The Guggenheim Museum in New York, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and the City of Chicago celebrate the famous architect.
On 1 June 1943, Baroness Hilla von Rebay, artistic advisor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim, wrote to Frank Lloyd Wright to ask him whether he wanted to design the Museum. Guggenheim wanted a building as revolutionary as the abstract art he collected. The making of the museum took sixteen years and was completed in 1959, six months after the death of the architect, who died at the age of 91. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its construction, the Guggenheim Museum, gives a tribute to its architect, showcasing along the main ramp - which the museum is mainly known for - 64 models and more than 200 original drawings, many of which have never been exposed. The title, "From the inside out," reflects one of the basic concepts of Wright, that the internal space determines the external shape and that architecture should follow the same principles as nature.
"The interior is the main element of a building, one that must be reflected on the outside as a content," writes the founder of modern architecture pushing the analogy with nature.
Built over a waterfall, hence its name, the Fallingwater House, the Mill Run home (Pennsylvania) is the perfect illustration of the concept of Wright. "I wanted this place to become a part of yourself, Wright said to his commissioner, the industrialist J. Edgar Kaufmann. I therefore placed it in the fall, directly on the rock".
This theory also explains the hatred that Wright harbored in relation to major cities, including Chicago, where he only designed "human scale" homes, known as "Prairie Houses".
The exhibition showcases the most revolutionary aspects of his architecture and are apparently must-see!
To learn more: http://www.gowright.org/and http://www.guggenheim.org/.
