Frank Lloyd Wright's oeuvre of thousands of archived drawings, photos, models and other documents will move from Wisconsin and Arizona to New York City, the architect's foundation announced Tuesday.
The Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University's Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library acquired the vast archives — which include 23,000 architectural drawings, 44,000 historical photographs, large-scale presentation models, manuscripts, letters and other documents — and they will become part of the institutions' permanent collections.
MoMa will house the models; Columbia will preserve the documents.
It is unclear when the artifacts will move to New York. Sean Malone, CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, did not immediately respond to requests from TheWrap for comment.
The foundation will retain all copyright and intellectual property responsibility for Wright's prolific body of work and the archives will be named "The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives."
"Given the individual strengths, resources and abilities of the foundation, MoMA and Columbia, it became clear that this collaborative stewardship is far and away the best way to quarantee the deepest impact, the highest level of conservation and the best public access," Malone said in a public statement.
The Wright properties in Arizona and Wisconsin will remain preserved and under the foundation's protection.
Wright, who died in 1959 at 91, designed 1,141 works of architecture, including houses, offices, churches, museums, schools, libraries and bridges. Of those, 532 structures reached fruition and 409 still stand.
One third of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
