Wright's Spiral Opens: Guggenheim Museum Debuts

Frank Lloyd Wright's final masterpiece stood on Fifth Avenue like nothing New York had ever seen: a white concrete spiral rising from the sidewalk, its curves defying every right angle in Manhattan's rigid grid. When the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened on October 21, 1959, visitors stepped inside to find a single continuous ramp winding six stories upward around an open atrium flooded with natural light from a glass dome above. Wright had first received the commission in 1943 from Solomon Guggenheim and his art advisor, Hilla von Rebay, who wanted a "temple of the spirit" for their growing collection of non-objective painting. The architect spent sixteen years refining and defending his radical design against skeptical city building officials, hostile neighbors, and even some of the artists whose work would hang inside. Twenty-one prominent painters, including Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, signed a letter protesting the building's concave walls and sloping floors, arguing they would distort the viewing experience. Wright never saw the public's verdict. He died in April 1959, six months before the museum's opening. Solomon Guggenheim himself had died a decade earlier, in 1949. The building they envisioned together opened to enormous crowds and immediate controversy. Critics called it everything from a "washing machine" to an "inverted oatmeal dish." The New York Times architecture critic described it as Wright's greatest work. The Guggenheim became one of the most visited and photographed buildings in America, drawing millions who came as much for the architecture as for the Kandinsky and Mondrian paintings on its walls. UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 2019, recognizing it as one of the twentieth century's most influential structures. Wright had wanted to prove that a building could be a work of art in itself. The spiral on Fifth Avenue settled the argument.