Picture one of the most controversial and beloved buildings in New York, waiting just ahead of you. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened in 1959, six months after Wright died at 91, the culmination of sixteen years of work and wrangling with the Guggenheim Foundation and the city. Wright's design was radical: a continuous spiral ramp winding upward from a central atrium, so visitors could take an elevator to the top and walk the collection gradually downhill.
Critics and artists hated it, twenty-one artists signed a letter calling it unsuitable for showing art, and the arguments about whether any gallery space inside it is usable have never entirely stopped. But the building itself became one of the most recognizable in the world. Its white concrete curves are the counterpoint to every other building on Museum Mile.
Stand across Fifth Avenue and look at the full profile; it looks like a cream-colored spring, or a cake rising from the sidewalk, indifferent and serene.