Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive

This catalog and the accompanying exhibition celebrate the 150th anniversary of the architect's birth and the unpacking of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives after it was transferred to the Museum of Modern Art and the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. Responsible for both exhibition and catalog, Columbia University and MoMA colleagues Bergdoll and Gray organized them around a sampling of the items in the archive rather than telling a sequential story of Wright's work, which is more than adequately documented elsewhere. Given the massive scale of the archive, which encompasses the entirety of the architect's long career, the works chosen provide the 16 essayists with ample opportunity to work in many themes present in Wright's architecture. The beautifully illustrated selection of drawings, sketches, models, photographs, and correspondence include some never before studied and others that provide new information on well-known works. Writings on the conservation of the architectural models, an overview of Wright's architectural drawings, and the data visualization projects the Avery Library is bringing to bear on the archives offer additional perspectives.