Image courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives
Seen today Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumDesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim seems to occupy several time periods simultaneously, modern yet somehow ancient. The latter quality must have something to do with its bright white color, which (especially in the context of an institution like this) is reminiscent of Greek and Roman statues. But like those statues, the Guggenheim wasn’t originally white. “Fewer and fewer New Yorkers will remember that this museum, in what was then a much dirtier city, was once beige.” new york TimesMichael Kimmelman“Robert Moses thought it looked like ‘jaundiced skin.'” Presumably during the 1992 expansion, the decision was made to paint over Wright’s chosen earthy color.
Beige wasn’t the only color considered during the design process: Archival drawings “show that Wright considered some pretty outlandish colors, including Cherokee red, orange, and pink,” Kimmelman writes.
The very idea of ​​”falling down the rabbit hole of alternate New York history” at the end is intriguing, if you’re interested in what the pink Guggenheim looked like from the street. David Romero from Hooked Past produced a few digitally altered photographs, and the results weren’t as tasteless as one might expect — in fact, they might have fit right in with Memphis’s heyday in the 1980s, or even the postmodern 1990s. The image above, an imaginary Guggenheim Museum in pink, is taken from the archives of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
As it stands, however, “the buildings’ stark white, sterile facades, closed off from the surrounding city, fit today with the atmosphere of their neighborhoods.” As such, it is consistent with the ideas Wright advocated throughout his life for transforming American cities. Seeking to solve “the problems of the inner city,” he envisioned “fantastical megastructures in places like downtown Pittsburgh, Baghdad, and Madison, Wisconsin,” all “urban-based yet anti-urban projects, detached from the streets.” Even while working in America’s most densely populated metropolises, Wright expressed a longing for the splendid isolation of rural America, where, at least as legend has it, one could paint one’s house any color one wanted.
via Messy Nessie/Obsessed with the past
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Based in Seoul, Colin MaOnershall Writing and broadcastingHe has written papers on cities, languages, and cultures, and his projects include the Substack newsletter. Books about cities And books A city without a state: Walking through 21st-century Los Angeles. Follow us on Twitter CollinhamOnershall or Facebook.
