Frank Lloyd Wright's "Opus" Can Finally Be Experienced as Intended
Frank Lloyd Wright’s “opus,” Martin House, still stands today, which is downright remarkable. Following the 1935 death of its owner, the self-made millionaire and longtime Wright patron Darwin D. Martin, the building remained abandoned for almost two decades.
Subsequent owners restored some of its crumbling walls but demolished other parts of the building. When Martin House Restoration Corporation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to bring the home to its original glory, got to work reviving the damaged building, it resulted in a years-long project costing $52 million.
And those restoration efforts are not over.
While the restorers successfully revived Martin House’s 2,655 square foot conservatory and “art glass” windows covered in abstract patterns, the Buffalo home, which today operates as a museum to Wright’s longtime partnership with the Martin clan, is still working on acquiring original Frank Lloyd Wright furnishings. A new exhibition on view from March 27, titled “Collecting Ourselves,” gives an insight into this process.
Wright didn’t only design the facades of his buildings, but also brought his vision to the interior, producing or selecting the artworks, furniture, and decorations. Most of the original furnishings in Martin House were lost before restoration, sparking an ongoing treasure hunt for the goods that now inform “Collecting Ourselves.”
The exhibition tells the history of every item, detailing the hands they passed through before returning to Martin House.
It is a mix of furniture gifted by donors and loans from museums housing Martin House items, including a Tiffany & Co. lamp from the original home and Wright designs such as his semi-circular wood “Barrel Chair,” the angular “Slipper Chair,” and stained-glass window panes.
Original Frank Lloyd Wright drawings and letters will also be on view, providing a behind-the-scenes look at Martin House’s creation, a build from Wright’s “prairie school era,” where the architect had free rein to play with an effectively unlimited budget.
This prairie style consists of low structures defined by long parallel lines and expansive open-plan interiors. It’s a way of building that Wright, “the greatest American architect of all time,” according to the American Institute of Architects, pioneered and entrenched in modern architecture. But while that story has been well-documented in books and exhibitions, “Collecting Ourselves” folds in Lloyd Wright’s sometimes-overlooked ephemera and furniture.
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