Tim Samuelson on WTTW

Last week,Tim Sameuelson was a guest on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” , talking about Wright’s early career and his exhibit “The Roots of Wright”. The eight minute show is worth watching if you haven’t yet been to the exhibit.

From the accompanying interview:

I was interested in this for a long time. I went through old, architectural journals and photographs that weren’t explored that much.

I visited some of these buildings while they were still standing. And if you haven’t experienced the actual building, you don’t know it. It’s a challenge to recreate this sense. His buildings are modern, vital, useful, and appeal to the human senses of light, motion and space.

I never find architecture exhibits very successful or satisfying because you don’t get a sense of the buildings. Thus, we made the images very large. We’ve positioned the gallery walls so you go around the corner and suddenly – you encounter a building.

We have actual fragments. In my exhibits, you can touch these pieces; in a typical exhibit, you don’t because you’re supposed to protect the artifact.

How to convey architecture in an exhibit? It’s part photograph, part storytelling. You have to let your own subjective pick out what’s wonderful about these buildings.