Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1633450260 ISBN 13: 9781633450264

Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017

Synopsis

Unpacking Wright’s archive of more than two million objects, on the 150th anniversary of the master architect’s birth

Published for a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this catalog reveals new perspectives on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, a designer so prolific and familiar as to nearly preclude critical reexamination. Structured as a series of inquiries into the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives at Taliesin West, Arizona (recently acquired by MoMA and Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University), the book is a collection of scholarly explorations rather than an attempt to construct a master narrative. Each chapter centers on a key object from the archive that an invited author has “unpacked”― tracing its meanings and connections, and juxtaposing it with other works from the archive, from MoMA, or from outside collections. Wright’s quest to build a mile-high skyscraper reveals him to be one of the earliest celebrity architects, using television, press relations and other forms of mass media to advance his own self-crafted image. A little-known project for a Rosenwald School for African-American children, together with other projects that engage Japanese and Native American culture, ask provocative questions about Wright’s positions on race and cultural identity. Still other investigations engage the architect’s lifelong dedication to affordable and do-it-yourself housing, as well as the ecological systems, both social and environmental, that informed his approach to cities, landscapes and even ornament. The publication aims to open up Wright’s work to questions, interrogations and debates, and to highlight interpretations by contemporary scholars, both established Wright experts and others considering this iconic figure from new and illuminating perspectives.

About this title

About the Author:

Carole Ann Fabian is Director of Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.

Barry Bergdoll is Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art and Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology in the Department of Art History, Columbia University.

Matthew Skjonsberg is a Ph.D. Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Michael Osman is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Design at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Neil Levine is Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of History of Art and Modern Architecture at Harvard University.

Jennifer Gray is Project Research Assistant in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Therese O’Malley is Associate Dean in the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Juliet Kinchin is Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Ken Tadashi Oshima is Professor in Department of Architecture at the University of Washington.

Elizabeth S. Hawley is a Ph.D. Candidate at The Graduate Center, City University of New York and Museum Research Consortium Fellow at The Museum of Modern Art.

Mabel O. Wilson is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University.

John Michael Desmond is Professor in the College of Art and Design at Louisiana State University.

Spyros Papapetros is Associate Professor of History and Theory of Architecture in the School of Architecture, Princeton University.

Janet Parks is Curator of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.

Ellen Moody is Assistant Projects Conservator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

David Smiley is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University.

Review:

Buildings are dynamic things, not static objects. A look through Wright's archive reminds us that some will exist only in our imaginations, some will be lived in exactly as they were first designed, and others will be destroyed or altered beyond recognition. (Julian Rose Bookforum)

Clearly written and tightly focused... this hefty volume would be a nice library addition for general readers curious about American urban history. (Marilyn Gates New York Journal of Books)

Frank Lloyd Wright was a radical architect, designer, thinker, and intellectual. (Lauren Walser National Trust for Historic Preservation)

remarkable... a fresh age in Wright scholarship... shows that Wright’s long career, as multidimensional and accomplished as that of almost any architect in history, was richer and more complex than even admiring critics knew. (Paul Goldberger Bloomberg Business Week)

a fascinating window into America’s cultural past... read the short, sharp essays in the catalog (Alexandra Lange Curbed)

Positions the architect as a consummate innovator -- not outside of history, but very much of his time, with ideas that resonate still. (Kristina Ljubanovic The Globe and Mail)

He was the man called ‘the Michelangelo of the 20th century’ by the architect Eero Saarinen, so it's no surprise that 150 years after his birth, the work of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright still provides plenty to unpack. (Olivia B. Waxman Time)

Frank Lloyd Wright is synonymous with American architecture. (Alexandra Alexa Artsy)

an ambitious catalogue featuring wide-ranging essays (Jonathan Glancey The Art Newspaper)

It is always the year of Frank Lloyd Wright, so monumentally does he loom over American architecture. (Paul Goldberger Vanity Fair)

About this edition

• Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1633450260
• ISBN 13: 9781633450264
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Bergdoll Barry, Gray Jennifer