NEW YORK.- The Skyscraper Museum presents Frank Lloyd Wright: The Vertical Dimension, through January 9, 2005. The first comprehensive examination of the high-rise designs of America’s foremost architect, Frank Lloyd Wright: The Vertical Dimension, examines Wright’s abiding interest in the re-invention of the tall building. Over the course of his long career, Wright designed a dozen high-rise buildings of which only two were built--the Johnson Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin (1944), and the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (1952-56). With these designs, Wright proposed a new structure for the skyscraper, challenged prevailing building practices with his use of materials, and proposed new directions in high-rise living.

Drawings from the collection of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation form the centerpiece of the exhibition, which is curated by architectural historian Hilary Ballon. Produced by Wright and his office, the drawings illustrate how Wright took his vision of an organic architecture, conceived for the horizontal plane, and translated it into the vertical dimension. One sketch, drawn on tracing paper with color pencil, shows an eight-foot-tall section of Wright’s Mile-High Skyscraper Project of 1956 in comparison to the Pyramid of Cheops, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building. A range of other materials, including construction photographs, books by Wright, video clips of the architect, and artifacts, complete the story of Wright’s fascination with the skyscraper and with American urbanism in the age of the automobile.

The installation design is by Wendy Evans Joseph, FAIA, prize-winning architect of the hotel in Wright's Price Tower. The drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright are Copyright © 2004 The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ.