image from www.guggenheim.org

image from Al

A trip to New York is never complete without visiting one of the many world-renowned museums in Uptown.  One exhibit I just couldn’t miss, which I highly reccommend everyone to see, is the Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibit entitled “From Within Outward,” at the Guggenheim Museum.  It’s absolutely unique to see a progression of this master’s life, work, and designs.  It is also fitting to have the timeline of his life layed out while in one of his famously designed structures; the Guggenheim itself! 

“…the 50th anniversary exhibition brings together sixty-four projects designed by one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, including privately commissioned residences, civic and government buildings, religious and performance spaces, as well as unrealized urban mega-structures. Presented on the spiral ramps of Wright’s museum through a range of mediums—including more than 200 original Frank Lloyd Wright drawings, many of which are on view to the public for the first time, as well as newly commissioned models and digital animations…”

One of the most surprising and interesting details I learned of this amazing architect, was that his very last project which he was commissioned for though never constructed and realized, was his plans for Bagdhad, Iraq. 

“…In 1957, Iraq’s King Faisal II asked venerable American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design an opera house for downtown Bagdhad. Not satisfied with the small plot assigned to him, Wright lobbied to build on an undeveloped island in the Tigris instead. He dubbed it “The Isle of Edena,” and greatly expanded the commission to include museums and bazaars, a landscaped park with monuments and waterfalls, a botanical garden and zoo, and a new campus for Baghdad University.”

image from Al

image from Al

image from Al

(Bagdhad Plan) image from www.guggenheim.org