Frank Lloyd Wright was an influential American architect known for his pioneering works and promoting organic architecture in harmony with nature. He designed over 1,000 structures in his career, including the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The museum features a continuous spiral ramp gallery extending up from the ground along the outer edge, allowing visitors to view the collection from the top down. Wright drew inspiration from nature in the museum's geometric forms and use of light. The Guggenheim helped cement Wright's legacy as one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.

1. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
AND HIS FAMOUS
WORKS
SUBMITTED BY-
PRIYA SRIVASTAVA
5th semester
UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE

2. About the architect
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was born
on June 8, 1867, Richland Centre, and raised
on the farmlands of Wisconsin,U.S. His
mother had a vision for her son—that he
would become a great architect. Wright was
raised with strong guiding principles, a love
of nature, a belief in the unity of all things
and a respect for discipline and hard work.

3. He was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator. He designed more
than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed.
He believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its
environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture.
Frank Llyod Wright was the pioneer of Prairie School movement of architecture. He also
developed the concept of Usonian home in Broadacre City, his unique vision for urban planning in
the United States. He designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers,
hotels, museums, and other structures. He often designed interior elements for these buildings, as
well, including furniture and stained glass.
He wrote 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and
Europe. He was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest
American Architect of all time".

4. His famous works
1. Fallingwater, Mill Run,
Pennsylvania
Built in the mountains of Pennsylvania in
the 1930s as the retreat for a family of
Pittsburgh department store
owners, Fallingwater is a voluptuous
expression of Wright's organic architecture.
It melds the man-made with the natural in
an expansive indoor/outdoor flow, with
cantilevered terraces built out over a
gushing waterfall.

5. 2. The Guggenheim Museum,
New York
Guggenheim — a spiral of swirling,
creamy concrete. Wright worked on
the museum for 16 years but died just
before it was completed. A geometric
masterpiece, it's designed so that you
can zip up in an elevator and view the
collection from the top down,
leisurely descending a ramp that
resembles a chambered nautilus.

6. 3. Taliesin West, Scottsdale,
Arizona
Set in the Sonoran Desert
near Scottsdale, this was Wright's
winter home. Its form is an
extension of the desert landscape —
what Wright referred to as "the long,
low lines of colorful, windswept
terrain." He was inspired by the
patterns of rattlesnakes, chameleons
and cacti in much of the design and
used desert rocks to shape the walls.

7. 4. Robie House, Chicago, Illinois
Built in 1910 for a young Chicago
businessman, Frederick C. Robie,
Robie House is a prime example of
Wright's Prairie style, a poem to the
low-slung horizontality of the
American prairie. The residence
features Wright's distinctive art-glass
windows. Wright also designed the
house's furniture, light fixtures,
tapestries and rugs.

8. 5. Hollyhock House, Los Angeles,
California
The prairie comes to California in
this landmark house, built for an oil
heiress and completed in 1923 in a
style that Wright called "California
Romanza." Constructed of
reinforced concrete. It's also set on
a hill with sensational views of Los
Angeles.

9. 6. The Grady Gammage
Memorial Auditorium, Tempe,
Arizona
Considered to be one of the last
public commissions of architect
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Fifty concrete columns
support the round roof with its
pattern of interlocking circles. The
auditorium seats a total of 3,017
people pop on its main floor, grand
tier and balcony.

10. And some
more are
7. Kentuck Knob (1956)
8. Graycliff (1926)
9. Darwin D. Martin House (1905)
10. The Crimson Beech (1959)
11. Congregation Beth Sholom (1954)
12. Pope-Leighey House (1941)
13. Auldbrass Plantation (1941)
14. Rosenbaum House (1940)
15. Avery Coonley House (1908)

11. The Solomon
R.
Guggenheim
Museum
• Established: 1937
• Location: 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street,
Manhattan, New York City
• Built: 1956 - 1959
• Building type: Art museum
• Construction system: Reinforced concrete
• Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
• Architectural style: Modern
• First permanent museum built in U.S.A.
• Frank was commissioned to design a building to
house the Museum of Non-Objective Painting.

13. From its very beginnings the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has been a hub for new art
and new ideas. The museum was designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to
house an innovative collection of works in a unique environment. Today, the museum
continues to be a landmark destination that attracts visitors from around the world. It is
the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-
Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art. It also features special exhibitions
throughout the year.
The cylindrical building, wider at the top than the bottom, displaying nearly all
curved surfaces. It was conceived as a "temple of the spirit". Its unique ramp gallery
extends up from ground level in a long, continuous spiral along the outer edges of the
building to end just under the ceiling skylight.

14. Staircase at the Vatican Museums designed by Giuseppe
Momo in 1932

15. EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
In June 1943, renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright received a letter from Hilla Rebay, art
advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, asking him to design a new building to house
Guggenheim’s collection of non-objective art, a radical new art form being developed by
such artists as Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian. Guggenheim’s one
requirement of the architect was that the building should be unlike any other museum in
the world. Wright, in turn, created a design that he believed would be “the best possible
atmosphere in which to show fine paintings or listen to music.” Frank Lloyd Wright was
already known as the preeminent American architect of the 20th century, but this
invitation would add another major accomplishment to his influential career.
Wright made no secret of his disenchantment with Guggenheim’s choice of New
York City for his museum: “I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build
his great museum,” Wright wrote in 1949, “but we will have to try New York.” To Wright,
the city was overbuilt, overpopulated, and lacked architectural merit. Still, he proceeded
with his client’s wishes, finally settling on the present site on Fifth Avenue between 88th
and 89th Streets. Its proximity to Central Park was key; as close to nature as one gets in
New York, the park afforded relief from the noise and congestion of the city.

16. Nature not only provided the museum with a respite from New York’s distractions but also
lent it inspiration. The Guggenheim Museum is an embodiment of Wright’s attempts to
incorporate organic form into architecture. His plan for the new building dispensed with
the conventional approach to museum design. Instead, Wright whisked people to the top
of the building via elevator, proceeding downward on the gentle slope of a continuous
ramp. The galleries were divided like the membranes in citrus fruit, with self-contained yet
interdependent sections. The open rotunda afforded viewers the unique possibility of
seeing several bays of work on different levels simultaneously.
In August 1990, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was designated an official
New York City landmark. It is the youngest building ever to receive such recognition. The
Guggenheim is arguably Wright’s most eloquent presentation and stands today as one of
the great works of architecture produced in the 20th century.
Over the years, the Guggenheim has been through several restorations. Between
1990 and 1992 a new wing, designed by Gwathmey Siegel and Associates, Architects, was
added. This tower provides four additional exhibition galleries as well as two upper floors
devoted to offices. Another addition to the museum, the Sackler Center for Arts Education,
opened in 2001 and provides a permanent public facility devoted to arts education. In
2008, the museum completed a three-year restoration project in preparation for its 50th
anniversary celebration.

17. The museum's atrium The skylight in the center of
the museum
Theatre

18. Geometric forms
Most building contains interior spaces that are rectilinear and for Wright, geometry is the basic
building of the nature.
Frank Lloyd Wright thought in curves and straight lines which holds symbolic significance i.e.,
triangles – for structural unity
circles – infinity
spire – aspiration
spiral – organic process
square – integrity
(circles are found in the terrazzo floors and triangular lightning panels at the underside of the ramp)

19. Important features
The Guggenheim's surface was made out of concrete to reduce the cost, inferior to the
stone finish. Impact-echo technology in which sound waves are sent into the concrete and
the rebound is measured in order to locate voids within the walls. Overlapping curves,
complex intersections, a long interval of smooth planes interrupted by the double beat of
the vertical cylinders that contains the men’s and women’s washrooms. Color of the
interior wall is not stark white, but a kind of soft ivory. The ramp lean outward, but the
other elements such as structural fins that transfers the weight of the ramp to the outside
walls, and rise to support the central skylight, lean in. As such, the visitor views the works
while walking along an ascending, illuminated helical ramp, like a promenade.
It’s design was inspired by a “ziggurat”, a pyramidal, stepped and inverted
Babylonian temple.

20. Plan of the Museum
The museum was restored and
expanded in 1990 and now it contains
4750 square meters of new and
renovated gallery space, 130 square
meters of new office space, a new
restaurant and storage space.
The principle “form and function
are one” is thoroughly visible in the plan
of museum. According to his design,
visitors would enter the building, take
an elevator to the top and enjoy a
continuous art viewing experience while
descending along the spiral ramp.
First floor plan

21. Site Plan

23. Section of the Museum

24. Lighting
Artificial
lighting at the
entrance of
the museum
Artificial lights in galleries
Skylight is the main
source of natural
light
Another source of
natural light is the
windows