A new exhibition puts Frank Lloyd Wright’s audcacious chair designs in the hot seat

Frank Lloyd Wright’s towering influence on American design extends far beyond his era-defining, organic architecture. His vision encompassed every element of a space – windows, textiles, lighting and furniture – with each component reflecting his ethos of unity, function and form. Now, a new exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art hones in on a particular strand of his legacy: chairs.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design, running from 4 October 2025 to 25 January 2026, asks, what makes a Wright chair? Perhaps unsurprisingly, his chairs were deeply architectural, designed not just as seats, but to complete the spatial and visual harmony of a room. They often had geometric forms, mirroring the buildings they inhabited; were crafted from high-quality woods with visible joinery; and were built-in or custom-fitted in accordance with Wright's concept of the building as a ‘total work of art’. Never mind human comfort, something Wright was criticised for during his time.

The exhibition features over 40 of Wright’s furniture pieces – many on public display for the first time – alongside his original sketches, archival photographs and animated renderings. Together, they present the chair not as a peripheral design but as one of the the architect's most distinctive – and often polarising – contributions.

While Wright is best known for conceptualising over 1,100 structures, he also created more than 200 chairs. That this facet of his career is often overlooked forms the basis of the research of architectural historian Eric Vogel, a scholar-in-residence at the Taliesin Institute.

‘When Wright rebuilt Taliesin [his home, studio and architecture school in Spring Green, Wisconsin] after two major fires, he paired the new architecture with significant new and unprecedented furniture forms that were rejected by his clients at the time for their unconventionality,’ points out Vogel. Several of these ‘lost or never-produced’ works have been recreated by the Museum of Wisconsin Art

Modern Chair Design also includes collaborations with three master woodworkers – including Wright’s great-grandson, S. Lloyd Natof – who have reimagined lost or unbuilt chairs using the architect's original drawings and archival materials. Elsewhere, audiences can see chairs designed by Wright for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum café.

Modern Chair Design invites audiences to reconsider Wright – as not just an architect of buildings, but of everyday experience. Through the lens of the ostensibly humble chair, the exhibition reveals a designer who approached even the most functional items with audacity and vision.

'Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Chair Design' opens this Saturday 4 October. Visit The Museum of Wisconsin Art's website for tickets