Past Event: The Crucible of Creativity with Anthony Alofsin & Patti Smith

Please note that this event is now sold out. There will be a wait list starting at 5:45 pm on the night of the program. Any additional seats will be released at 6:35 pm in the order the names were received. You must be physically present when your name is called or your place will be forfeited. We do not guarantee that any seats will become available. Latecomers may be seated in an overflow theater. 

"I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build (this) great museum but we will have to try New York," Frank Lloyd Wright wrote of the Guggenheim.

Architect and author Anthony Alofsin sits down for a conversation with acclaimed writer, performer, and visual artist Patti Smith about the past, present, and future of New York City as a hotbed for creativity. The two will consider how the city serves as an incubator for innovation through the lens of acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s fraught but ultimately career-defining relationship with NYC, the subject of Alofsin's new book Wright and New York: The Making of America’s Architect.

Reception to follow.

*Please note that Patti Smith will join Anthony Alofsin at the signing table but she will not be signing books. We request that if you get in line for the signing you have purchased a copy of Wright in New York (or brought your own copy).

All ticket proceeds support the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibitions and programs.

About the Speakers: 
Dr. Anthony Alofsin, FAIA, is an architect and art historian, known internationally as an expert on Frank Lloyd Wright. He is the author or editor of 15 books, including Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years and, most recently, Wright and New York: the Making of America's Architect (Yale University Press, 2019). In addition to studies on Wright, Alofsin's books cover subjects from the history of design education to Central European Architecture. Alofsin has been named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a three-time Fellow of the MacDowell Colony, and Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow at the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. He received the Wright Spirit Award from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. He practices and teaches in Austin, Texas where he is the Roland Gommel Roessner Centennial Professor of Architecture.

Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. Her recording, Horses, the first of thirteen, was inducted into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2010. She is a four-time Grammy nominee and was a Golden Globe nominee for the song Mercy Is from the film Noah. Her acclaimed memoir, Just Kids, chronicling her friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe, received the 2010 National Book Award. Her other books include Coral Sea, Woolgathering, Auguries of Innocence, M Train, Devotion and Year of the Monkey. A 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Smith also holds the honor of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from the Republic of France. She was honored by ASCAP with the Founders Award, representing lifetime achievement, and is the recipient of Sweden’s Polar Award, an international acknowledgment for significant achievements in music.