Interpreting a Frank Lloyd Wright House

The Currier Museum of Art supports the Manchester, New Hampshire community by providing a space where people can engage with art and use it as a springboard for self expression and reflection. In addition to preserving and showcasing its collection, the museum offers a range of programming that supports the community, including art and wellness programs for veterans, teenagers, immigrant and refugee children, and people whose family members suffer from substance-abuse disorders. In 2020, an NEH CARES grant supported the museum through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic while enabling it to take on a significant new project following the acquisition of a Frank Lloyd Wright house.

Shortly before the pandemic began, the Currier Museum of Art acquired the Kalil House, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1955 and is one of only seven of Wright’s Usonian Automatic houses that were ever constructed. After COVID-19 forced the museum to suspend plans to research the house, NEH CARES funding supported staff salaries and allowed the museum to create an interpretive plan for the house that incorporated digital assets. According to Andrew Spahr, director of curatorial affairs at the museum, this funding helped the museum “retain key curatorial positions during a time of constraints, proving instrumental and critical to the function of the museum.”

With NEH grant support, Currier staff were able to research the house and its relationship to Manchester architecture in the 1950s. They developed a new interpretive program and trained docents to offer updated tours for both the Kalil House and the Zimmerman House—another Frank Lloyd Wright house owned by the museum. The museum developed a short video about the house and a website that hosts 3D tours and other digital resources related to the houses, and it made the Kalil House wheelchair accessible. The house opened for tours in June 2021 and will be maintained as a flexible space for the important community programs that the museum hosts.