What do Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) and Thomas Edison (1847–1931) 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. In this Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy talk Peter Christensen will explore the greater overlap between the rising context of intellectual property rights on both sides of the Atlantic and Wright’s work in this arena.

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 many 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.

Wednesday February 23, 5:00–6:30pm CST
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