How Should We Celebrate Our Architects?

MARSEILLES – We may not think of architects as cultural heroes or game-changing innovators these days, in the way that Steve Jobs (or Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, for that matter) get appreciated for their creative genius. But those who have made breakthroughs in design and how we live in cities surely deserve recognition.

If there’s one American architect who is celebrated and broadly known, it is Frank Lloyd Wright. At Fallingwater, the modern architecture masterpiece built over a river in southwestern Pennsylvania, the visitors rival those flowing through the gates of Disneyland. Many more make the trek to Taliesan West in the foothills northeast of Scottsdale, a serene complex where the great master trained his apprentices. And in San Rafael in Marin County, the 50th anniversary of Wright’s civic center, one of his last buildings and his only public commission, is being celebrated this weekend with pomp and reverence.