Fifth Avenue's Spiral Was Never Meant to Be White, Its Architect Insisted

The Guggenheim stands on Fifth Avenue in the one color most New Yorkers can picture with their eyes closed, and the man who drew it did not want it that way. A new book by Wendy S. Walters, excerpted in Architectural Digest, makes the case that Frank Lloyd Wright objected to white paint and did not get his wish at the museum that carries his best-known curve. Her title leaves no doubt where she stands: "A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint." The excerpt traces Wright's distaste for the shade, which he dismissed with a label of his own that the piece quotes. For anyone who has stood across the avenue from that coil, the idea is hard to shake once planted. Imagine the same ramp in whatever tone Wright preferred, and the building the city thinks it knows becomes a slightly different one. It is a reminder that even Manhattan's most settled landmark began as a set of choices, at least one of them made over the architect's objection.

With reporting from Architectural Digest.