Frank Lloyd Wright : unpacking the archive / Barry Bergdoll, Jennifer Gray ; with essays by Michael Desmond, Carole Ann Fabian, Elizabeth S. Hawley, Juliet Kinchin, Neil Levine, Ellen Moody, Therese O'Mally, Ken Tadashi Oshima, Michael Osman, Spyros Papapetros, Janet Parks, Matthew Skjonsberg, David Smiley, Mabel O. Wilson.
Published in conjunction with 'Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive', June 12-October 1, 2017, at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Illustrated endpapers. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Visualizing the archives / Carole Ann Fabian. Introduction / Barry Bergdoll and Carole Ann Fabian -- ARCHIVE: The floricycle: designing with native and exotic plants / Therese O'Malley -- Pattern behind the realism: The Jensen graphic / Jennifer Gray -- Little farms unit: Nature, ecology, and community / Juliet Kinchin -- CULTURE: Reframing the Imperial Hotel: between East and West / Ken Tadashi Oshima -- "Playing Indian" at the Nakoma Country Club / Elizabeth S. Hawley -- Rosenwald School: Lessons in progressive education / Mabel O. Wilson -- PROCESS: The final mousetrap: Ornament from Midway Gardens to the V.C. Morris Gift Shop / Spyros Papapetros -- Abstracting the landscape: Galesburg above and below the surface / Michael Desmond -- American system-built houses: Authorship and mass production / Michael Osman -- Do It Yourself: Usonian Automatic System / Matthew Skjonsberg -- CITY: Wrights's Urbanism and the Skyscraper Regulation Project / Neil Levine -- Broad acres and narrow lots / David Smiley -- Reading "Mile-High": The Chicago Skyline and the stakes of fame / Barry Bergdoll -- ARCHIVE: Conserving and exhibiting the New York models / Ellen Moody -- Architectural drawing: Materials, process, people / Janet Parks -- Visualizing the archives / Carole Ann Fabian.
Summary:
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.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.