- Martin House, the museum and former residential complex designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright is set to host a new exhibition dedicated to the sourcing of Wright’s interior objects.
- ‘Collecting Ourselves’ focuses on the process of re-obtaining long-lost Wright artefacts, exploring how the items were first lost, where they ended up and what the future of collecting at the Martin House might hold.
- Key archival pieces featured in the exhibition include a Tiffany & Co floor lamp, stained-glass window panes and a stunning dining-room table stanchion.
- ‘Collecting Ourselves’ opens on 27 March and runs until 7 September 2026 at the Martin House in Buffalo, New York.
To me, great architecture is undeniable. When form truly meets function, it is enough to stop you dead in your tracks. That happened to me in 2014 on a trip to New York, when I first took note of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan’s fabled Upper East Side.
I’d seen the building before in pictures and it never really did anything for me. The warping mass of white concrete felt too awkward and gamey to be transcendent, more akin to the lid of a Starbucks cup than a genre-defining architectural structure. But seeing it in person that spring in 2014, its sculptural, inverted conical shape winding upwards towards a stunning glass dome atrium, completely altered my perception of the museum and, in many ways, the legendary architect behind it.
And so began my brief detour into the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Admittedly, the American designer is still far from my favourite architect, but I’ve come to appreciate his unique sense of theatre and unrelenting pursuit of ingenuity. Looking at the hyper-efficient, cookie-cutter skyscrapers that largely dominate our major cities now, it’s beginning to feel like somewhat of a lost art in the world of contemporary design. But perhaps, as the curatorial team behind Buffalo’s Martin House Museum is currently proving, we are on the road to rediscovering that sense of wonder.
The museum, which was originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright between 1903 and 1905 as a residential home for businessman Darwin Martin, is set to play host to a new exhibition that focuses not on the home, but on what resides within it. ‘Collecting Ourselves’ charts the painstaking process of recovering the property’s original art glass, furniture, artwork and ephemera.
Frank Lloyd Wright ‘Collecting Ourselves’
According to the team at Martin House, these objects were either designed or selected by Wright himself specifically for this house, however, were mostly removed in the period leading up to the restoration effort. The new exhibition will chronicle the challenges of recovering the artefacts, while also shedding light on the historical significance of archives and collections.
“Collecting Ourselves will, for the first time, focus on the process and ongoing nature of collections work at the Martin House,“ the museum wrote. “It will take a deep dive into how these items were lost, where they ended up, how we’ve re-obtained them, and what the future of collecting at the Martin House might hold.“
Martin House
Located in Buffalo, New York, the Martin House was the residential home of local soap company executive Darwin Martin and his family. Considered one of Wright’s most important early works, the Prairie Style home consists of the main house, the Barton House, a carriage house, a conservatory and a pergola.
In recent years, the property has been under the stewardship of the non-profit Martin House Restoration Corp., which has been faithfully restoring the property’s sprawling 15,000-square-foot main house. It’s been no easy feat. The Martin House’s public reception room is a prime example of Wright’s multi-layered design approach, complete with horizontal mortar joints in the brickwork and hand-gilded gold leaf accents.
“The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
With most of the structural restoration now complete, attention has turned to the interior decoration, which, while challenging, has been made easier by the generosity of donors. The Martin House team explained that the new ‘Collecting Ourselves’ exhibition pays tribute to those donors who gifted items back, along with loans of materials from museums that currently have Martin House items in their collections.
Key archival pieces featured in the exhibition include a Tiffany & Co floor lamp, stained-glass window panes and a stunning dining-room table stanchion. These objects will be on display for the entirety of the exhibition run, presented alongside archival materials such as letters, drawings and documentation that shed light on Wright’s remarkable attention to detail.
The new Martin House exhibition is unlikely to make you stop dead in your tracks or reconsider the very notion of architectural design, but I can bet that it will scratch that creative itch that occasionally tickles your brain. There’s a technical skill in designing beautiful things, but ‘Collecting Ourselves’ seems to reveal that the real beauty is in bringing them home. ‘Collecting Ourselves’ opens on 27 March and runs until 7 September 2026 at the Martin House in Buffalo, New York.
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