Unesco adds Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture to World Heritage list
Add BT as a preferred source
Baku, Azerbaijan
EIGHT major works designed by Frank Lloyd Wright were inscribed alongside international treasures like the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Giza on the Unesco World Heritage List on Sunday, the first recognition by the United Nations cultural organisation of American modern architecture.
The announcement was made in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the World Heritage Committee had been meeting to review the sites currently on the list, and 35 others that had been nominated. Inscribed as "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright", the addition encompasses eight of Wright's more recognisable designs, spanning the various American landscapes that served as his inspiration.
The designation includes homes Wright designed for clients, like Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, the Robie House in Chicago and the Jacobs House in Wisconsin, alongside the sites that served as his private residences and housed his architecture school - Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Taliesin West in Arizona.
It also includes famous public works that bookend his career: Unity Temple, built between 1906 and 1908 in Oak Park, Illinois, and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, which was completed in 1959.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, an organisation that works to preserve the nearly 400 remaining buildings Wright designed, embarked on the nomination process more than 15 years ago, after a suggestion from the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises Unesco.
Navigate Asia in
a new global order
Get the insights delivered to your inbox.
The council "felt that Wright's contribution to modern architecture was too significant to have it represented by only one building and requested that we undertake a serial nomination", said Lynda Waggoner, a former director of Fallingwater and a founding member of the conservancy's board. Ms Waggoner will now lead the Frank Lloyd Wright World Heritage Council, established to support coordinated conservation efforts for the eight World Heritage sites.
The World Heritage Programme was created in 1972. Before Sunday's announcement, it included more than 1,000 properties "that are considered to be of outstanding value to humanity", according to the Unesco website. NYTIMES
Share with us your feedback on BT's products and services
