Moshe Safdie, Frank Lloyd Wright and More at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

This new film was created for Modernism Week by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened in 2011 by founder and board chair, Alice Walton, in Bentonville Arkansas. The film highlights the museum’s focus on architecture and its growing partnership with the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.   Dylan Turk, Special Projects Editor, Architecture & Design, takes viewers on a tour of the  breathtaking architecture and natural setting of the museum, designed by internationally known architect Moshe Safdie, Modernism Week's 2019 keynote presenter.  Currently Safdie is overseeing the next phase of the museum’s expansion, which will almost double its size.   

Viewers will also visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1956 Bachman-Wilson House.  The “Usonian" house was offered to the museum by the owners in order to save it, due to recurring flooding issues at its original site. The house was dismantled in New Jersey, moved to Arkansas and meticulously reconstructed on museum grounds.   Next is a visit to the 1961 Fly’s Eye Dome, a creation of American designer, inventor, and theorist R. Buckminster Fuller. The object was created as a prototype intended to provide economical, efficient housing.   

Inside the museum, viewers will see interiors by Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, founder and co-principal of Fayetteville-based Marlon Blackwell Architects, Distinguished Professor and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture at the University of Arkansas, and the recipient of the 2020 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects.   Last is a visit to the Momentary, a new contemporary art space and a satellite to the museum. The Momentary includes visual, performing and culinary arts and is located in a former cheese factory, an excellent example of adaptive reuse success.  

$15


This program qualifies for .5 AIA/CES Learning Units (LU).




The organizer of this program is Modernism Week. This program is streaming through March 31, 2021.