Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Floored


I had always been suspect of architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. From a cast of thousands, it was he, who was shoved down my throat as an undergrad architecture student. His selection of over commercialized architectural sundries; pens, playing cards and picture frames left me feeling drown by his Fallingwaters.

I'm sure Fountainhead was tucked under my arm when I made an iconoclastic move to "stick it to the man" and boycott all things Wright.

And then I moved to the Upper East Side and realized my judgement was wrong. My morning run would inevitably take me past his Guggenheim en route to the Park. The formidable facade along Fifth Avenue would suddenly break open with the double-wide sidewalk in front of the Museum. Brilliant. Referencing the rotunda, the steel circles implanted into the skin of the sidewalk played out like a revolving fascination of sexy urban tats. Depending on pace, traveling through the space was a throwback to gym class- running through an obstacle course of hula hoops expertly designed to slow the occupier of the space down.
The architect's simple gestures had created a dance floor of human interaction. Genius.