September 14, 2007

Foundation plans exterior restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum

NEW YORK

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will undergo restoration of its exterior to fix cracks and other structural defects, using techniques and materials unavailable during the architect’s lifetime.

The Guggenheim Foundation said the findings of an exhaustive two-year condition assessment of the 1959 edifice concluded that it is in good condition, “requiring only limited structural interventions.”

Those include filling exterior cracks, exposing and treating corroding steel and repairing and protecting all concrete work. The restoration work is projected to cost US$29 million. The assessment process included removing 11 coats of exterior paint, revealing hundreds of cracks, primarily from seasonal temperature fluctuations.

“Frank Lloyd Wright, who was always at the cutting edge of technology and frequently ahead of his time, is also notorious for the failures of his buildings, often structural in nature,” Pamela Jerome of Wank Adams Slavin Associates LLP, one of several firms involved in the assessment, said in a statement.

Associated Press

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