Frank Lloyd Wright archives heading to New York

The archives of architect Frank Lloyd Wright have found a new home -- two homes, to be precise -- in New York. The archives have been jointly acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation said it will retain all copyright and intellectual-property responsibility for the late architect’s work. Under the agreement, the complete physical archives will be transferred to Columbia and MoMA.

Columbia will receive the paper-based material from the archive, including drawings and Wright’s personal and professional correspondence. The documents will reside in the university’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library.

MoMA will house the archives’ three-dimensional works, including models and prototypes.

The archives will become part of the permanent collections at Columbia and MoMA.

In all, the archives contain 23,000 architectural drawings and 44,000 models, photographs and other items. The announcement of the acquisition was made Tuesday by the Wright Foundation, Columbia and MoMA.

The organizations said in a statement that the acquisitions will maximize the archives’ accessibility to the public and to scholars. Wright, who is considered one of the most important architects in history, died in 1959 in Phoenix.

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