Architecture as Art
Renderings by well-known architects have become highly collectible but can be hard to find. Seekers may get lucky on the internet or at a charity auction, but dealers offer the largest selection. For this list of works currently on the market, pricing information is available upon request.
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Frank Lloyd Wright, Tomek House
Photo by Courtesy ArchiTech Gallery, Chicago
This original lithograph of Wright's 1904 Tomek House was printed in The Wasmuth Portfolio, a 1910 monograph of the architect's work as drawn by him. Published by Ernst Wasmuth, it is credited with introducing Wright's work to major European architects. A longtime collector of Japanese woodblock prints, Wright tried to incorporate a similar aesthetic in these works.
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John Wellborn Root, Art Institute
Photo by Courtesy ArchiTech Gallery, Chicago
Architectural drawings are prized for their lavish attention to detail. This one was meticulously drawn with India ink by Root, of the famed 19th-century Chicago firm Burnham & Root. Dating to 1887, it presents an alternative design for the building that would house an early incarnation of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Frank Lloyd Wright, Guthrie House
Photo by Courtesy ArchiTech Gallery, Chicago
The art and architecture displayed in this intricate lithograph are very distinctly Wright's. The residence, with its long, horizontal layout, is typical of his celebrated style, and the rendering includes such trademark elements as the placement of the building on the upper half of the page, the careful depiction of trees and landscaping, and the flattened perspective, inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.
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Zaha Hadid, Paeno Science Center
Photo by Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
"Who better to create an icon of the information age than the high priestess of avant-garde architecture herself?" asked Architectural Record in its review of this 2005 German building, which followed closely on the heels of Hadid's Pritzker honors of the year before. This early concept work—in watercolor and vinyl(!)—demonstrates her flair for imagining new shapes and ways for buildings to occupy space.
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Alfred Newton Richards Medical Bui
Photo by Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
Considered one of the most influential architects of the last half of the 20th century, Estonia-born Kahn came to Philadelphia when he was five years old. At the time of this commission for the University of Pennsylvania, he was teaching there while maintaining a practice. This graphite image shows the research lab, the project credited with transforming Kahn from a theorist into a designer of importance.
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Aldo Rossi, Venezia Giudecca
Photo by Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
This charming watercolor—reminiscent of Dufy or Matisse—depicts Venice's largest island and the site of Rossi's Il Teatro del Mondo (Theatre for the World). Designed for the 1979 Venice Biennale, this "floating theater" pays homage to popular versions in 18th-century Venice.
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Frank Lloyd Wright, Imperial Hotel
Photo by Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
On the day this Tokyo hotel opened in 1923, it famously survived a tremendous earthquake. Wright paid tribute to his fascination with Japan with this structure. It was demolished in the late 1960s, after having been badly damaged by more earthquakes and WWII bombings. This graphite sketch is circa 1915, when construction on the property began, and shows design details for the first floor promenade entrance.
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Photo by Courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York
Hmm...notice the swastika on this 1935 pencil drawing? This (losing) entry, submitted for the German Pavilion for the 1935 Brussels World's Fair, during the rise of Nazism, illustrates dealer Max Protetch's notion that an architect's renderings can be as historically and culturally significant as his buildings.
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