THE GEIGER DATABASE

SEARCH OPTIONS
Frank Lloyd Wright commissions

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS

Frank Lloyd Wright produced projects for sites located in 48 American states and 10 foreign countries. Some unbuilt projects, graphics designs, and publications do not have locations given in the archival record and are absent in this search.

Project Information

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum [New York, New York] (1944)

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: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Sobriquet or alternative place name: None.

Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.

Occupancy form or use: CIVIC/Museum.

Principal building materials: CONCRETE/Poured in place.

Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 74.

Drawing Number and Description

4305.005     Elevation
4305.009     Perspective from the front
4305.014     Section/elevation by FLLW
4305.014     Cross Section
4305.018     Floor plan of ground floor
4305.025     Elevation rendered in white
4305.026     Cross section, very early
4305.035     Cross sections
4305.055     Floor plan of ground level
4305.058     Floor plan of second level
4305.060     Floor plan of fourth level
4305.061     Cross section A-A
4305.437     Floor plan, basement
4305.439     Floor plan, ground floor
4305.440     Floor plan, first floor
4305.441     Floor plan, second floor
4305.442     Floor plan, third floor
4305.443     Floor plan, fourth floor
4305.444     Floor plan, fifth floor
4305.451     Cross section of rotunda
4305.583     Perspective
4305.649     Gate details
4305.698     Structural plan

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.

Berndtson, Peter
Davison, Allen Lape
Howe, John
Po, Ling
Wiehle, Louis
Wright, Frank Lloyd
Specifications writer: Cohen, George
Structural engineering: Peters, William Wesley
Structural engineering: Glickman, Mendel
Structural engineering: Polivka, Jaroslav J.

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. Sources were often footnoted by an alphanumeric system, but the references are sometimes missing from the locations where they were intended to be recorded; the relationship between footnote letter or numeral and reference is absent. In order to retain the presence of available information, citations are here shown grouped together in one comment field. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field. The relevance of references provided by John Geiger can often be recovered through examination of the publications used in his research.See the list of principal bibliographical sources used for this purpose.

Date recorded by John Geiger for chronological sorting: July 27, 1944.

Preliminary drawings date: July 27, 1944.

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: Quinan, Jack. "Engineering the Organic: The Partnership of Jaroslav J. Polivka and Frank Lloyd Wright" (Buffalo and Erie Historical Society, 2001), p. 30.

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].
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: 2009, Vol. 20, No. 3. Phoenix, Arizona: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Levine, Neil. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Princeton, New Jersery: Princeton University Press. [ISBN: 0-691-03371-4].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1715-6].
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 1942-1950 (Volume 7). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-518-4].
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 Heroic Years: 1920-1932. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 978-8478-3174-6].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete Works 1943-1959 (Volume 3). Cologne, Germany: Taschen. [ISBN: 978-8228-5770-0].
Protetch, Max. The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright: 5 May through 6 June, 1987. New York: Max Protech Gallery.
Riley, Terence and Reed, Peter (editors). Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. [ISBN: 0-87070-642-X].
Sloan, Julie L.. Light Screens: The Complete Leaded-Glass Windows of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-2306-7].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings Volume 4, 1939-1349. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1803-9].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings Volume 5, 1949-1959. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1854-3].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Disappearing City. William Farquahar Payson.