FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT? RIGHT YOU ARE!

It’s 4:00 PM in the afternoon this Saturday and it is the first opportunity I’ve had all day to sit down at my desk, get caught up with voice mails, emails, etc. At 10:00 AM twenty Miami-Dade County teachers enrolled in a Master’s program at Florida International University arrived for a lecture presentation on the Wolfsonian library’s holdings of New Deal era materials. Three lingered on after 1:00 PM for an opportunity to do some archival research in our library.

Even as I was in the process of clearing some of the rare Roosevelt era books and ephemera from the table, notification came that a group of twenty-three Frank Lloyd Wright enthusiasts would be coming up at 2:00 PM to see our library display, listen to an overview of the library collection, and to see whatever we had to offer regarding the work of the famous architect. They did not go away disappointed. The group was treated to a number of Frank Lloyd Wright related items, including: Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, a two-volume elephant portfolio of his work published by E. Wasmuth in Berlin in 1910, and which helped to establish his reputation internationally; an advertisement for The Jewel of the Orient: The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, his most famous building in that country; a special edition of the Dutch graphic design magazine Wendingen devoted exclusively to Frank Lloyd Wright’s work and featuring a special cover design mimicking the architect’s style; the Annual of American design, 1931 featuring Frank Lloyd Wrights’ article, “Principles of design”; the July 1937 issue of Town & Country featuring his Falling Water masterpiece on the front cover; and Amerikka rakentaa, a Finnish work celebrating Wright’s architectural genius in 1945.

Here are a couple of images from the rare brochure advertising his famous hotel built in the Maya Revival style and completed in 1923 before the Great Earthquake struck the city that same year. The edifice survived relatively unscathed considering the devastation unleashed by the 8.3 magnitude quake, but in 1968 much of the façade was dismantled and carted away, and the building itself demolished to make way for a new hotel on the same spot. The images from this brochure were taken soon after its opening.