Wright's Baghdad opera house and Gammage Auditorium: in search of regional modernity

In the regents' meeting of December 12, 1959, Gammage introduced his supporter Lewis Ruskin, who told the board that he was "appalled by the arid cultural climate at ASU, not only among students, but among the faculty too." He stressed the need for a center with an auditorium, both for training students in the fine arts and for presentations of programs by visiting artists. Gammage then introduced Walter Bimson, who noted that Wright had completed drawings for the auditorium before his death. Bimson called the auditorium "one of the most beautiful buildings Wright ever designed, and a very practical one." He urged that "serious consideration be given to the designs of Mr. Wright, whom he felt it would be appropriate to immortalize in this way"; quoted in "Auditorium among Top ASU Desires," Arizona Republic, December 13, 1959.

After the bill went to the legislature on January 21, 1960, many still felt that the project should not be built. Ruskin invited architect Edward Durell Stone, an admirer of Wright, to speak for the project to the Phoenix Press Club on February 16. Stone's speech "was really the turning point in public opinion about the auditorium," and soon the Arizona House of Representatives appropriated funds for the new hall. David Scoular, interview by Indira Berndtson and Greg Williams, transcript, 15. On Stone's visit, see Charles Montooth, "Edward Stone Interviewed on Wright Art Center," Arizona Architect 3 (February 1960): 11. Arizona's legislature initially appropriated $3,246,000 for the auditorium and other projects at ASU. The text and course of the initial appropriations bill (Senate Bill no. 66), introduced January 21, 1960, are in State of Arizona, Journal of the Senate, Twenty-Fourth Legislature of the State of Arizona, Second Regular Session, 1960, and Journal of the House of Representatives, Twenty-Fourth Legislature, Second Regular Session of the State of Arizona, 1960, Government Documents Section, Hayden Library, ASU.

109. Local regents proposed the appointment of architects from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation "to formulate the draft plans and specifications for an auditorium of approximately 3,000 seats to be constructed ... in general accordance with the concept formulated by the late Frank Lloyd Wright." Resolution proposed by committee of regents resident in the Phoenix area and unanimously adopted by the Arizona Board of Regents, April 30, 1960, quoted in Gilbert Cady to John R. Ellington, memorandum, May 2, 1960, URC (MSS-98), box 69, folder 2, ASUA. This file also contains drafts of the agreement between the Board of Regents and Taliesin Associated Architects, May 20 and 27, 1960. The regents approved modified plans on December 2, 1960, and early in 1961 the legislature authorized funds for the completion. "Modernistic Wright Auditorium Gets OK," Phoenix Gazette, December 2, 1960, 1; Jerry Eaton, "Redesigned Wright Plans for ASU Building Okayed," Arizona Republic, December 3, 1960, 35; and G. Homer Durham, "Autobiography," typescript, chap. 6, "The Frank Lloyd Wright Auditorium," 119-21, ASUA. In 1970, the Music Department moved to its building north of Gammage, containing a chamber opera theater and recital hall, designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, with Knudsen and Izenour again as technical consultants. Izenour, Theater Design, 441.