9. Frank Lloyd Wright’s initials can be found on the exterior of the museum, like a signature on a work of art.
Even though the Guggenheim got off to a contentious start, it ultimately became one of the most notable and respected builds of all time. (Case in point: its unusually early landmark-designation status). On the exterior of the Guggenheim Museum, there’s a small red tile bearing Wright’s initials. The architect commissioned a ceramist to craft about 25 of these tiles, which were inspired by the seals on Japanese prints placed on projects that received his personal approval—essentially signifying that they had been completed exactly to his specifications. The Guggenheim is unique in that it also bears the name of the contractor who built it, George Cohen, whom Wright greatly respected. “This was the only time Wright ever put the general contractor’s name on a building,” says 99% Invisible podcast host Roman Mars in the museum’s audio guide.
10. The Guggenheim is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As if its status as both a New York City landmark and a National Historic Landmark weren’t enough, the Guggenheim earned one more distinguished designation in 2019 when UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List. It was part of a group of eight properties recognized collectively as The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a remarkable distinction for a building that critics once compared to a washing machine—and a testament to how thoroughly history reversed its initial verdict.
11. The tower behind the museum was part of Wright’s original vision, but it wasn’t built until the 1990s.
The annex that stands behind the Guggenheim today might look like an afterthought, but it actually traces back to Wright’s earliest plans. He had originally called for a ten-story tower behind the smaller rotunda, designed to house galleries, offices, workrooms, storage, and even private studio apartments, but financial constraints forced the idea off the table. It took more than three decades for the concept to be revived: In 1990, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects broke ground on an eight-story tower in its place. This addition notably incorporated the foundation and framing of a smaller 1968 annex that had been designed by William Wesley Peters—Wright’s son-in-law and person he had appointed to supervise day-to-day construction of the original museum.
12. Frank Lloyd Wright originally wanted to call the museum the “Archeseum.”
Wright envisioned the building as something so singular it needed a name to match: Archeseum. “A museum is where you seek the work inspired by the Muses. ‘Arch’ means ‘the high.’ An archeseum is where you go to see the highest,” Wright said in an interview with The New Yorker. “It seemed a natural word, so I proposed it to Mr. Harry Guggenheim, chairman of the board of trustees of the Foundation. He has since advised me that it has not been accepted by the trustees.” The museum went through a more prosaic naming evolution before arriving at the one we know today. Originally established in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, it only adopted the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum name in 1952, three years after its founder’s death.
