THE Q&A: DAVID VAN DER LEER, ASSISTANT CURATOR OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

David van der Leer arrived at New York's Guggenheim museum in October 2008, just in time to play a part in one of its most exciting architecture shows. “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward” is a mesmerising display of Wright's work, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the spiralling Guggenheim building, one of Wright’s best-known designs. Here van der Leer explains why the museum took 16 years to build, what it's like to install work within the museum's curved walls and why it's important to live in one of your own designs.

More Intelligent Life: Frank Lloyd Wright accepted the commission to design the Guggenheim museum in 1943, but the building didn't open until 1959. What took so long?

David van der Leer: Larger buildings often take a few years to complete, but 16 years is indeed a little long, even for such a wonderful building as the Guggenheim. There were several reasons for this: first, finding the right site took a while. When it wasn’t immediately the full block along Fifth Avenue, Wright had to redesign his proposal. Over the years there were several different design proposals going back and forth between the architect and clients. All designs were based on the basic notion of the spiral, though. We are showing some of these proposals and it is lovely to see the audience respond to the building in red, or upside-down, etc. It helps people understand how intriguing the process of designing and building a piece of architecture is.

During those 16 years New Yorkers started giving the building nicknames, such as the washing machine, the hot-cross bun, etc, all based on the strong exterior form of the building. But when the building finally opened in 1959 these nicknames slowly disappeared. This building is much more about the generous space inside. We have just published an illustrated book on the building, "The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Making of the Modern Museum", which has a wonderful timeline developed by Angela Starita about the building process.

MIL: Many complain that Wright's Guggenheim building is an awkward showcase for art because it always hogs the spotlight. How has the building dictated the museum's collection? What are the challenges of designing a show for its curved walls?

DvdL: I must say it is pretty amazing to install in the Guggenheim. Whereas in traditional galleries you install in plan and elevation (in flat surfaces), the Guggenheim forces you to think more spatially and install in sections, to think about what is happening on the ramps below and above you. Until you are in the actual space that is sometimes a challenge. But once you are there, things fall into place easily.

We work with a large team standing around the rotunda, all looking from different angles to see if something is at the right position. It was during this process that I think I truly fell in love with the building. As a visitor it is such a wonderful space to be in for a few hours, but when you are here installing for weeks, day-in day-out, the architecture really takes over the way you think and feel. It's great.

For the Frank Lloyd Wright show, together with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation (with whom we co-organised this exhibition), we chose to display the 201 drawings in slightly canted cases that almost feel like drafting tables. We wanted people to get really close to the drawings and get a sense of the spaces they represent. [We also commissioned] new models and animations for the show. The models are by Situ Studio (Brooklyn) and Michael Kennedy (New York) and lend insight into how some of these spaces must have felt. The animations we developed with students from the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University and Madison Area Technical College. It was important to bring an educational component to the show, and working with these students was an incredibly insightful experience for both them and for us.

MIL: To help celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary, you also arranged the show "Learning by Doing", about shelters built by students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. (There's an affiliated shelter competition.) Can you explain the connection between the humble shelter and Wright's grandiose ideas?

DvdL: The shelters designed, built and lived in by the students of the Frank Lloyd Wright School for Architecture are a very important element of Wright’s career. They show his ambition to work with young, enthusiastic people and to help them understand space and develop an architectural idiom for themselves, not just the designs that he was developing in his studio. In the seven decades that the programme has been running you see a wide variety of designs: some focus in on the smallest details of a construction and others on creating an inviting space that sits well in the landscape. When walking around the campus in Arizona, you get invigorated by the designs: they show you that architecture can be fun.

Of course design/build programmes are offered at other schools around the country. But I think this programme (which is still active) is important because it invites students to live in their own designs: it is then when you realise what is really working and what is not. I think it is probably one of the most valuable lessons you can learn as a young architecture student–something that probably stays with you for the rest of your career.

MIL: Frank Lloyd Wright believed that there were design solutions to many of our daily problems. What is an example of a spatial idea of his that we now take for granted?

DvdL: The years when Wright was designing and constructing his architecture society was changing quickly. Especially when you look at his residential designs you see this clearly. Wright proposed interior spaces for houses that no longer need to be organised as a series of boxed rooms, but more as one continuous space with a pleasant flow to it. In the first Jacobs House (one of the Usonian houses) you see how he is connecting the living, dining and kitchen areas, providing space for the lady of the house to be better connected to family life. What we are trying to do in our exhibition is show people the endless possibilities of design, and invite them to think more about the spaces we occupy on a day-to-day basis. Wright’s designs often required people to rethink the way they lived their lives, which is a very important thing architects can bring to society.

MIL: Frank Lloyd Wright also believed he was the best architect of all time. What do you think?

DvdL: I think Wright sometimes had a personality larger than life. But if you look carefully at his works you realise that he is one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. What I like most about Wright’s way of dealing with things is his enthusiasm and his sense of time: he was a man of his time and sometimes even more so of the future.

There is this wonderful essay he wrote called "The New World" for Architectural Record . It is 1927 and Wright is already thinking and writing about the 21st century. Although I doubt that looking so far forward is always helpful, I do miss this sense of looking forward in our contemporary society. We seem so focused on all that is happening right here, right now, with continuous updates on our status on Facebook and Twitter, and with immediate responses to the 200 e-mails we get a day. However important these things can be, I fear that we sometimes forget to look at the bigger picture. What is wrong with sitting back and contemplating a little on the future? With daydreaming a little? Don’t you think that can be helpful and exciting?

"Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward" and "Learning by Doing", Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, until August 23rd

~ EMILY BOBROW

Picture credit: Jonathan Bowen © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York (of David van der Leer); Crowds lined up at the opening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 21, 1959, Photograph by Robert E. Mates, © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York; Kamal Amin, Lotus Shelter, 1963, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale. Arizona, Photo: Aris Georges; Mile High Office Tower, “The Illinois”, Chicago, 1956 (unbuilt), View of the terrace with Lake Michigan in the background, Courtesy Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Professor Allen Sayegh, with Justin Chen and John Pugh