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The Fifties</b><br>
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After the age of eighty, Frank Lloyd Wright was busier than he had ever been, outpacing members of the next two generations. He undertook projects all over the world, seldom declining a commission. At the same time, he became a media superstar who divided his time between the spotlight and the drawing board, and he could not give his work the attention it required. Many projects of his last decade have been criticized as vulgar and repetitive, inappropriate for the site, superficially developed, and far removed from the principles of organic architecture that characterized his earlier work.<br>
These criticisms notwithstanding, three of Wright's buildings from this decade were designated by the American Institute of Architects to be retained with fourteen others as examples of his architectural contribution to American culture --the Price Company Tower (1952), the Beth Sholom Synagogue (1954), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1956). Many of the houses constructed during the fifties are notable for their siting, their materials and the geometrical themes of their design. His Usonian houses continued to exemplify affordable housing at its best.<br>
Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 29, 1959, in Phoenix, Arizona. It is said that the project on his drawing board was a simple and affordable prefabricated concrete-block house.