ONLINE: Patent Pending: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Rise of Intellectual Property Rights in Architecture

press release: What do Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller and Thomas Edison have in common? They were among the many people throughout the 19th century who were imagining ways to mass-produce buildings and were part of the understudied culture around patents and intellectual property in 19th and 20th century architectural practice. This included Wright’s own work in the Luxfer prism competition and the American System-Built houses. This talk will explore the greater overlap between the rising context of intellectual property rights on either side of the Atlantic and Wright’s own work in this arena.

About the Speaker:

Peter Christensen is an historian of architecture and infrastructure and associate professor of art history and visual and cultural studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Germany and the Ottoman Railways: Art, Empire, and Infrastructure (2017) and the forthcoming book Materialized: German Steel in Global Ecology (2022) and over one hundred shorter pieces. The recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, he is currently a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, researching and writing a book which will examine the transformative role played by global patent culture in the formation of both architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries and modern conceptions of authorship in the field of architecture.

Tickets and registration: Advance registration is required. Admission is $10 for the general public; $5 for Friend-level members of the Conservancy; and free for Associate-level members and above. If you are not a Conservancy member, click here to learn more about member benefits.

How this event works: Registration will close two hours before the start of the talk, shortly after which all registrants will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the event. Please install and test Zoom in advance on the device on which you intend to view the event. A recording will be made available to registrants to view for one month after the event.

If you have questions or require registration assistance, please email events@savewright.org.