Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum NYC

Happy 51^st! And many more to come.

On October 21^st, 2010, marks the 51^st anniversary of when the doors 1^st opened to the general public at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The museum, which displays modern art, was designed by the famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). It is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, on 86^th Street and 5^th Avenue. The curves and shape of the museum makes it really stand out from the cubical and typical box-shaped buildings that surround the museum. It took Frank Lloyd Wright roughly 15 plus years, and countless number of sketches and many working models, to come up with the final design of the museum.

Solomon Guggenheim (1861-1949) was a very successful American business man in the mining field. He also was a huge collector of modern art. In 1943, Solomon Guggenheim contacted Frank Lloyd Wright about designing a public, permanent building for the modern artwork. Solomon died in 1949, so he never saw his vision finished. Some of the art work displayed in the museum is from Solomon’s personal collection.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum NYC is one my favorite designed public buildings in the U.S.

The Guggenheim Foundation has other museums around the world.

In my opinion, I think the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum NYC is a much better design than its newer, larger sibling, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, located in Bilbao, Spain. A Canadian architect, Frank Gehry, designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. It opened to the general public in 1997.