THE GEIGER DATABASE

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Frank Lloyd Wright commissions

Frank Lloyd Wright Commission Titles

The information presented here exhibits the extent to which John Geiger considered many points of reference related to a given Frank Lloyd Wright project. Aside from basic information such as title, location, and project date, Geiger extended his interests to types of floor and roof plans, types of construction and building purpose, and where possible the dates of the various stages of development in the design process and construction. Geiger often included citations for bibliographic references as sources for the recorded information in an elaborate but unevenly developed series of attributions.

Project Information

Plan for Greater Baghdad and Crescent Opera House, project [Baghdad, Iraq] (1957)

Note: The following information concerning this project represents original research and analysis by John Geiger, and is based in his long and detailed study of the Frank Lloyd Wright literature as well as personal contacts with members of the Taliesin Fellowship and architectural historians. In addition, he added his own categories of building type and compositional form, as well as other points of consideration that he deemed important to understanding of the design. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided. Sometimes there is an indication of attribution for which there is no matching footnote recorded. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field.

Name of client: Government of Iraq.

Sobriquet or alternative place name: None.

Design Status (as of 2011): Unbuilt.

Occupancy form or use: CIVIC/Civic Center.

Principal building materials: Not assigned.

Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 25.

Drawing Number and Description

5733.001     Site plan by Minoprio and Spencely and P. W. Macfarland
5733.002     Stite plan; early master plan
5733.004     Monument to Al Rashid
5733.005     Perspective
5733.006     Aerial view of university
5733.007     Perspective; Crescent Opera and Civic Auditorium
5733.008     Aerial perspective
5733.009     Floor plan and elevaion
5733.011     Elevation with work by Wright
5733.012     Elevation/Section
5733.013     Cross section
5733.014     Elevation
5733.023     Opera house perspective
5733.025     Cross section of Opera House
5733.026     Site plan at ground level
5733.027     Site plan at garden-level
5733.028     Floor plan and parking ramps
5733.028     Third level plan, top level of ziggurat and entrance to opera
5733.029     Plan of balcony and upper part of auditorium
5733.031     Longitudinal cross section
5733.032     Elevation
5733.033     Site plan of Isle of eden and the Universoty
5733.037     Preliminary sketch for plan of Baghdad, island and university sit
5733.039     Cross section
5733.039     Cross section

Individuals recorded as contributing to project:

Note: Not everyone who contributed to a project may be named; only those whose participation has been confirmed from a source appear above. Occasionally names presented as contributors to a project may seem chronologically anomalous. This usually occurs when an individual prepared drawings for publicity, exhibition, or publication long after the original date of a commission.

Individuals recorded as producing drawings for this project:
Davison, Allen Lape
Howe, John
Wiehle, Louis
Wright, Frank Lloyd


Project Drawing Date Range

Note: Dates for preliminary and working drawings, as well as the start and completion of construction, appear here only when present in the database. Through careful study of original, reproduced, or published Wright drawings, John Geiger developed an elaborate granulation for design process dates and their attributions. Such information is largely available only for Wright projects dating from the mid-1930s until 1959.

Date recorded by John Geiger for chronological sorting: 6/20/1957.

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: (1) See drawings 5733.007 and .008 signed this date. Geiger 05/17/96 (a) Really gross design. Geiger 11/18/95.

Note: The information shown above is collected from a series of data table columns intended originally to record not only comments or notes, but also to cite sources of attribution for dates assigned to the various stages of drawing preparation in the design process. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution shown here should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided.

This commission is referenced and/or illustrated in the following publications:

Alofsin, Anthony. Frank Lloyd Wright: Europe and Beyond. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. [ISBN: 0-520-21116-2].
Cleary, Richard (editor). Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. New York: Skira/ Rizzoli. [ISBN: 978-0-8478-3262-0].
De Long, David G.. Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.. [ISBN: 0-8109-3981-9].
Drexler, Arthur. The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0-8180-0019-8].
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly: 1998, Vol. 9, No. 1. Phoenix, Arizona: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly: 2004, Vol. 15, No. 1. Phoenix, Arizona: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly: 2009, Vol. 20, No. 2. Phoenix, Arizona: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Kaufmann, Jr., Edgar. Frank Lloyd Wright: Drawings for a Living Architecture. New York: Horizon Press.
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings: Masterworks from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives. New York: Harry H. Abrams Inc.. [ISBN: 0-8108-1773-4].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1951-1959 (Volume 8). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-519-2].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph Preliminary Studies, 1933-1959 (Volume 11). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-522-2].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, In His Renderings 1887-1959 (Volume 12). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-523-0].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete Works 1943-1959 (Volume 3). Cologne, Germany: Taschen. [ISBN: 978-8228-5770-0].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Treasures of Taliesin: Seventy-Six Unbuilt Designs. Southern Illinois University Press. [ISBN: 0-8093-1235-2].
Riley, Terence and Reed, Peter (editors). Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. [ISBN: 0-87070-642-X].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. When Democracy Builds. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.