NOW ON VIEW
Build up or extend out?
The new exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright and the City: Density vs. Dispersal at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City examines Frank Lloyd Wright’s passionate and divided opinions about the growing American city in the 1920s and 1930s.
Working on radical new ideas for skyscrapers and for the urbanization of an American landscape titled “Broadacre City,” Frank Lloyd Wright and the City: Density vs. Dispersal features the spectacular 12-foot-by-12-foot model of the project, which merges one of the earliest schemes for a highway flyover with an expansive, agrarian domain, as well as a selection of the major architect’s drawings, films, and large-scale architectural models. Wright’s fascinating vision is paired with his innovative structural experiments for building a vertical city. Projects, from the early San Francisco Call Building (1912) to Manhattan’s St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie Towers (1927–31) to a controversial mile-high skyscraper, engage questions of urban density and seek to bring light and landscapes to tall buildings.
Frank Lloyd Wright and the City: Density vs. Dispersal celebrates the recent joint acquisition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s extensive archive by MoMA and Columbia University’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library.
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
Between 5 and 6 Avenues