Page 238 - DK Eyewitness Travel Guides - The World's Must-See Places

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

New York

CAHAOA Home to one of the world's finest collections
of modern and contemporary art, the building
SOLOMON R G~Gii!'ltt£1M itself is perhaps the museum's greatest
MUSEUM, . I*W YORK
masterpiece. Designed by architect Frank Lloyd
-loglcn, DC •
Wright, the curvaceous, shell-like fa-;ade is a
AnAfiTIC New York landmark. Taking its inspiration from
OCEAN
nature, the building attempts to render the
GVLI OF
MEXICO
fluidity of organic forms. Inside, a spiral ramp
curves down and inward from a dome, passing
GUGGENHEIM AND WRIGHT works by major 19th- and 20th-century artists.
Guggenheim amassed his wealth through his The imaginative layout of the Great R otunda Fifth Avenue fa~ade
family's mining and metal businesses, which
he ran from New York. He collected modernist gives visitors the opportunity to simultaneously
paintings, and in 1942, he asked Frank Lloyd view works located on different levels.
Wright to design a museum to house them. The
architect disagreed with the cho1 ce of New York FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
as the project's site-he felt the city was over- Wright (1867-1959) is considered the
built, overpopulated and lacking in architectural great innovator of 20th-century US
merit But he acqu1esced, and deSigned a architecture. He spent more than 70
structure to challenge these shortcom 1ngs Dis- years designing 1,141 works , including
houses, offices, churches, schools, and
regarding Manhattan's rectilinear gnd system, museums. Characteristic of his work ai'Q
he brought a fresh notion of museum deSign to the "Prairie sty1e" homes that became
the aty by USing a..rVJng, continuous spaces the basis of residential design in the US,
and ottice buildings or concrete, glass
bricks, and tubing. Wright I'QCelved the
OTHER MUSEUMS Guggenheim commission in 1943, and It
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation runs was completed after his death In 1959;
tiYee other museums In Bilbao 1n Span, a it was his only New Yorlt building.
building designed by US architect Frank 0
Interior of the Guggenheim's
Gehry houses a permanent collection of Great Rotunda
modern art (see p.106) Solomon's n1ece, Peggy
Guggenheim, donated her large villa 1n Ven1ce
and her collection of post -191 0 masterpieces of Sculpture terrace
surrealist and abstract pa1nt1ng and sculpture to
the foundation. Opened in 1951, this museum
is situated on the Grand Canal in Venice. In
cooperation with Deutsche Bank, the Deutsche
Guggenheim Berlin has four exhibitions a year, Small Rotunda
including performance art and music.

THE COLLECTION
Guggenheim started out as a collector of 0 0 0
mediocre old masters, but after meet1ng artist
Hilla Rebay, he began to amass a superb stock
of works by modernist artists such as Delaunay,
Leger, and Kandnsky The Solomon R
Guggenheim Foundation was founded 1n 1937
and established the Museum of Noo-ObjectJve
Art, as the Guggenheim was known until 1959,
1n a temporary res1del"(:e Plann1ng of the new
building began 1n 1943, but rt was not until
after Guggenheim's death 1n 1949 that the
collection was expanded to 1nclude such art1sts
as Picasso, Cezanne, Klee, and Mangold
Thannhauser's collect1on of Impressionist,
Post-ImpresSionist and early modern art,
donated from 1978 to 1991 by collector Justin
Thannhauser and his widow, is hung in the
Tower galleries. The Guggenheim Museum's
exhibits change on a regular basis.