www.quondam.com/25/2461.htm

In 20th-century American architecture: a traveler's guide to 220 key buildings (1993), Sydney Le Blanc describes the interior of Frank Lloyd Wright's 1949 V.C. Morris Gift Shop as a "design [that] practically guides you through the shop by means of a spiral ramp, a precursor of Wright's integral design for the Guggenheim Museum in New York City some twenty years later." In truth, the design of the Guggenheim Museum with its interior spiral ramp dates from 1944, although the museum did not begin construction until 1956. At best, the C.V. Morris Gift Shop is a contemporaneous, diminutive spin-off of the Guggenheim Museum.

The design from Wright's earlier career that comes closest to precursing the Guggenheim Museum is the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective (1924-25), which incorporates a spiral automobile ramp that wraps around the summit of Sugar Loaf Mountain, Maryland. The ramp is here on the exterior of the building however, thus preceding the Guggenheim Museum in an inversionary fashion.

Frank Lloyd Wright, V.C. Morris Gift Shop, 1948-50, three interior views.
These views are from the Historic American Building Survey collection.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, 1924-25, view of the design model.

This image is from an online Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibit provided by the Library of Congress.

The section through the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective denotes the obvious difference between it and the Guggenheim Museum, but it also indicates just how close the two designs are in that it is not difficult to imagine the ramps of the Sugar Loaf Mountain design being an integral part of the building interior. On its own, however, the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective seems a distant descendant of Boullée's Newton Cenotaph.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, 1924-25, section.

This image is from an online Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibit provided by the Library of Congress and is copyright The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation 1994.

««««

»»»»