1071 Fifth Avenue, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
One of the last masterpieces by Frank Lloyd Wright and one of only two buildings by Wright in New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is one of the city’s preeminent art collections with a focus on Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Expressionist and other early Modern Art. Founded under the auspices of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation as the Museum of Non Objective Painting under the controversial curator and artist Hilla von Rebay, the museum gained its current name after Solomon R. Guggenheim’s death in 1952.
A whirl of cream-colored concrete greatly at odds with the rectangularity of Fifth Avenue, the multi-leveled building was conceived by Wright as a “temple to the spirit” and contains one of the most memorable interior spaces in American architecture – a vast open atrium encircled by a continuous ramp.
After the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim vies with the Frick Collection as the most important museum on Fifth Avenue.
The building gained an addition by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and was restored comprehensively in 2005 – 2008.