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Significant Characteristic of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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Significant Characteristic of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Study on some significant characteristic of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Basic Information • HISTORIC NAME: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum • LOCATION: Street & Number: 1071 Fifth Avenue City/Town: New York • TIME: 1943-59 • FUNCTION OR USE: Historic: Recreation and Culture Sub: Museum Current: Recreation and Culture Sub: Museum • DESCRIPTION: ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: Modern Movement MATERIALS: Foundation: Reinforced concrete Walls: Concrete Roof: Glass; concrete
Summary
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is nationally significant as one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most important commissions during his long, productive, and influential career. Built between 1956 and 1959, the museum is recognized as an icon of mid-twentieth-century modern architecture. Being one of his last works, it represents the culmination of a lifetime of evolution of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas about an “organic architecture.” Within its building typology, the Guggenheim is one of the early examples of “architecture as art” for major twentieth-century museums. The original building remains essentially unchanged and exhibits an unusually high degree of integrity, clearly conveying its character-defining form.
Location and Site
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the upper east side of Manhattan. The building occupies an entire rectangular block (201’ x 120’) on the east side of the avenue between East 88th and East 89th streets. The museum is oriented west toward Central Park, which is directly cross the street, and is surrounded by late-nineteenth and twentieth-century, multi-story buildings, generally of brick, stone, or concrete construction. Buildings on the side streets are primarily four to ten story buildings, while those lining Fifth Avenue north and south of the museum are larger in scale. Residential use predominates in the neighborhood; however, this particular stretch



References: • Addams, Charles. The New Yorker Visits The Guggenheim. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2005. • Alden, Robert. “Art Experts Laud Wright’s Design.” New York Times 22 Oct. 1959: 41. • Blake, Peter. “The Guggenheim: Museum or Monument?” Architectural Forum 111 (Dec. 1959):86-93. • Blake, Peter. The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1976. • Curtis, William J. R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. Oxford, UK: Phaidon Press Limited, 1982. • Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Revised and enlarged. New York: Thames and Hudson. Ltd., 1985. • Frank Lloyd Wright: The Guggenheim Correspondence. Ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer. Fresno, CA: Press at California State University, Fresno, and Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 1986. • “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterwork.” Architectural Forum 96 (Apr. 1952): 141-44 (reprint). • Gill, Brendan. Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1987. • Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr. “Frank Lloyd Wright.” Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architecture. Vol. 4. Ed. By Adolf K. Placzek. New York: The Free Press, 1982. • Mumford, Lewis. “The Skyline: What Wright Hat Wrought.” The New Yorker 5 Dec. 1959: 105-06 • Noland, Kenneth • Quinan, Jack. “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim: A Historian Report.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 52 (Dec. 1993): 446-482. • Taylor, John. “Born Again: The New Guggenheim.” New York Magazine 1 Jun. 1992: 30-39. • Twomby, Robert C. Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and His Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. • Wright, Frank Lloyd. In the Cause of Architecture. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1975 • Wright, Frank Lloyd • Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Living City. 1958. New York: New American Library, 1970. • Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Natural House. New York: Horizon Press, 1954. • Wright, Frank Lloyd. An Organic Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy. London: Lund, Humphires & Co., Ltd., 1939.

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