Issue 40  October 31st 2024

OA+D Monthly Updates

One of the main efforts of the OA+D Archives is to make the archival materials we preserve as accessible as possible. We do this through our publications, including the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, through our ongoing digitization efforts viewable via our online archival catalog, and through exhibitions.

Recently, OA+D has been particularly active in the development and participation of several exhibitions, including the new Photographing Frank Lloyd Wright at Chicago's Driehaus Museum and with our upcoming Treasures of the OA+D Archives opening soon at the Chandler Museum in Arizona.

Photographing Frank Lloyd Wright is the first exhibition to present the fascinating and unexplored topic of Wright’s own early photography as well as images by the leading photographers who documented his work. Frank Lloyd Wright had a fascination with photography, viewing it as a hobby as well as a way for his architecture to reach a broad public.

OA+D worked with guest curator David Hanks to not only help select works on display, but also to lend significant objects and photographs from our collections, including materials from Midway Gardens, the Wasmuth Portfolio, early Wright colotypes, Henry Fuermann & Sons and Edmund Teske photographs, and more.

Photographing Frank Lloyd Wright is organized by the Driehaus Museum with guest curator David Hanks, and will be on view at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie Street in Chicago, IL, from October 24, 2024 to January 5, 2025.

Opening to coincide with the Organic Architecture + Design Celebration on the weekend of November 8-10th, the Treasures of the OA+D Archives exhibit will feature a wide variety of various select objects, artwork, art glass, photographs, ephemera, and much more. It showcases a glimpse at the significance of what the OA+D Archives has preserved in its holdings and works to make organic materials available for study, appreciation, and understanding. The exhibit marks the first collaboration with the Chandler Museum and serves as the basis for the development of more regular and larger exhibitions in the coming years.

Treasures of the OA+D Archives is organized by the OA+D Archives and Chandler Museum and will be on display in the Museum's Price House Gallery, 300 S Chandler Village Dr, in Chandler, AZ, from November 5, 2024 to January 26, 2025.

Hopefully you will get a chance to see one or both of these exciting exhibitions and enjoy seeing how the OA+D Archives puts its mission "to honor the past, celebrate the present, and encourage the future of creative organic architecture and design" into action.

From The Archives

As a treat (no tricks) for Halloween, we wanted to share a graphic design from 2016 by Frank Lloyd Wright Apprentice and Taliesin Fellowship member John Amarantides.

John A. (as he was known) was an architect, graphic designer, and fine violinist who joined Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship in the 1950s. He remained a part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Taliesin Associated Architects until the 1970s, becoming a beloved and influential teacher and architect. In the later part of his life he joined his aging mother’s return to her native Greece, where he worked for a British architectural firm in Athens designing projects for many locations in the Middle East.

John A. was known for designing wonderful birthday, greeting, and holiday cards that displayed his mastery of typography, abstractions, and witty word play. His sense of wonder and humor permeated each of his crafted greetings and became sought after keepsakes among the Taliesin community.

The OA+D Archives is honored to be the repository of John A.'s papers, which contains scores of these card designs. If you have archival materials related to John A., the Taliesin Fellowship, or any other organic architectural or design items that you're interested in donating to join our growing collections, please let us know by contacting us at info@oadarchives.org.