Removal of Brickwork from Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian House, 1953. Series 1: Clinton N. Hunt Records: Exhibitions and Objects. Office of Business Administration records. A0018. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 61: Removal of Brickwork from Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian House
May 9, 2011
From October 22nd to December 13th, 1953, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum hosted the exhibition Sixty Years of Living Architecture: The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright. In order to accommodate the show, a temporary pavilion was erected on the site of the future Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum building. In addition to the pavilion, a model Usonian House was constructed on the lot and furnished with pieces designed by Wright. Conceived of by Wright as a sample of affordable housing for the average American, the two-bedroom house was built on a human scale, and had an open floor plan and ample natural light. The photograph shown here documents the final removal of brickwork from the Usonian House at the conclusion of the exhibition.
Before coming to New York, Sixty Years of Living Architecture had been shown in various European cities as well as in Mexico and proved to be immensely popular with the public. During the course of the exhibition in New York, over eighty-thousand visitors came to the museum, which remained open every day and had extended hours until 10 pm several days a week.
-Amanda Brown, Archives Assistant