Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy

Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing a Legacy presents two iconic buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright (1868–1959), America’s greatest architect and a cultural figure of international significance. The Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, and the H. C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, are currently being restored. Furthermore their legacy is being reinterpreted in designs for adjacent buildings by contemporary architects: Toshiko Mori and Zaha Hadid, respectively.

An important example of Wright’s Prairie Style, the Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, dates from the early stages of Wright’s remarkably long career. Wright designed furniture and art glass for the principal house, as well as extensive gardens and several satellite buildings. The H.C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of Wright’s last realized works. It is a rare example of an organic high-rise, a small skyscraper structured about a central core: Wright thought of the building as a great tree.

Having suffered years of neglect, including the loss of its gardens, the Martin House complex is being rehabilitated as a significant public attraction for Buffalo. After an invited competition involving five architectural practices, Mori is to construct a glass-walled visitors’ pavilion to one side of the Martin House garden. In Bartlesville, the Price Tower now functions as a small hotel—the Inn at Price Tower—and, in part, the Price Tower Arts Center. Hadid has been commissioned to design a greatly expanded Price Tower Arts Center at the base of Wright’s freestanding tower.

This exhibition tells the story of two Frank Lloyd Wright masterworks and of new, companion projects by internationally recognized architects inventively responded to Wright’s historic legacy.

The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust. General support for museum programs is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Heinz Endowments.

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Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy