You can tell immediately when you walk into a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home whether or not the original furniture is still there.
That’s because, unlike most architects Wisconsin’s most famous and influential architect didn’t just design the walls of a building, he typically designed all the details, too.
Including the furniture. Wright’s furniture, like his stained glass, has been collected over the years and has proved to be (almost) as influential as his building designs. (Of course, he famously also specified where the furniture was to be placed and if he visited and found something had been moved, he returned it to his desired location.)
Wright’s furniture – specifically his unique chair designs – are the focus of a new exhibition that opens at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend this weekend.
The show – “Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design,” which runs Oct. 4-Jan. 25 – displays more than 40 domestic furniture pieces, including some never-before-seen constructions of Wright-designed furniture.
The pieces are enhanced and placed into context with working sketches, archival photographs and animated renderings that help to illuminate Wright’s holistic approach to residential design.
The show was created by architectural historian Eric Vogel, scholar-in-residence at the Taliesin Institute, who was able to scour Wright’s archives to find documentation that he says challenges the perception that Wright’s furniture was secondary to his architecture.
“When Wright rebuilt Taliesin after two major fires, he paired the new architecture with significant new and unprecedented furniture forms that were rejected by his clients at the time for their unconventionality,” says Vogel.
“MOWA has recreated several of these lost or never-produced works, offering the viewer a unique opportunity to experience these bold forms in person.”
Vogel created the exhibition alongside MOWA’s Associate Curator of Architecture and Design Thomas Szolwinski and the show serves not only to demonstrate how Wright influenced furniture design but also to offer a glimpse at some of his previously unknown, and unbuilt, furniture experiments.
Over his long career, Wright created more than 200 unique chair designs.
“By viewing Wright’s furniture, specifically his chair designs, through the lens of Taliesin as a creative incubator, this exhibition reveals the experimental nature of his process and offers a fresh perspective on his architectural vision,” says Szolwinski.
“In the wider history of exhibitions dedicated to Wright, this show marks an important moment of reexamination and rediscovery.”
The newly constructed Wright designs were created by a trio of woodworkers that includes Wright’s great-grandson, S. Lloyd Natof, and among the designs are ones Wright created for the Guggenheim Museum cafe.
“The Museum of Wisconsin Art is delighted to contribute new research and conversations about this iconic figure in American architecture,” said Laurie Winters, MOWA’s James and Karen Hyde Executive Director.
MOWA will host a series of programming tied to “Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design” and you can find details of those here.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
