Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy presents two iconic buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), America’s greatest architect and a cultural figure of international significance. The Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, and the H. C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, are currently being restored and their legacy reinterpreted in designs for adjacent buildings by contemporary architects.
An important example of Wright’s Prairie Style, the Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, dates from the early stages of Wright’s remarkably long career. Wright designed furniture and art glass for the principal house, as well as extensive gardens and several satellite buildings. Having suffered years of neglect, including the loss of its gardens, the Martin House is being restored to serve as a significant public attraction by the Buffalo-based firm of Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects.
After an invited competition involving five architectural practices, Toshiko Mori, chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard, is to construct a visitors’ pavilion to one side of the garden. Taking its clues from the rectilinear geometry of the Martin House, Mori’s building has a funnel-shaped roof and sheer walls of glass. Mori’s winning pavilion is presented alongside the proposals by Brian Healy Architects, Architecture Research Office (ARO), Schwartz/Silver Architects, and Office dA.
The H.C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of Wright’s last realized works. It is a rare example of an organic high-rise, a small skyscraper structured about a central core: Wright thought of the building as a great tree. Most of the Price Tower has been renovated by New York-based architect Wendy Evans Joseph to function as an elegant boutique hotel–the Inn at Price Tower. Joseph’s furnishings, designed to complement Wright’s original interiors, are also on view in the exhibition.
Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha Hadid has now been commissioned to design a greatly expanded Price Tower Arts Center at the base of Wright’s freestanding tower. The London-based architect extrapolates the geometries of the site to lead visitors into a dynamic, horizontal, glass-roofed interior with terraces that open to views of the 19-story tower.
This exhibition tells the story of two Frank Lloyd Wright masterworks and of new, companion projects by internationally recognized architects inventively responding to Wright’s historic legacy.
