Monthly Update
2025 Grant Impact: Advancing Preservation at OA+D
In 2025, the Organic Architecture + Design Archives (OA+D) received several key grants supporting the inventorying and processing of significant Arizona-based collections. While each grant was awarded for a specific project, their combined impact has been far-reaching. Together, they have strengthened OA+D’s archival procedures, refined hands-on workflows, and helped establish sustainable systems that can now be applied across many collections well into the future.
With support from Arizona Humanities, OA+D acquired an automatic digital scanner to advance photographic preservation efforts. Over a five-month period, OA+D volunteers digitized more than 5,000 slides from the Annette Del Zoppo / Paolo Soleri Collection—part of a much larger archive of approximately 20,000 images. Equally important, volunteers developed a clear, repeatable process for identifying, scanning, and rehousing photographic materials, creating a model that can be replicated for other image-based collections.
Funding from the Arizona Historical Records Advisory Board supported the review, inventory, and digitization of archival records related to The House of the Future, a groundbreaking 1977 project designed by Charles Schiffner during his time with Taliesin Associated Architects and recognized as the first microprocessor-controlled house. Volunteers reviewed, labeled, digitized, and prepared more than 100 records for online access. The workflow developed for this project now serves as a reusable framework for future document-based collections.
A grant from the Arizona Architecture Foundation enabled OA+D to purchase essential archival supplies used in the consolidation of collections at our Chandler processing center. Volunteers played a vital role in rehousing and stabilizing fragile materials, ensuring their long-term preservation and safe storage. As a small nonprofit organization, OA+D is especially fortunate to have a dedicated volunteer community eager to learn, collaborate, and take on complex preservation challenges. The Board of Directors extends its sincere gratitude to all who contributed to these projects, as well as to those who continue to assist with planning, consolidating, transferring, and processing OA+D collections. Together, these efforts ensure that the legacy of organic architecture remains preserved, accessible, and alive for future generations.
As we close out 2025 and look forward to 2026 we ask that if you value this mission, please consider supporting OA+D through membership or a year-end donation — your contribution helps us preserve collections, produce new scholarship, and host programs that keep this legacy alive.
Learn more and support our mission at oadarchives.org.
From The Archives
The Organic Architecture + Design Archives recently received a remarkable donation of more than 40 photographs from the 1930s to the 1950s, once owned by Wright apprentice Cary Caraway. These rare images document early life within the Taliesin Fellowship, daily moments at Taliesin, and candid views of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mrs. Wright.
Gifts such as this strengthen OA+D’s role as the primary steward of materials related to the Taliesin Fellowship, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the broader tradition of organic architecture. Each donated collection expands our ability to preserve fragile materials, bring new discoveries to light, and share them through exhibitions, publications, and our growing digital catalog.
For more than a decade, OA+D has served as a leading publisher and educational resource in the field of organic architecture. This work is only possible because donors and supporters entrust us with the drawings, photographs, documents, and objects that form the foundation of serious scholarship. Every material donation helps build a more complete and accessible record that supports researchers, students, architects, and the public worldwide.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, OA+D welcomes gifts of materials related to Wright, Taliesin, Taliesin Associated Architects, and other organic architects and designers. Material donations may be eligible for tax deductible acknowledgment and play a direct role in sustaining OA+D’s preservation and education mission.
As the year comes to a close, we invite you to consider a gift that lasts beyond any single season. By donating materials to OA+D, you help ensure that irreplaceable records of organic architecture are preserved with care, studied with rigor, and shared widely so this legacy remains alive and influential for generations to come.
To discuss a potential donation, please contact us at info@oadarchives.org or visit www.oadarchives.org.
OA+D NEWS & EVENTS
The Newest Journal OA+D Is Now Available
We are excited to announce that the newest issue of the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design has been officially printed and mailed to subscribers. Volume 13, Number 3 is now arriving in mailboxes. This double-sized, 80-page issue is devoted entirely to Wayfarers Chapel Group, widely regarded as Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece. Written by celebrated architectural historian Kathryn Smith, the publication presents newly discovered research alongside more than 70 photographs and drawings, many published here for the first time.
Spanning the Chapel, Campanile, Cloisters, Cloisters Garden, and Community House, the Wayfarers Chapel Group represents Lloyd Wright at his fullest expression as both architect and landscape architect. Conceived between 1947 and 1957, the complex was designed to convey the spiritual dimension of Nature through a deeply integrated architectural and landscape composition. While the glass chapel interior has become world-famous through photography, this issue is the first to fully reveal the design process behind the entire ensemble, offering essential new insight into one of the most important works of organic architecture.
This landmark issue is now available for individual orders, and subscribers automatically receive it as part of their subscription. Becoming a subscriber is the best way to ensure you never miss an issue of the Journal and to directly support OA+D’s mission to publish original scholarship and preserve the living legacy of organic architecture.
Each subscription helps make projects like this possible, from in-depth research and high-quality printing to the preservation of the archival materials that inform this work.
To order this issue or to become a subscriber, visit www.oadarchives.org.