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Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, will open Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman-Wilson House to public November 11, 2015. A preview for museum members was held through November 9, 2015. Faculty and students from the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas participated in related projects including studying the original plans and recreating models of the house after it was disassembled and brought to Arkansas. The opening of the new addition to the Crystal Bridges grounds is yet another way the museum has transformed the cultural offerings of Northwest Arkansas.
For Special Collections, the opening provides another way to highlight the connection between the Arkansas Architectural Archives and the work of the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright. The Libraries released a digital exhibit in partnership with Crystal Bridges devoted to the personal relationship between Fay Jones, whose papers are in Special Collections, and Wright. “Fay Jones and Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture Comes to Arkansas,” released in January 2015 includes 137 images covering examples of both architects’ work as well as their close mentor-mentee relationship.
Although the arrival of the Bachman-Wilson House is the first time a Wright building has moved to the area (he never designed a building for Arkansas), Wright himself visited the University of Arkansas campus and his friend Fay. That visit is detailed in the digital exhibit, which focuses on the influence of Wright on Jones’s philosophy and design and the lasting friendship between the two men. The digital exhibit brought together the talents Libraries’ staff, faculty from the Fay Jones School, and curators from Crystal Bridges.
To learn more about the Fay Jones Papers or any of the other thousands of resources preserving the history of Arkansas available through the University of Arkansas Libraries, contact Special Collections, specoll@uark.edu, or visit the department in Mullins Library.
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