Architecture

The Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957â€"62. This photo of the main entrance of the administration building was part of a 2009 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.

Photograph by Ezra Stoller © Esto

The Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, was Frank Lloyd Wright's last commission and was not completed until after his death. Designed at the same time as the Guggenheim Museum, the curving Marin County Civic buildings echo the surrounding landscape.

Frank Lloyd Wright Wrote:
"We will never have a culture of our own until we have an architecture of our own. An architecture of our own does not mean something that is ours by the way of our own tastes. It is something that we have knowledge concerning. We will have it only when we know what constitutes a good building and when we know that the good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but is one that makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before that building was built. In Marin County you have one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen, and I am proud to make the buildings of this County characteristic of the beauty of the County.

Here is a crucial opportunity to open the eyes not of Marin County alone, but of the entire country, to what officials gathering together might themselves do to broaden and beautify human lives."

_{â€" From Frank Lloyd Wright: The Guggenheim Correspondence, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, editor.
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Learn More About the Marin County Civic Center:

• Listen to Frank Lloyd Wright and Other Architects discuss the Marin County Civic Center
• See Historic Photos of the Marin County Civic Center
• Marin County Civic Center Facts and Photos from CNET