The Guggenheim Museum
To the Editor:
It was more with dismay than anger that I read William Barrett’s “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pictorama” [March]. . . .
Mr. Barrett is simply mistaken when he asserts what he takes to be “the key to the whole structure. He [Wright] imagined a great crown continuously and slowly flowing past the pictures.” In reality, of course, Mr. Wright planned the museum for 350 persons and the occupancy requirements were only subsequently enlarged.
Mention is made of the artificial light within the museum. . . . Mr. Wright in fact provided an ingenious lighting scheme, relying upon sunlight, which (rightly or wrongly) was abandoned in favor of artificial light by the director of the museum.
Basic confusion between what Mr. Wright designed and what Mr. Sweeney (the director) altered has resulted in criticism of the lack of seating, or the lack of smaller spaces where “individual works of art could be isolated and looked at.” Even a cursory investigation of Mr. Wright’s presentation drawings would reveal the flexible partition system he designed for this purpose. . . .
But the most disappointing feature about the article is its lack of sympathy [and of the] respect and tolerance for the “spiritual and individual personality of the modern artist” which Mr. Barrett eloquently supports, unless, apparently, that artist happens to be an architect.
Phillip I. Danzig
New York City
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