction workers working on a skyscraper who are rivals for a woman's love. Rand rewrote it, transforming the rivals into architects. One of them, Howard Kane, was an idealist dedicated to erecting the skyscraper despite enormous obstacles. The film would have ended with Kane standing atop the completed skyscraper. DeMille rejected Rand's script, and the completed film followed Murphy's original idea. Rand's version contained elements she would use in The Fountainhead.

In 1928, Rand made notes for a proposed, but never written, novel titled The Little Street.Rand's notes for it contain elements that carried over into her work on The Fountainhead.David Harriman, who edited the notes for the posthumously published Journals of Ayn Rand (1997), described the story's villain as a preliminary version of the character Ellsworth Toohey, and this villain's assassination by the protagonist as prefiguring the attempted assassination of Toohey.

Rand began The Fountainhead (originally titled Second-Hand Lives) following the completion of her first novel, We the Living, in 1934. That earlier novel was based in part on people and events familiar to Rand; the new novel, on the other hand, focused on the less-familiar world of architecture. She therefore conducted extensive research that included reading many biographies and other books about architecture. She also worked as an unpaid typist in the office of architect Ely Jacques Kahn.Rand began her notes for the new novel in December 1935.

Rand wanted to write a novel that was less overtly political than We the Living, to avoid being viewed as "a 'one-theme' author".As she developed the story, she began to see more political meaning in the novel's ideas about individualism.Rand also planned to introduce the novel's four sections with quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche, whose ideas had influenced her own intellectual development, but she eventually decided that Nietzsche's ideas were too different from hers. She edited the final manuscript to remove the quotes and other allusions to him.

Rand's work on The Fountainhead was repeatedly interrupted. In 1937, she took a break from it to write a novella called Anthem. She also completed a stage adaptation of We the Living that ran briefly in 1940.That same year, she became active in politics. She first worked as a volunteer in Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign, and then attempted to form a group for conservative intellectuals.As her royalties from earlier projects ran out, she began doing freelance work as a script reader for movie studios. When Rand finally found a publisher, the novel was only one-third complete.