To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum, Spaced: Gallery of Architecture is featuring rare lithographs and limited edition reproduction prints that document Frank Lloyd Wright’s early achievements experiments with rounded structures of the later years.
“Wright Before the Guggenheim” runs through August 22 at Spaced: Gallery of Architecture, 31 West 26th Street, 6th Floor.
Both architects and art lovers will be fascinated by the line drawings, perspectives, plans and details that document Wright’s remarkable re-make of the American home and the built environment.
Early on, Wright challenged Americans to re-think the way they used space and at one point chided homeowners for taking little into consideration except “decoration.”
Inspired by the Japanese home, Wright excelled in uniting human beings, buildings and nature in a sort of spiritual harmony. In doing so, he created a uniquely American style that is still very much a standard of well-designed spaces.
The lithos and prints on view in “Wright Before the Guggenheim,” show how the architect accomplished the seemingly simple and forthright through carefully composed plans based on geometric grammars. In short, Wright’s drawings spell out each and every step of his precise creativity.
The seminal work on Wright’s early years is the Wasmuth Portfolio of architectural lithographs. It was the first publication to document Wright’s first two decades, during which he broke from the European model to give American architecture a truly American identity.
Interestingly, Wright had to go to Europe to gain recognition of this sort. The 1910 Wasmuth Portfolio, printed in Germany, was a collaborative effort between the architect and German publisher Ernst Wasmuth.
The Wasmuth Portfolio itself introduced Wright’s work to the first generation of European modernists, among them Mies van der Rohe and Rudolf Schindler. Paradoxically, it was never distributed in the United States because the volumes were destroyed in the fire at Taliesin that changed the course of Wright’s life. The lithos on display at Spaced: Gallery of Architecture are from a set de-accessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Although the modernists were influenced by Wright’s work, he disagreed with them on the slogan that form follows function. Rather, Wright held the point of view that form and function are one.
Ultimately, this concept culminated in the design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue and 89th Street. The iconic round structure, which rises like a ribbon of concrete, was not Wright’s first foray into round.
A series of limited reproduction prints from the Taliesin archives on view at Spaced: Gallery of Architecture offer insights into Wright’s earlier experiments with round structures. There is, for example, a drawing of the 1945 “Solar Hemicycle.” Arguably the first “green” shelter concept, a portion of the house is tucked into an earth berm for protection from northerly winds while the southern side is glass and open to the sun. Several other drawings depict Wright’s progress in adapting the curve to both private and public spaces, as diverse in function as church and parking garage.
The exhibition also draws parallels between Japanese architecture and Wright’s designs. For instance, a wood block print of Kyoto temples placed next to a Wright designed house illustrates the similarities.
Both the lithographs from the Wasmuth Portfolio and the prints of drawings from the Taliesin archives are being offered for between $100 to $3000. (When a copy of copy of the 1910 Wasmuth Portfolio came to auction in New York in 1988, it commanded $26,500, without buyers premium.)
Spaced: Gallery of Architecture was founded in 1975 by New York City architect Judith York Newman. It was the first to exhibit and offer for sale both historic and contemporary architectural drawings. SPACED was commended by the New York chapter of the AIA in 1982 and was featured in many professional and shelter magazines.
