Visionaries in the East Village: Reverend Guthrie and Frank Lloyd Wright

The roots of counterculture in the East Village go back at least to Reverend William Norman Guthrie, Rector of St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie Church from 1911-1937. A radical clergyman, esoteric author, and visionary, Guthrie not only espoused spiritual rituals from non-Western sources, but saw them as a means of revitalizing a neighborhood in ethnic and social transition. He enlisted his close friend, Frank Lloyd Wright, as the architect for utopian schemes to promote his agenda. This illustrated talk explores their efforts to revise religion, modern architecture, and New York itself in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This unknown story is featured in Dr. Anthony Alofsin’s new book, Wright and New York: the Making of America’s Architect.

Anthony Alofsin is an architect and art historian, and an expert on Frank Lloyd Wright. His first book, Frank Lloyd Wright: the Lost Years, defined the primitivist phase of Wright’s work in the 1910s.

Books for sale by Books on Call.

This event is accessible, with ten stairs up to the lobby. There is a lift for wheelchair accessibility.