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
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