Canopy and South Colonnade
"The officialdom is related to the Arizona public in convenient ways, simple, becoming and direct - the whole spacious and dignified in designs: all to be excused in materials characteristic of the...
View ArticleOpen Hexagonal Canopy
"Construction is also made easy because all is easily reached directly from the ground. Foundations are inexpensive because [they are] shallow."
View ArticleLegislative Building with Adjacent Offices
"In balcony level areas of the legislature, public seating may easily be extended. Private parking scheme for the legislative body and the executive are provided at special entrance for the...
View ArticleLooking West over Oasis
"Citizens of Arizona - the State is your home! Your spirit should there find appropriate expression. To build an already dated New York monstrosity to stand up to present Arizona to posterity seems to...
View ArticleOutside Covered Walkway
"Many minor offices doing business of the state should not clog the legislative process but be accommodated in the old capitol building, remodeled for the purpose."
View ArticleSouth Colonnade of Oasis
"All [buildings] stand beneath and together in green gardens, fountains playing, pools reflecting. Great vistas of beauty are everywhere: useful function perfected no less - but no more so when thus...
View ArticleSouth Colonnade
"Stone, copper, plastics employed in the great ferro-concrete system of construction that now constitutes the Twentieth Century body of our world. A sheltered air-conditioned spaciousness - all on one...
View ArticleNorth End of Oasis
"The dignity of modern concept in planning and integral construction appropriate to Arizona's own unique character."
View ArticleColonnade and Pool
"Therefore no more Nineteenth Century building for Arizona to go with the mortgage already foreclosed upon her landscape by the 'developer,' the pole-and-wire men and the political...
View ArticleInterior Mall
"Admirable dove-tailing of the public interest and the legislative function."
View ArticleDesigning a Capitol for Arizona
This is a transcript of a conversation with Wright. During the course of the conversation, one is able to better understand Wright's motivations for the design and his hopes for Arizona.
View ArticleDamaged Oasis Model
Many parts of the model had become broken or destroyed over the years.
View ArticleView of Gardens
The restoration of the lattice work allows the viewer an unobscured view into the gardens.
View ArticleOasis Model Before Restoration
Before the model was displayed at the Phoenix Art Museum, it had to go through some extensive restoration.
View ArticleView of the Interior Plaza
This photograph allows natural light to shine through the back of the model. While natural light would not have been able to flow as freely, this image allows the viewer to infer how the rising sun...
View ArticleMoving the Oasis Model
The process of moving the Oasis model from the Phoenix Art Museum to the Arizona Capitol Museum.
View ArticleRendering of Oasis in Papago Hills
An architectural rendering of the Oasis Capitol building. Early drafts of the building had three spires rising out of the building. The viewer is able to see the erasure marks and white-out that was...
View ArticleNorth Colonnade
"Her [Arizona] terrain is unique in the world: destined, in spite of obtuse insistence upon industry and agriculture, to become the playground of these United States of America. The tendency of...
View ArticleHouse of Representatives and North Colonnade
"The cramped urban accommodations of the Nineteenth Century as now seen in the officially approved Capitol for Arizona should not be allowed to date the state. The design for the proposed Capitol [not...
View ArticleClose-up of South Colonnade
"A new freedom - this - that would stand in modern times for Arizona as the Alhambra once stood in Spain before our continent was discovered."
View ArticleColonnade and Senate Building
"I [Wright] present a true Twentieth Century economical building of a character suited to grace Arizona landscape as seen, for instance, in unique Papago Park - a park near enough to an urban center to...
View ArticleWest End of Building
"The great simplicity and beauty of ground level convenience throughout: saving the cost of elevator-plant displacement and construction plus yearly cost of maintenance."
View ArticleFull Model
"In any tall structure much expense of time and space is sacrificed to elevator shafts, landing spaces and perpetual maintenance. There is no such waste in this free ground-level plan. The plan [here...
View ArticleLooking to the East over Oasis
’Oasis’ was Frank Lloyd Wright’s suggested, but officially unsolicited, proposal for a new Arizona State Capitol design. The design has been recreated in this three dimensional model now on display at...
View ArticleLooking to the East
According to Wright’s blueprints, the House of Representatives would have occupied the the beige, hexagonal building on the left. The Senate would have been housed in the building on the right. The...
View ArticleView from the South-West of Oasis
"Ample ease of access both public and private and free circulation throughout the structure is important feature of the entire scheme."
View ArticleSouth End of Oasis
"These preliminary drawings indicate a high, wide, sheltering crenelated-canopy of modern structure - like a great tree, filtering sunlight over subordinate but beautiful buildings and gardens standing...
View ArticleLooking Towards the South-West
"The plan I [Wright] respectfully submit is a simple commodious arrangement of her official family: the Senate, the Assembly, and the Chief Executive suites - all provided conveniently with ample...
View ArticleLooking towards the West
"INCLUDED: complete conveniences, courts, gardens and fountains for - 1. Senate of 30 with convenient retiring rooms for senators. 2. Assembly of 80 with 20 committee rooms. 3. Supreme Court with...
View ArticleLooking to North over Oasis
Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum: "Arizona's natural landscape inspired Frank Lloyd Wright's 1957 design for the Arizona State Capitol. Although never built, he pictured the building near the red...
View ArticleInterior of the Oasis
"Additional exhibition galleries and much space on main level and balconies are available for State Historical exhibits and other exhibits societies may wish to include."
View ArticleClose-up of Lattice Roof
"I [Wright] can see why you, the citizens of Arizona, need to appoint certain men to arrange and look after your mundane affairs - just as you need police. But I am totally unable to see why those men...
View ArticleOpen Hexagonal Canopy Work
"The 400 foot wide sheltering hexagonal crenelated skeleton canopy filtering sunlight over the structure beneath - like the foliage of a great tree - cutting down air-conditioning in the Valley of the...
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