Hagen History Center in Erie, Pennsylvania, has opened the Frank Lloyd Wright Field Office Museum, built around Wright’s former San Francisco field office at 319 Grant Avenue. Used by Wright and associate Aaron Green from 1951 until 1959, the compact office served as a Bay Area base for Northern California work, culminating in the Marin County Civic Center. Now reassembled as the centerpiece of a 2,700‑square‑foot “museum within a museum,” the installation lets visitors walk through the office and drafting room, experiencing Wright’s redwood plywood construction, 120‑degree geometries, partial‑height walls, and signature red tile while surrounded by artifacts and audio‑visual material about his life and work.

Ernest and Esther Born helped shape San Francisco modernism through architecture, photography, graphic design, and planning. UC Berkeley’s exhibition Modernism: Born in California, on view through September 30, 2026, traces their Bay Area legacy from the 1920s to the 1960s at Bauer Wurster Hall’s Environmental Design Library.

The 19th International Docomomo Conference in Los Angeles explored how modernism is anything but a placeless “white box,” foregrounding climate-responsive design, regional identity, and the conservation of experimental modern architecture. Through panels on “Modernism in the Sun,” case studies like Marcel Breuer’s precast facades and Sim Van der Ryn’s Gregory Bateson Building, and tours of works by Paul R. Williams, Charles Moore, and other California innovators, the conference highlighted “Multiple Moderns” shaped by local histories, materials, and communities—and the complex challenges of preserving them for the future.

Docomomo Northern California was thrilled to join the conversation about some of the best of Downtown San Francisco’s Modernist skyscrapers with Heritage’s Woody LaBounty and our own Board President Barrett Reiter and Board Member Ted Barrow!