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From a June 2017 article in the Observer, written by Alanna Martinez and entitled "Frank Lloyd Wright's Archives Still Hold Mysteries Left to Solve":
This year the renowned modernist would have turned 150 years old, and
to celebrate the occasion the Museum of Modern Art has pulled from its
archives rare and never before shown works by the Wright, to be shown in
its anthology-style exhibition titled, “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150:
Unpacking the Archive,” organized in collaboration with the Avery
Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. The show will feature some 400 works created between the 1890s and
1950s, and draw from both MoMA’s archives and loans from outside
collections. But among the show’s most unique features are a series of
videos documenting the “unpacking” of MoMA’s archived by scholars. The
collections included 55,000 drawings, 300,000 letters of correspondence,
125,000 photographs, models, films, and more, according to a press
release for the show. For the occasion, MoMA invited scholars and
conservators to choose pieces from the archive to study closely, and to
document their research and insights in short videos that reflect the
show’s 12 thematic sections. . . . For a different section of the show, MoMA conservator Ellen Moody
examined yet another Wright skyscraper design that was never realized: a
1927-29 model for St. Mark’s Tower. The model was painstakingly
partially restored for this retrospective, and Moody explains the
museum’s process for deciding which, if any, sections should be restored
and why, as well as the step-by-step efforts to vacuum, clean and
refurbish the delicate cardboard model which traveled the world being
shown during the architect’s lifetime. Why was it never built? Moody
explains that correspondence and reviews of the design expressed concern
over whether or not it was too ahead of its time, and even the
possibility that residents on the upper floors might experience vertigo.
To access the full article and accompanying videos, click here. The video about the skyscraper model is also availabe on MoMA's Youtube channel, here.
