After decades of adherence to right angles—with occasional excursions into equilateral triangles—in the late 1930s Frank Lloyd Wright softened his corners, finally adopting curves and spirals in the early 1940s, creating what one writer called “an architecture that was fluid, plastic, continuous, and has utterly changed our ideas of the nature of space and structure.” One of the greatest challenges of Wright’s long career, the Guggenheim Museum commission obliged the architect to address the needs not only of a client but of a large number of curators, trustees, and city officials. The triumph of the spectacular design attests to the extraordinary skill with which the architect presented his ideas while crossing swords with nearly everyone involved. The original client was Solomon Robert Guggenheim (American, 1861–1949), a zealous collector of nonobjective art who had made a fortune in the family mining business. His collection—largely abstract paintings by European masters from Klee to Kandinsky—became the basis for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which opened to the public on October 21, 1959, six months after the passing of its celebrated architect. Fifteen color reproductions bound in a handy postcard collection. Oversized postcards measure 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. ISBN 978-0-7649-5040-7. |
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