The Gordon Strong Automobile Objective was a proposed planetarium, restaurant, and scenic overlook designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. Wright developed the design in 1925 on commission from Chicago businessman Gordon Strong. A spiraling ramp featured centrally in Wright's plan; this was his first use of a feature which would later gain fame as part of his Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Strong became familiar with Sugarloaf Mountain while living in Washington, D.C. prior to around the start of the 20th century. The mountain is a monadnock which due to the lack of competing peaks in the area possesses considerable views of its surroundings. [1] Strong began to buy land on Sugarloaf Mountain as early as 1902, and between then and his retirement in 1935 he developed various plans for developing the mountain as a resort or recreation center. The "automobile objective" idea was one such plan, which Strong proposed to Wright in 1924. The "automobile objective" was primarily a day-trip destination; people would drive out to the mountain, perhaps picnic while enjoying the scenic views, and then return home.
Wright's design went through various iterations, but the main feature was a ziggurat-like circular structure at the pinnacle of the mountain. The structure was wrapped in a spiraling ramp which cars would use to ascend and descend. The ramp was the main exterior feature of the structure, aside from a tall spire sticking up from the center, which was likely intended as a mooring post for dirigibles. [2] Parking for hundreds of cars was placed inside the building.
In developing the concept, Wright decided to include an auditorium inside the spiraling ramps, and move the tower to the side. Another notable element of this design was the specification of glass, or glass blocks in concrete armature, as the material for the ramp, which would let more natural light into the interior space. This was possibly impractical but certainly daring.
Wright's final and most complete plan for the site replaced the interior theatre with a larger domed open space that would be used as a planetarium. This was the plan that he presented to Strong in 1925. The size of the interior dome necessitated moving all parking outside, onto the ramp itself, and limited the space available for eateries and overnight bedrooms. Strong regarded the plan as unsuitable and rejected it, believing that it allocated space poorly and violated the integrity of the mountaintop. Wright reacted sharply to the rejection: "I have given you a noble 'archaic' sculptured summit for your mountain. I should have diddled it away with platforms and seats and spittoons for…expectorating businessmen and the flappers that beset them." [3]
Mark Reinberger asserts that the design is evidence of Wright's desire to find a new form of architectural expression, a utopian scheme reliant on modern technology—in the case of this project, the automobile. [4] Wright's vision culminated in his plan for Broadacre City. In Broadacre City, automobile objectives would be built at locations of natural beauty to serve as a meeting places and social centers. Sugarloaf Mountain was an early expression of Wright's attachment to the automobile as an important social artifact. He criticized people driving to a destination and leaving their car parked underground: "leaving the automobiles in which they both now really live and have their beings, still 'parked' aside,—betrayed and abandoned as usual." [5]
The Gordon Strong plan was Wright's first spiral-based building, but he returned to the element at least six times, building first the V. C. Morris Gift Shop (1948) in San Francisco and finally delivering the well-known Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1943–1959). [6] Other instances include the unbuilt plans for the Point Park Civic Center (1947) and the Baghdad Cultural Center (1957).
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preservation, and research of modern and contemporary art and operates several museums around the world. The first museum established by the foundation was The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, in New York City. This became The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952, and the foundation moved the collection into its first permanent museum building, in New York City, in 1959. The foundation next opened the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, in 1980. Its international network of museums expanded in 1997 to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, and it expects to open a new museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates after its construction is completed.
Broadacre City was an urban or suburban development concept proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright throughout most of his lifetime. He presented the idea in his book The Disappearing City in 1932. A few years later he unveiled a very detailed twelve-by-twelve-foot scale model representing a hypothetical four-square-mile (10 km2) community. The model was crafted by the student interns who worked for him at Taliesin, and financed by Edgar Kaufmann. It was initially displayed at an Industrial Arts Exposition in the Forum at the Rockefeller Center starting on April 15, 1935. After the New York exposition, Kaufmann arranged to have the model displayed in Pittsburgh at an exposition titled "New Homes for Old", sponsored by the Federal Housing Administration. The exposition opened on June 18 on the 11th floor of Kaufmann's store. Wright went on to refine the concept in later books and in articles until his death in 1959.
Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, and the home of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1908. Unity Temple is considered to be one of Wright's most important structures dating from the first decade of the twentieth century. Because of its consolidation of aesthetic intent and structure through use of a single material, reinforced concrete, Unity Temple is considered by many architects to be the first modern building in the world. This idea became of central importance to the modern architects who followed Wright, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and even the post-modernists, such as Frank Gehry. In 2019, along with seven other buildings designed by Wright in the 20th century, Unity Temple was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Sugarloaf Mountain is a small mountain and park about 10 miles (16 km) south of Frederick, Maryland, USA. The closest village is Barnesville, located just over one mile from the foot of the mountain. The peak of this relatively low mountain is approximately 800 feet higher than the surrounding farmland. It is visible from many parts of northern Montgomery County and southern Frederick County, notably from I-270 north of the town of Germantown. Because of its geological and natural history interest, it was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1969. It is a notable example of an admission-free, privately owned scenic park.
The Mile-High Illinois, Illinois Sky City, or simply The Illinois is a visionary skyscraper that is proposed to be over 1 mile (1,600 m) high, conceived and described by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1957 book, A Testament. The design, intended to be built in Chicago, included 528 stories, with a gross area of 18,460,000 square feet (1,715,000 m2). Wright stated that there would be parking for 15,000 cars and 100 helicopters.
The Point Park Civic Center was a proposed civic center for downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, where the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers forms the Ohio River. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the structure on a commission from Edgar J. Kaufmann in the late 1940s. Wright initially envisioned a circular building more than 1,000 feet (300 m) in diameter and 175 feet (53 m) tall. The structure, containing an opera house, sports arena, three movie theaters, and a convention hall, was wrapped by a spiraling strip of road. The plan expressed Wright's insistence on bringing the automobile into the social setting. It did not find favor with Pittsburgh authorities.
The Graycliff estate was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1926, and built between 1926 and 1931. It is located approximately 17 miles southwest of downtown Buffalo, New York, at 6472 Old Lake Shore Road in the hamlet of Highland-on-the-Lake, with a mailing address of Derby. Graycliff is sited on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie with sweeping views of downtown Buffalo and the Ontario shore. Graycliff is one of the most ambitious and extensive summer estates Wright ever designed. Graycliff is now fully restored and operates as a historic house museum, open for guided tours year round. There is also a summer Market at Graycliff, free and open to the public on select Thursday evenings. Graycliff Conservancy is run by Executive Director Anna Kaplan, who was hired in 2019.
Child of the Sun is a collection of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on the campus of the Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. The twelve original buildings were constructed between 1941 and 1958. Another of Wright's designs, a Usonian house originally intended for faculty housing, was completed in 2013, and is now part of the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center. On March 2, 2012, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. The buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and together form the largest collection of buildings by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Plan for Greater Baghdad was a project done by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a cultural center, opera house, and university on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, in 1957–58. The most thoroughly developed aspects of the plan were the opera house, which would have been built on an island in the middle of the Tigris together with museums and a towering gilded statue of Harun al-Rashid, and the university. Due to the 1958 collapse of the Hashemite monarchy, development of the project stopped, and it was never built.
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Robert and Rae Levin House, also Robert Levin House and Robert Levin Residence, is a single-family home in Kalamazoo, Michigan and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The William R. Heath House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built from 1903 to 1905, and is located at 76 Soldiers Place in Buffalo, New York. It is built in the Prairie School architectural style. It is a contributing property in the Elmwood Historic District–East historic district and a City of Buffalo landmark.
The Kalita Humphreys Theater is a historic theater in Dallas, Texas (USA). It is the only theater by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and one of the last completed buildings he designed. It was built in 1959 for Dallas Theater Center who still produces original productions on the revolving stage. Other Dallas theater groups also use the Kalita Humphreys Theater throughout the year, including Uptown Players and Second Thought Theater.
The David and Gladys Wright House is a Frank Lloyd Wright residence built in 1952 in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona. It has historically been listed with an address of 5212 East Exeter Boulevard, but currently has an entrance on the 4500 block of North Rubicon Avenue. There currently is no public access to the house.
Bramante Staircase is the name given to two staircases in the Vatican Museums in the Vatican City State: the original stair, built in 1505, and a modern equivalent from 1932.
The R. W. Lindholm Service Station is a service station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and located in Cloquet, Minnesota, United States. Built in 1958 and still in use, it is the only station built to a Wright design during his lifetime. It was originally part of Wright's utopian Broadacre City plan and is one of the few designs from that plan that was actually implemented. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Henry Gordon Strong was a Chicago businessman and founder of Gordon Strong and Company in 1927 which still operates today.
Parkwyn Village is a planned community of Usonian houses located along Winchell and Lorraine Avenues and Parkwyn and Taliesin Drives, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. Four houses in the community were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: The Robert and Rae Levin House, the Eric and Margaret Ann (Davis) Brown House, the Ward McCartney House, and the Robert D. Winn House.
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