solomon r. guggenheim museum new york, n.y., 1943-1959

 
Settled on a city lot with confining restrictions in space, Wright thought the spiral to be a natural solution to make an art gallery in which all space within the building is related to the whole. The museum-goer is able to enter the building, take the elevator to the top ramp, and gradually descend around an open court. He always has the option, as the the ramp touches the elevator shaft at each level, to either go back, or skip down to further levels, and at the end of the exhibition he will find himself near the exit. Wright reasoned that in many conventional museums, the public traverses long galleries of exhibitions only to have to retrace its steps to get back to the beginning in order to leave. The walls of the museum are sloped slightly, because Wright believed that pictures placed against the walls slightly tilted backward would be seen in a better perspective and be better lighted than if set bold upright.
In 1952, to provide the museum with further gallery space, a historical gallery, and a bookstore, Wright proposed a tall structure to be built behind the museum. A quiet and unpretentious pattern of small squares set within larger ones would contrast with the curvilinear forms in the foreground. The building was to have a quieting effect and had to conceal the ugly building behind the museum. Such a structure was built by Gwathmey and Siegel in 1992.