NEW YORK, NY.- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, along with nine other buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has been nominated by the United States to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. The 10 Wright buildings are the first modern structures in the United States to be nominated to the UNESCO list, and include Wright’s celebrated Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, and Taliesen West in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as the Guggenheim in New York. If added to the World Heritage List, Wright’s buildings would join the ranks of such iconic modern structures as the Sydney Opera House, designed by Jørn Utzon, and the works of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona.

Completed in 1959, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum provides a singular space for the display of art and has become one of the most visited landmarks in New York City. The museum website has published a time line of the Frank Lloyd Wright building, detailing its commission in the 1940s and construction in the 1950s through its expansion in 1990s and significant renovation in the 2000s.

Many exhibitions have used the unique space of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a focal point, including the 2010 exhibition Contemplating the Void, which invited nearly 200 artists, architects, and designers to submit proposals for how they would engage its central void. In the 2013 exhibition James Turrell, the artist transformed the rotunda’s interior, recasting it as enormous volume filled with artificial and natural light for the site-specific work Aten Reign.

Read more about the Frank Lloyd Wright building on the Guggenheim blog, including how concrete influenced its construction, the inspiration for its terrazzo floor, and the history of its central skylight.