Monday, March 24, 2014
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often just called the Guggenheim, is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, NY. The well-known museum is the permanent home to a renowned and continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and Contemporary art.
Conception:
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was approached in 1943 by Solomon R. Guggenheim to design a new building to house his four-year-old Museum of Non-Objective painting. Wright agreed to design the museum, but clashed with his client on many details of the project, one such being the location. Wright was greatly opposed to placing a great museum in what he considered to be an overbuilt and overpopulated city that lacked architectural merit. Wright did concede to Guggenheim’s
wish and considered locations in New York, eventually settling on Fifth Avenue, a location close to Central Park and the relief it afforded with its nature. Nature also happens to be what inspired the design for the museum. “Wright whisked people to the top of the building via elevator, and led them downward at a leisurely pace on the gentle slope of a continuous ramp. The galleries were divided like the membranes in citrus fruit, with self-contained yet interdependent sections. The open rotunda afforded viewers the unique possibility of seeing several bays of work on different levels simultaneously. The spiral design recalled a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing freely one into another.” ( —Matthew Drutt ) Artists criticized Wright for creating a museum environment that might overpower the art inside, but Wright believed the building and the art would become an uninterrupted symphony never before seen in the World of Art.
Completion:
The museum construction completed in 1959, unfortunately neither Wright nor Guggenheim lived long enough to see that day. Guggenheim died in 1949, 10 years before completion, and Wright in 1959, a few months before it was completed. In 1952, the Museum adopted its current name after that of its founder. The museum opened to the public on October 21, 1959
