e to be his last great work, as he passed away in April 1959, six months before the museum opened. The huge skylight provides light for the entire museum. The spiral/snail shell design seems to grow out of the ground. The design allows people to see the art in a continuous manner. The viewers are intended to take an elevator to the top and walk all the way down viewing the exhibits.Guggenheim (inside) Guggenheim (outside) By the time of his death in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright had produced architecture for more than seventy years. What is even more remarkable is that Wright had redesigned America for at least a century and created an area of the domain, which America could claim as its own. As early as 1894, Wright was defining his philosophy of architecture. In a 1927 essay entitled "In the Cause of Architecture" Wright presented an outline stressing architectural design as truthful and obedient to purpose, site, occupants, and materials. He believed that buildings should be integral units, simple, unique, serving civilization and eliminating the "box" effect of the past. Space in Wright's design was fluid, free, and informal. His scales were brought down to create comfort for the occupants and a feeling of oneness with the house and the natural settings. Wright used materials that would blend the house into the setting and limited the variety of materials within a project. Wright manipulated stone, brick, wood, stucco, concrete, copper, and glass in a distinct way that had never been done before. His exteriors and interiors of a building varied little, as he philosophized that one should move naturally into a shelter, feeling a certain flow rather than an abrupt transition. Wright often used the colors of autumn in the Midwest, however red was his signature especially in the 1930's. For light he relied heavily upon the sun's power, and many of his buildings included ...
