Admission fee free

The Okinawa Prefecture Architects Association and the Organic Architecture Archived video are holding a special exhibition of early perspective paintings by architect Frank Lloyd Wright under the title “Vasmut Collection Selection.”

Frank Lloyd Wright, an American master who had a great influence on the world of architecture, first encountered Japanese architecture at the Chicago Expo in 1893. Impressed by the spatial structure that captures the surrounding scene by opening shoji and sliding doors, Light tried to break away from Western-style closed box architecture up until then, and advocated an open “organic architecture” that is integrated with America's rich nature. Wright also had a deep knowledge of Japanese Ukiyo-e, and his friend Hayashi Aisaku, who was an art dealer in New York, later became the manager of the Imperial Hotel, and it was also an opportunity to ask Light to design the new main building of the hotel.

The Vasmut Collection is Wright's first collection of works published by the German company Wasmuth in 1910, and consists of 100 perspective views and floor plans drawn with lithographs. Soon after publication, it became popular in the European architectural world, and had a great influence on young architects of the time, such as Corbusier, Meath, and Gropius. Roughly half of the 100 works were created by Marion Mahoney Griffin, the world's first female architect who worked under the lights, and it can be said that the reputation of this collection of works is also due in large part to her excellent technique.

Currently, the “Frank Lloyd Wright: Architecture Connecting the World” exhibition is being held, which will tour the Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art in Tokyo and the Utsumori Prefectural Museum of Art, and the current exhibition of Vasmut's works is also a plan to complement that content. Wright's architectural works are imbued with respect and insight into Japanese culture, which coexists with nature. Compositions inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e can also be seen in the perspective paintings in the Vasmut Collection on display this time, and it is a work with a high degree of artistic perfection even as a single painting.

By touching on Wright's architectural philosophy, which respects the environment and culture, we look back at the idea of building buildings suited to the climate, climate, and lifestyle of each region.