Monthly Update
Be Part of Something Special :: Support the 2026 OA+D Fall Ocatilla Exhibition
This fall, the Organic Architecture + Design Archives invites you to help bring one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most experimental and least understood works back into public view.
Opening October 27, 2026 at the Chandler Museum, Ocatilla: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Lost Desert Masterpiece will explore Wright’s 1929 desert camp, a bold and short-lived experiment that helped shape the future of Taliesin West and his broader approach to building in extreme environments.
Constructed as a temporary camp of board and batten cabins with canvas roofs, Ocatilla was designed to respond directly to the Sonoran Desert. It was architecture as adaptation. Lightweight, mobile, and deeply tied to climate and landscape. Though it existed for only a brief moment before fire and abandonment, its influence continues to resonate in conversations around sustainability, resilience, and how we inhabit fragile environments today.
This exhibition will bring Ocatilla back to life through rare archival materials, original drawings, historic photographs, objects, and film footage. At its center will be a full scale reconstruction of an Ocatilla cabin, allowing visitors to step inside and experience Wright’s desert vision firsthand.
To realize this ambitious project, OA+D is seeking financial partners to help fund research, design, fabrication, and installation. With a goal of $50,000, sponsorship support directly enables the creation of the exhibition and its immersive centerpiece.
Partner | $10,000+ — Fund the exhibition centerpiece including the full scale cabin reconstruction Receive primary recognition across the exhibition, catalog, and promotional materials.
Patron | $5,000 — Underwrite the official exhibition catalog Receive prominent recognition in the gallery and in print.
Supporter | $1,000 — Help fund research, development, and execution of the exhibition Receive recognition on the exhibition display and catalog.
Friend | $500 — Support design and fabrication of the exhibition Receive recognition on the exhibition display.
This exhibition will debut in conjunction with the 2026 Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy conference, bringing national attention to OA+D and its mission.
Your support does more than fund an exhibition. It restores a lost chapter of architectural history and makes it accessible to a new generation.
Make a tax deductible gift or become an exhibition sponsor today. Help us bring Ocatilla back to life.
Questions? Contact info@oadarchives.org
From the Archives: Griffin’s Canberra in the News
In 1912, the name Walter Burley Griffin appeared in newspapers around the world almost overnight. A young Chicago architect, working in partnership with Marion Mahony Griffin, had just won the international competition to design Australia’s new capital. The announcement marked a turning point, bringing Griffin immediate global recognition.
Today, rare newspapers from 1912 and 1913, now part of the OA+D Archives collections, preserve that moment with remarkable clarity. Their headlines present the competition as both an architectural triumph and a national milestone. The language is confident and forward looking. Griffin’s proposal is framed not simply as a plan, but as a vision for a modern capital shaped by landscape, geometry, and civic order.
Early coverage emphasizes the boldness of the scheme. Griffin’s design organized the city around a central lake, with strong axial alignments linking civic spaces to the surrounding hills. The plan drew directly from the land itself, integrating topography with urban form in a way that felt both new and inevitable.
By 1913, the narrative began to shift. Newspapers followed Griffin’s arrival in Australia and the early steps toward realizing the plan. The tone remained optimistic, though increasingly grounded in the realities of implementation. The story had moved from competition to construction, from vision to negotiation.
Seen today, these publications offer more than historical documentation. They show how Griffin’s ideas were first introduced to the public and how architecture entered popular discourse through print. They remind us that Canberra began not as a certainty, but as a proposal debated in columns, illustrated in diagrams, and imagined by readers encountering it for the first time.
As we mark the 150th anniversary of Walter Burley Griffin's birth on May 3, these newspapers return us to that original moment of discovery. A city announced in ink. An idea carried across continents. A vision of the future taking shape on the printed page.
If you have archival materials related to Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin, Frank Lloyd Wright, or any other organic architectural or design items that you're interested in donating for our growing collections, please let us know by contacting us at info@oadarchives.org.
Support the Archives. Share the story. Become a Friend of OA+D.
OA+D NEWS & EVENTS
Pre-Order the Summer 2026 Journal of Organic Architecture + Design
The summer 2026 issue of the Journal of Organic Architecture + Design is now available for pre-order.
Volume 14, Number 2 presents a powerful and deeply personal body of work by photographer and designer Robert Hartmann. Spanning decades of observation, this issue captures organic architecture at a pivotal moment in time, documenting buildings, details, and environments that have since been altered, restored, or lost.
Through striking black and white and color photography taken primarily between the 1960s and 1970s, Hartmann records the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Taliesin Associated Architects, and a broader circle of organic architects including Bruce Goff and Herb Greene. These images serve as lasting records of architecture experienced firsthand, preserving the atmosphere, material richness, and spatial character of these works.
This issue also includes a compelling collection of drawings. Highlights include rare documentation of Louis Sullivan sketches alongside Hartmann’s own interpretive works and architectural renderings. Together, the photographs and drawings reflect a lifelong engagement with organic principles through light, structure, and time.
Printed copies are scheduled to ship in late July to early August to all subscribers and pre-order customers. Subscribers and sustaining members receive every issue automatically. Become a Friend of OA+D member to support the Archives and ensure uninterrupted delivery of the Journal.
Or you can pre-order your copy today and secure your copy of this remarkable issue.
For questions, contact info@oadarchives.org