Guggenheim Museum New York
The Guggenheim Museum in New York was the first building of the Guggenheim Foundation to be designed by a famous architect.
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was charged with designing a museum for the permanent collection of the Foundation in 1943, but various setbacks required extensive revisions in the design of the building and opened it sixteen years later in 1959, six months after the death of the architect.
The volume of the original museum building on the outside reflects the spiral ramp that Wright conceived as a way of uniting the circulation and exhibition of works of art in the building.
An expansion in 1992 added a new wing to the museum, gallery space allowing increased access to the ramp and top of the roundabout.
Currently, the museum combines thematic exhibitions at the roundabout and main rooms with samples from the permanent collection of art from the late nineteenth century to the present.
