FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: UNPACKING THE ARCHIVE AT MOMA NEW YORK
June 12, 2017 – October 1, 2017
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT:
UNPACKING THE ARCHIVE AT MOMA NEW YORK
June 12, 2017 – October
1, 2017
Major retrospective of
Frank Lloyd Wright delves into archives to present fresh perspectives on the
renowned architect’s practice.
Exhibition Presents
Nearly 400 Objects from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives in New York to Mark the
150th Anniversary of Wright’s Birth
The Museum of Modern Art
presents a major exhibition that critically engages the multifaceted practice
of Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 1867– 1959), one of the most prolific and
renowned architects of the 20th century. A radical designer and intellectual,
Wright embraced new technologies and materials, pioneered do-it yourself
construction systems and avant-garde experimentation, and advanced original
theories with regards to nature, urban planning, and social politics. Marking
the 150th anniversary of the American architect’s birth on June 8, 1867, the
exhibition comprises nearly 400 works made from the 1890s through the 1950s,
including architectural drawings, models, building fragments, films, television
broadcasts, print media, furniture, tableware, textiles, paintings,
photographs, and scrapbooks, along with a number of works that have rarely or
never been publicly exhibited. Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive
is presented by MoMA in collaboration with the Avery Architectural & Fine
Arts Library, Columbia University, New York, and organized by Barry Bergdoll,
Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, and
the Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia
University; with Jennifer Gray, Project Research Assistant, Department of
Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
In a career spanning
seven decades, Wright designed more than 1,000 buildings and realized over 500.
Ever concerned with posterity, Wright preserved most of his drawings—despite
some tragic losses to fires—to form an archive that he hoped would perpetuate
his architectural philosophy, first as a tool in the production of architecture
in the Taliesin Fellowship, an apprenticeship program he founded in the 1930s
at his studio-residences in Wisconsin and Arizona, and subsequently as an
academic resource for outside researchers. Progressively catalogued and opened
to specialists by The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the archive was jointly
acquired by The Museum of Modern Art and Avery Architectural & Fine
Arts Library at Columbia
University in 2012. This exhibition celebrates this pioneering collaboration
and the new accessibility of the collection to both scholars and the
public.
Unpacking the Archive
refers to the monumental task of moving 55,000 drawings, 300,000 sheets of
correspondence, 125,000 photographs, and 2,700 manuscripts, as well as models,
films, building fragments, and other materials. It also refers to the work of
interpretation and the close examination of projects that in some cases have
received little attention. For this exhibition, a group of scholars and a
museum conservator were invited to “unpack”— contextualize, ask questions
about, and otherwise explore—an object or cluster of objects of their choosing.
Their processes of discovery are recorded in a series of short films that
introduce the thematic sections of the exhibition. The questions posed
illuminate the complex historical periods through which Wright lived, from the
late 19th century, marked by optimism, through the Great Depression of the
1930s, to the decades following World War II, when the United States experienced
great demographic and economic growth. Each scholarly inquiry offers insights
at once historical and contemporary in resonance, touching on issues that
include landscape and environmental concerns, the relationship of industry to
daily life, questions of race, class, and social democracy, and the expanding
power of mass media in forming reputations and
opinions.
Frank Lloyd Wright at 150
is organized around a central chronological spine highlighting many of Wright’s
major projects, which will be illustrated with some of his finest drawings and
include key works such as Unity Temple (1905–08), Fallingwater (1934–37), the
Johnson Wax Administration Building (1936–39), and the Marin County Civic
Center (1957–70). Unfolding from this orienting spine are 12 subsections,
covering themes both familiar and little explored, that highlight for visitors
the process of discovery undertaken by invited scholars, historians,
architects, and art conservators.
REFRAMING THE IMPERIAL
HOTEL
KEN OSHIMA ( UNIVERSITY
OF WASHINGTON )
The Imperial Hotel in
Tokyo (1913–23) was one of Wright’s most ambitious projects, a monumental
building with Western services, Japanese protocol for Imperial visits, and
integrated gardens, which famously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
The central object in this section is Wright’s personal copy of a very rare
illustrated book on the Imperial Hotel building published shortly after its
completion, which Wright annotated with sketches and visual enhancements. It is
an unparalleled opportunity to see this now demolished masterpiece as it
originally stood. It is displayed alongside a dozen of the nearly 1,100
drawings of the Imperial Hotel that exist in the archive, as well as original
furniture, textiles, and tableware from the hotel, which together demonstrate
the attention Wright paid to every detail of the hotel design in an attempt to
make an integrated work of art.
ORNAMENT
SPYROS PAPAPETROS
(PRINCETON UNIVERSITY)
Famously, modernist
architects advocated the elimination of decoration from buildings, yet
ornamentation persists throughout Wright’s design work in a great variety of
forms. Beginning with Midway Gardens (1913–14), an elaborately decorated
entertainment complex in Chicago, this section traces the transformation of
ornament across decorative artifacts and architectural relics, including a
copper urn, textiles, mosaics, murals, stained glass doors, and concrete
blocks. Wright envisioned these fragments as parts of an integrated whole, as
demonstrated in projects such as the V.C. Morris Store in San Francisco
(1948–49) and the Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee (1955–61). He also
experimented with commercial designs, including a line of glassware for the
Dutch firm Leerdam Glasfabriek, covers for Liberty magazine, and a “Taliesin
Line” of fabrics for F. Schumacher and Co.
ECOLOGIES &
LANDSCAPES
THERESE O’MALLEY
(NATIONAL GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC) &
JENNIFER GRAY (MOMA)
From his early
celebration of the prairie landscapes of the Midwest to his experiments with
living in harmony with the Sonoran desert of the Southwest, Wright explored the
most varied terrains and ecosystems. Two rarely studied drawings in the
exhibition offer new insights. A planting plan, called the “Floricycle,” for
the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, New York (1903–06), reveals a surprising
mixture of native and exotic plants, raising questions about Wright’s
dedication to regional landscapes and indigenous plants. While an undated
graphic design for the Friends of Our Native Landscape, an environmentalist
group founded by prominent landscape designer Jens Jensen, invites reflection
on Wright’s views on the conservation versus transformation of sites. Following
from these provocations is a selection of projects in which Wright attempts to
integrate architecture and the natural world, including an estate for Sherman
Booth that negotiated deep ravines and escarpments, and his monumental project
for San Marcos-in-the-Desert, represented in the exhibition with presentation
drawings and a large-scale watercolor depicting the complex from the air.
LITTLE FARMS UNIT
JULIET KINCHIN (MoMA)
A little-known model of
an experimental farm that Wright designed in 1932–33 reveals how the architect
utilized back-to-the-land strategies during the Great Depression, with the goal
of allowing people to lead independent, productive lives and derive
sustenance—both physical and spiritual—from nature. Photographs, cropping
plans, and drawings demonstrate that these “Little Farms” were part of an
ambitious farm-to-market system. Poster designs and films complement these
materials and draw connections between Wright’s ambitions and New Deal programs
initiated by President Roosevelt, as well as Soviet programs for
industrializing agricultural production.
Nakoma Country Club Elizabeth
Hawley (CUNY Graduate Center) Wright was keenly interested in American Indian
culture, especially in the opening decades of the 20th century, when native
culture was widely celebrated as an authentic expression of American identity.
This section centers on an unrealized project for the Nakoma Country Club near
Madison, Wisconsin (1923), in which Wright appropriated native architectural
forms, such as wigwams and tipis, and also designed figurative sculptures
depicting American Indians. Archival photographs reveal that he collected
native artifacts and even designed and built a totem pole, now lost, at
Taliesin West, his residence and studio in Arizona. Together, the projects
demonstrate how Wright’s interest in American Indian imagery existed in tension
with prevailing racial stereotypes and imperialist strategies.
ROSENWALD SCHOOL
MABEL WILSON (COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY)
While Wright explored the
relationship between learning and educational spaces throughout his career,
this section of the exhibition explores a little-known design Wright drew up in
1928 for the Rosenwald Foundation, for a model school building for African
American children. Created by Julius Rosenwald, a co-owner of Sears, Roebuck
& Company in Chicago, the Rosenwald Foundation’s focus on arts and
education among African Americans included an ambitious project to subsidize
the construction of rural schools throughout the South. Wright’s design
reoriented this program of schools for the segregated South from traditional
clapboard schoolhouses to innovative buildings that the students were intended
to help build, making hands-on labor an integral part of education. The
project, begun in 1928, never progressed beyond the schematic stage.
DRAWING IN THE STUDIO
JANET PARKS (AVERY
DRAWINGS & ARCHIVES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
Wright’s architectural
drawings, some of the most renowned of the 20th century, are remarkable for
their artistic quality and signature style. Yet most of them were produced by
the ever-changing cast of draftsmen, students, and apprentices working in his
studios, many of whom left their own imprint on Wright’s legacy. This section
analyzes Wright’s drawings for clues to how his practice operated, the
personalities involved, and the processes and materials employed at various times.
Before Wright established
an independent practice, early work shows him drawing in the style of his
mentor, Louis Sullivan. The Japanese-inspired compositions of Marion Mahony,
one of the first licensed female architects in the US and Wright’s most talented
renderer in the Oak Park studio, is seen in a rare drawing that bears her
signature.
READING ‘’MILE- HILE’’
BARRY BERGDOLL (MoMA
& COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)
Wright’s proposal for a
mile-high skyscraper—for which there was neither commission nor
client—commanded headlines when he released his design in a press conference at
Chicago’s Sherman Hotel on October 16, 1956. Despite his unprecedented
ambitions—even today, the tallest building in the world, in Dubai, is only a
half-mile high—Wright’s “mile-high” proposal has never occupied a large place
in architectural history. Nor has the possible meaning of the inscriptions that
occupy the upper half of one of Wright’s super-tall drawings of the project
been “unpacked.” This drawing is shown in the exhibition alongside archival
photographs, brochures, letters, and telegrams documenting the 1956 press
conference and the public’s reaction to it.
The proposed tower culminated
in seven stories of television studios, even as Wright was himself becoming
something of a TV personality, first as a mystery guest on the What’s My Line?
game show (June 3, 1956) and then as a guest on The Mike Wallace Interview
(September 1 and 2,
1957). Clips from these appearances are included in the galleries. This section
explores how Wright was aiming for a place in the new media of publicity, and a
place in history.
URBANISM
NEIL LEVINE (HARVARD
UNIVERSITY)
This section is anchored
by Wright’s Skyscraper Regulation project for a nine-block area of downtown
Chicago (1926), which reveals the broad reach of his ideas about the city and
serves as a window into his career-long efforts in urban design. Intended to
relieve the congestion caused by unchecked skyscraper development and by
massive increases in vehicular traffic, the city grid is opened up to create
internal courtyards with underground parking, while raised sidewalks separate
pedestrians from cars and trucks. Between 1896 and 1913, Wright conceived
a radically new method of subdivision allowing groupings of houses to preserve
an unprecedented degree of privacy while creating a sense of community. In the
final decades of his career, he turned to the design of civic centers, cultural
centers, and mixed-use development that revitalized the heart of the city in an
era dominated by the automobile and suburb. The exhibition includes several of
these large projects, often megastructures incorporating roadways and parking,
designed for Madison, Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, and Baghdad.
BUILDINGS SYSTEMS
MATTHEW SKJONSBERG (SWISS
FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY) &
MICHAEL OSMAN (UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES)
Though Wright’s name is
often equated with spectacularly singular residential designs, this section
examines his engagement with industry in various ways to design lower-cost
houses that would be affordable to middle-class Americans. The American
System-Built Houses designed in 1915–17 utilized a wood-based system that
relied on factory-produced components, mail-order distribution techniques, and
licensed contractors to ensure an affordable, high-quality product. By the
early 1950s, Wright developed a do-it-yourself process called the Usonian
Automatic system that enabled individuals to build their own houses using
self-cast concrete blocks. The competing systems, which used entirely different
materials and modes of production, bracket decades in which Wright responded to
the shifting economic and labor conditions of the Depression and postwar
periods by alternatively embracing mass production and handicraft to advance
both his architectural brand and his democratic vision.
CIRCULAR GEOMETRIES
MICHAEL DESMOND
(LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY)
Wright was continually in
search of systems of design that could both control all elements of structure
and space harmonically and serve as a generator of form. From the 1930s, he
moved from orthogonal grids of angular forms to more dynamic organizational
systems based on circles and arcs to engage and shape perceptions of the
landscape. Starting from the unusual approach of laying out a suburban division
of land for residential development with a series of tangent circles in a
project for Galesburg, Michigan (1946–49), this section traces the evolution of
the architect’s circular planning. These experiments culminated in Wright’s
residential designs for Raúl Baillères, a circular house that engaged the broad
sweep of Acapulco Bay in Mexico, and V.C. Morris, a spiral structure clinging
to a precipice overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
NEW YORK MODELS
CONSERVED
ELLEN MOODY (MoMA)
Wright often used
meticulously detailed building models as publicity tools to persuade clients
and as props in staged photographs, and they were central to his organization
of museum exhibitions of his work. Made of light wood and cardboard painted in
bright colors, the models were easy to transport but inherently fragile. They
were frequently repaired and bear traces of their travels and travails. The
exhibition features two newly restored models for projects for Manhattan: St.
Mark’s Tower (1927–29) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1943– 59). MoMA
conservator Ellen Moody conducted extensive archival research and closely
investigated the models’ physical fabric through discussions with experts and
curatorial staff, X-rays, paint analysis, and the employment of various digital
technologies. These conservation processes are documented in videos in the
galleries, demonstrating the spectrum of approaches possible in contemporary conservation
practice and revealing new insights into the working methods of the architect
and his studio.
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1660?locale=en
SOLOMON R.
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK 1943–1959
Perspective
from Fifth Avenue
Ink, pencil,
and colored pencil on tracing paper
Dimensions:
65.7 × 101 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
NAKOMA COUNTRY CLUB
Wright was keenly
interested in American Indian art and architecture, especially in the early
decades of the twentieth century, when native culture was widely celebrated by
many people as an authentic expression of American identity, even as native
peoples were being colonized and displaced from their lands. In addition to
believing that indigenous imagery and designs could free American
architecture of the baggage of European historical models, Wright
was associated with several clubs and groups that incorporated native-inspired rituals
into their programs, and his circle included prominent supporters of American
Indian rights. In an unrealized project for the Nakoma Country Club
(1923–24), near Madison, Wisconsin, Wright appropriated native architectural
forms, such as wigwams and tipis, using them interchangeably despite the fact
that they belong to distinct indigenous cultures. The design demonstrates how,
like most of his contemporaries, Wright tended to romanticize and
generalize American Indian culture. The complex picture that emerges is one in
which Wright’s interest in American Indian imagery exists in tension with
prevailing racial stereotypes and imperialist strategies.
NAKOMA COUNTRY CLUB
IMPERIAL
HOTEL, TOKYO 1913–1923
IMPERIAL
HOTEL, TOKYO 1913–1923
STONE CARVING
AND POLYCHROME DECORATIONS FOR THE NORTH PARLOR
Gold Paint,
Pencil, and Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
55.6 × 91.1 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
REFRAMING THE IMPERIAL
HOTEL
The Imperial Hotel in
Tokyo took over a decade to build—its earliest designs date from 1913 and it
was completed in 1923—and exerted a profound influence on both
Wright’s designs and the architecture of a modernizing Japan. From
his first encounter with the Ho-o-den, a Japanese pavilion at the
1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Wright had been inspired by traditional Japanese art
and architecture. He began collecting Japanese woodblock prints during his
first visit to Japan in 1905, subsequently mounting exhibitions of
them and becoming an important dealer. Now he was called upon to
build a modern hotel adjacent to the Imperial Palace, at the very heart of the
Japanese capital—a monumental building with western services, Japanese protocol
for imperial visits, and integrated gardens. Alongside nearly 800
drawings of the project, the archive also contains Wright’s personal copy of
Teikoku Hoteru (Imperial Hotel), a very rare illustrated book on the
building published in 1923, shortly after its completion. The publication
allowed Wright, who had returned to the United States before the hotel opened,
not only to see the finished results of his work but to continue reworking,
adding notations, adjustments, and even landscaping details in pencil. The
photographs in the book, as well as others displayed here, frame the building
in highly aestheticized ways, while the building’s vertical windows create
meticulously controlled views of the garden and of Tokyo, not unlike the
compositions of the Japanese prints Wright admired. The architecture of the
Imperial Hotel together with its representation suggests the varied ways Wright
endeavored to engage and reframe cultural exchanges between East and West.
IMPERIAL HOTEL,
TOKYO 1913–1923
CROSS SECTION
LOOKING EAST
Ink, Pencil,
and Colored Pencil on Drafting Cloth
Dimensions:
38.1 × 101.6 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
JOHN STORRER
HOUSE
JOHN STORRER
HOUSE
UNITY TEMPLE, OAK PARK, ILLINOIS 1905-1908
UNITY TEMPLE,
OAK PARK, ILLINOIS 1905-1908
Perspective
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
30.5 × 63.8
cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
UNITY TEMPLE,
OAK PARK, ILLINOIS 1905-1908
THE MILE-HIGH
ILLINOIS, CHICAGO PROJECT 1956
PERSPECTIVE
WITH THE GOLDEN BEACON APARTMENT BUILDING PROJECT (1956–57)
Pencil,
Colored Pencil, and Gold Ink on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
266.7 x 76.2 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
LUDWIG MIES
VAN DER ROHE (AMERICAN, BORN GERMANY 1886–1969)
FRIEDRICHSTRASSE
SKYSCRAPER PROJECT, BERLIN-MITTE, GERMANY 1921
Exterior
Perspective From North
Charcoal and
Graphite on Paper Mounted on Board
Dimensions:
173.4 x 121.9 cm
Mies van der
Rohe Archive, Gift of the Architect
THE MILE-HIGH
ILLINOIS, CHICAGO PROJECT 1956
ELEVATION AND
PLAN
Pencil and
Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
92.1 × 98.4 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
THE MILE-HIGH
ILLINOIS, CHICAGO PROJECT 1956
ENNIS HOUSE,
LOS ANGELES. 1924 – 1925
ENNIS HOUSE,
LOS ANGELES. 1924 - 1925
PERSPECTIVE
FROM THE SOUTHWEST
Pencil,
Colored Pencil and Ink on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
51.1 x 99.4 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (the Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
ENNIS HOUSE,
LOS ANGELES. 1924 - 1925
V. C. MORRIS
GIFT SHOP, SAN FRANCISCO 1948–1949
V. C. MORRIS
GIFT SHOP, SAN FRANCISCO 1948–1949
SOUTH - NORTH
SECTION
Ink, Pencil,
and Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
74.9 × 88.9 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
V. C. MORRIS
GIFT SHOP, SAN FRANCISCO 1948–1949
MUSEUM OF
MODERN ART NEW YORK
MUSEUM
OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
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in 1929 as an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to
being the foremost museum of modern art in the world.
Through
the leadership of its Trustees and staff, The Museum of Modern Art manifests
this commitment by establishing, preserving, and documenting a collection of
the highest order that reflects the vitality, complexity and unfolding patterns
of modern and contemporary art; by presenting exhibitions and educational
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to The Museum of Modern Art’s mission is the encouragement of an ever-deeper
understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art by the diverse
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about MoMA’s entire information to click below link.
http://press.moma.org/about/
MIDWAY GARDENS
MIDWAY GARDENS
FALLINGWATER
(KAUFMANN HOUSE), MILL RUN, PENNSYLVANIA 1934–1937
PERSPECTIVE
FROM THE SOUTHWEST
Pencil and
Colored Pencil on Paper
39.1 × 69.2
cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
ST. MARK’S
TOWER, NEW YORK PROJECT 1927 - 1929
Model Painted
Wood and Cardboard
Dimensions:
134.6 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
ST. MARK’S
TOWER, NEW YORK PROJECT 1927 - 1929
Plans,
Section, and Cutaway Perspective
Ink, Pencil,
and Colored Pencil on Cloth
Dimensions:
118.1 × 90.2 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
ST. MARK’S
TOWER, NEW YORK PROJECT 1927 - 1929
DARWIN D.
MARTIN HOUSE, BUFFALO, NEW YORK 1903 - 1906
FLORICYCLE
Ink on
Drafting Cloth
Dimensions:
81.6 × 101 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
DARWIN D.
MARTIN HOUSE, BUFFALO, NEW YORK 1903 - 1906
JOHNSON WAX
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, RACINE, WISCONSIN 1936–1939
JOHNSON WAX
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, RACINE, WISCONSIN 1936–1939
AERIAL
PERSPECTIVE
Ink, Ink
Wash, Pencil, and Colored Pencil on Paper
Dimensions:
EST.: 48.3 × 97.5 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
JOHNSON WAX
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, RACINE, WISCONSIN 1936–1939
"MARCH
BALLOONS" 1955 DRAWING BASED ON A C. 1926
DESIGN FOR
LIBERTY MAGAZINE
Colored
Pencil on Paper
Dimensions:
62.2 × 71.8 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York
AMERICAN
SYSTEM-BUILT (READY-CUT) HOUSES.
PROJECT, 1915
- 17. MODEL OPTIONS Lithographs
Dimensions:
Each: 27.9 x 21.6 cm
The Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Gifts of David Rockefeller, Jr,. Fund,
Ira Howard
Levy Fund and Jeffrey P. Klein Purchase Fund
SIDE CHAIR
FOR THE C. IMPERIAL HOTEL, TOKYO, C. 1922
Oak and
Caning
Dimensions:
95.9 × 40 × 43.8 cm
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of
Dr. and Mrs.
Roger G. Gerry, 1968
MADISON CIVIC
CENTER (MONONA TERRACE), MADISON,
WISCONSIN
PROJECT 1938–1959
Night
Perspective From the West, 1955
Ink and
Pencil on Paper Mounted on Plywood
Dimensions:
81.3 × 101.6 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
TALIESIN WEST
TALIESIN WEST
V. C. MORRIS
HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO PROJECT 1944 – 1946
V. C. MORRIS
HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO PROJECT 1944 - 1946
PERSPECTIVE
FROM BELOW
Ink, Pencil,
and Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions:
101.9 × 106.4 cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
GORDON STRONG
AUTOMOBILE OBJECTIVE & PLANETARIUM,
SUGARLOAF
MOUNTAIN, MARYLAND PROJECT 1924–1925
GORDON STRONG
AUTOMOBILE OBJECTIVE & PLANETARIUM,
SUGARLOAF
MOUNTAIN, MARYLAND PROJECT 1924–1925
Perspective
Pencil and Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
50.2 × 78.1
cm
The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art |
Avery
Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
MARIN COUNTY
CIVIC CENTER
MARIN COUNTY
CIVIC CENTER
WAINWRIGHT
TOMB
WAINWRIGHT
TOMB
PALMER HOUSE
PALMER HOUSE
THE LIFE OF FRANK LLOYD
WRIGHT
EARLY LIFE
The experiences of
Wright’s upbringing were crucial in forming Wright’s unique aesthetic.
Frank Lloyd Wright was
born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, the son of William Carey
Wright, a preacher and a musician, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a teacher whose large
Welsh family had settled the valley area near Spring Green, Wisconsin. His
early childhood was nomadic as his father traveled from one ministry position
to another in Rhode Island, Iowa, and Massachusetts, before settling in
Madison, Wis., in 1878.
Wright’s parents divorced
in 1885, making already challenging financial circumstances even more
challenging. To help support the family, 18-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright worked
for the dean of the University of Wisconsin’s department of engineering while
also studying at the university. But, he knew he wanted to be an architect. In
1887, he left Madison for Chicago, where he found work with two different firms
before being hired by the prestigious partnership of Adler and Sullivan,
working directly under Louis Sullivan for six years.
EARLY WORK
As Wright explored his
personal interests, his work ushered in brand new styles of design.
In 1889, at age 22,
Wright married Catherine Lee Tobin. Eager to build his own home, he negotiated
a five-year contract with Sullivan in exchange for the loan of the necessary
money. He purchased a wooded corner lot in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park and built
his first house, a modest residence reminiscent of the East Coast shingle style
with its prominent roof gable. It also reflected Wright’s ingenuity as he
experimented with geometric shapes and volumes in the studio and playroom he
later added for his ever-growing family of six children. Remembered by the
children as a lively household, filled with beautiful things Wright found it
hard to go without, it was not long before escalating expenses tempted him into
accepting independent residential commissions. Although he did these on his own
time, when Sullivan became aware of them in 1893, he charged Wright with breach
of contract. It is not clear whether Wright quit or was fired, but his
departure was acrimonious, creating a rift between the two men that was not
repaired for nearly two decades. The split, however, presented the opportunity
Wright needed to go out on his own. He opened an office and began his quest to
design homes that he believed would truly belong on the American prairie.
The William H. Winslow
House was Wright’s first independent commission. While conservative in
comparison to work of a few years later, with its broad sheltering roof and
simple elegance, it nonetheless attracted local attention. Determined to
create an indigenous American architecture, over the next sixteen years he set
the standards for what became known as the Prairie Style. These houses
reflected the long, low horizontal prairie on which they sat with low-pitched
roofs, deep overhangs, no attics or basements, and generally long rows of
casement windows that further emphasized the horizontal theme. Some
of Wright’s most important residential works of the time are the Darwin D.
Martin House in Buffalo, New York (1903), the Avery Coonley House in Riverside,
Illinois (1907), and the Frederick C. Robie House in Chicago (1908). Important
public commissions included the Larkin Company Administration Building in
Buffalo (1903, demolished 1950) and Unity Temple in Oak Park (1905).
Creatively exhausted and
emotionally restless, late in 1909 Wright left his family for an extended stay
in Europe with Mamah Borthwick (Cheney), a client with whom he had been in love
for several years. Wright hoped he could escape the weariness and discontent
that now governed both his professional and domestic life. During this European
hiatus Wright worked on two publications of his work, published by Ernst
Wasmuth, one of drawings known as the Wasmuth Portfolio, Ausgeführte
Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright and one of photographs, Ausgeführte
Bauten, both released in 1911. These publications brought
international recognition to his work and greatly influenced other architects.
The same year, Wright and Mamah returned to the States and, unwelcome in
Chicago social circles, began construction of Taliesin near Spring Green as
their home and refuge. There he also resumed his architectural practice
and over the next several years received two important public commissions: the
first in 1913 for an entertainment center called Midway Gardens in Chicago; the
second, in 1916, for the new Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan.
In August 1914, Wright’s
life with Mamah was tragically closed as she, her two children and four others
were killed in a brutal attack and fire, intentionally started by an angry
Taliesin domestic employee. Emotionally and spiritually devastated by the
tragedy, Wright was able to find solace only in work and he began to rebuild
Taliesin in Mamah’s memory. Once completed, he then effectively abandoned it
for nearly a decade as he pursued major work in Tokyo with the Imperial Hotel,
which was demolished 1968, and Los Angeles with the Hollyhock House and Olive
Hill for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall.
TALIESIN FELLOWSHIP
Wright sought to teach
others by having them become active in each aspect of his projects
The years between 1922
and 1934 were both architecturally creative and fiscally catastrophic. Wright
had established an office in Los Angeles, but following his return from Japan
in 1922 commissions were scarce, with the exception of the four textile block
houses of 1923–1924 (Millard, Storer, Freeman and Ennis). He soon abandoned the
West Coast and returned to Taliesin. While only a few projects went into
construction, this decade was one of great design innovation for Wright. Among
the unbuilt commissions were the National Life Insurance Building (Chicago,
1924), the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective (Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland,
1925), San Marcos-in-the-Desert resort (Chandler, Arizona, 1928), and St.
Mark’s-in-the-Bowerie apartment towers (New York City, 1928).
In 1928, Wright married
Olga Lazovich (known as Olgivanna), daughter of a Chief Justice of Montenegro,
whom he had met a few years earlier in Chicago. She proved to be the partner
and stabilizing influence he needed in order to refocus on “the cause of
architecture” he had begun decades earlier.
With few architectural
commissions coming his way, Wright turned to writing and lecturing which
introduced him to a larger national audience. Two important publications came
out in 1932: An Autobiography and The Disappearing
City. The first received widespread critical acclaim and would
continue to inspire generations of young architects. The second introduced
Wright’s scheme for Broadacre City, a utopian vision for decentralization that
moved the city into the country. Although it received little serious
consideration at the time, it would influence community development in
unforeseen ways in the decades to come. At about this same time, Wright and
Olgivanna founded an architectural school at Taliesin, the “Taliesin
Fellowship,” an apprenticeship program to provide a total learning environment,
integrating not only architecture and construction, but also farming,
gardening, and cooking, and the study of nature, music, art, and dance.
Wright’s apprenticeship
program lives on today through the Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture.
LATER LIFE
For Wright, creation
continued until the very end
REMARKABLE RETURN
With this larger
community to take care of, and Wisconsin winters brutal, the winter of 1934
found the Wrights and the Fellowship in rented quarters in the warmer air of
Arizona where they worked on the Broadacre City model, which would debut in
Rockefeller Center in 1935. Wright was by this time still considered a great
architect, but one whose time had come and gone. In 1936, Wright proved this
sentiment wrong as he staged a remarkable comeback with several important
commissions including the S.C. Johnson and Son Company Administration Building
in Racine, Wisconsin; Fallingwater, the country house for Edgar Kaufmann in
rural Pennsylvania; and the Herbert Jacobs House (the first executed “Usonian”
house) in Madison.
At this same time, Wright
decided he wanted a more permanent winter residence in Arizona, and he acquired
some acreage of raw, rugged desert in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains
in Scottsdale. Here he and the Taliesin Fellowship began the construction
of Taliesin West as a winter camp, a bold new endeavor for desert living where
he tested design innovations, structural ideas, and building details that
responded to the dramatic desert setting. Wright and the fellowship established
migration patterns between Wisconsin and Arizona, which the Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture continues to this day.
Acknowledging Wright’s
stunning reentry into the architectural spotlight, the Museum of Modern Art in
New York staged a comprehensive retrospective exhibition that opened in 1940. In
June 1943, undeterred by a world at war, Wright received a letter that
initiated the most important, and most challenging, commission of his late
career. Baroness Hilla von Rebay wrote asking him to design a building to house
the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection of non-objective paintings. Wright
responded enthusiastically, never anticipating the tremendous amount of time
and energy this project would consume before its completion sixteen years
later.
THE LAST DECADES
With the end of the war
in 1945, many apprentices returned and work again flowed into the studio.
Completed public projects over the next decade included the Research Tower for
the SC Johnson Company, a Unitarian meeting house in Madison, a skyscraper in Oklahoma,
and several buildings for Florida Southern College. Other, ultimately unbuilt,
projects included a hotel for Dallas, Texas, two large civic commissions for
Pittsburgh, a sports club for Hollywood, a mile-high tower for Chicago, a
department store for Ahmedabad, India, and a plan for Greater Baghdad.
Wright
opened his last decade with work on a large exhibition, Frank Lloyd
Wright: Sixty Years of Living Architecture, which was soon on an
international tour traveling to Florence, Paris, Zurich, Munich, Rotterdam, and
Mexico City, before returning to the United States for additional venues.
Impressively energetic for man in his eighties, he continued to travel
extensively, lecture widely, and write prolifically. He was still actively
involved with all aspects of work including frequent trips to New York to
oversee construction of the Guggenheim Museum when, in April of 1959, he was
suddenly stricken by an illness which forced his hospitalization. He died April
9, two months shy of his ninety-second birthday.
STYLE & DESIGN
Wright’s style and design
changed as he responded to the needs of American society,
Wright
opened his last decade with work on a large exhibition, Frank Lloyd
Wright: Sixty Years of Living Architecture, which was soon on an
international tour traveling to Florence, Paris, Zurich, Munich, Rotterdam, and
Mexico City, before returning to the United States for additional venues.
Impressively energetic for man in his eighties, he continued to travel
extensively, lecture widely, and write prolifically. He was still actively
involved with all aspects of work including frequent trips to New York to
oversee construction of the Guggenheim Museum when, in April of 1959, he was
suddenly stricken by an illness which forced his hospitalization. He died April
9, two months shy of his ninety-second birthday.
USONIAN
Responding to the
financial crisis of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression that gripped the United
States and the rest of the world, Wright began working on affordable housing,
which developed into the Usonian house. Wright’s Usonians were a simplified
approach to residential construction that reflected both economic realities and
changing social trends. In the Usonian houses, Wright was offering a
simplified, but beautiful environment for living that Americans could both
afford and enjoy. Wright would continue to design Usonian houses for the rest
of career, with variations reflecting the diverse client budgets.
PHILOSOPHY
DESIGN FOR DEMOCRACY
Wright always aspired to
provide his client with environments that were not only functional but also
“eloquent and humane.” Perhaps uniquely among the great architects, Wright
pursued an architecture for everyman rather than every man for one architecture
through the careful use of standardization to achieve accessible tailoring
options to for his clients.
INTEGRITY &
CONNECTION
Believing that
architecture could be genuinely transformative, Wright devoted his life to
creating a total aesthetic that would enhance society’s well being. “Above all
integrity,” he would say: “buildings like people must first be sincere, must be
true.” Architecture was not just about buildings, but about nourishing the
lives of those within them.
NATURE’S PRINCIPLES &
SCULPTURES
For Wright, a truly
organic building developed from within outwards and was thus in harmony with
its time, place, and inhabitants. “In organic architecture then, it is quite
impossible to consider the building as one thing, its furnishings another and
its setting and environment still another,” he concluded. “The spirit in which
these buildings are conceived sees all these together at work as one
thing.” To that end, Wright designed furniture, rugs, fabrics, art glass,
lighting, dinnerware, and graphic arts.
MATERIAL & MACHINE
Wright embraced new
technologies and tactics, constantly pushing the boundaries of his field. His
fascination for the new and his desire to be a pioneer help explain Wright’s
tendency to test his materials—sometimes even to the brink of failure—in an
effort to achieve effects he could claim as uniquely his own.
ARCHITECTURE AS THE GREAT
MOTHER ART
Wright devoted his life
to promoting architecture as “the great mother art, behind which all others are
definitely, distinctly and inevitably related.” Seeking a consistent expression
of underlying unity, he drew inspiration from the Japanese idea of a culture in
which every object, every human, and every action were integrated so as to make
an entire civilization a work of art. Above all else, Wright’s vision served
beauty. He believed that every man, woman and child had the right to live a
beautiful life in beautiful circumstances and he sought to create an affordable
architecture that served that aspiration.
WRITINGS
Fundamental to
understanding Wright’s work, his writings allow readers to see into his
creative mind through an intimate lens.
Wright’s own texts are a
testament to the fact that his ability to articulate himself matched his genius
with brick, concrete and glass. His books offer readers an exclusive glimpse
into the life and work of the complex architect.
http://franklloydwright.org/frank-lloyd-wright/
