April 16, 2026
6:00 pm
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In spring 2025, Edgar Kaufmann Sr.’s office from Kaufmann’s Department Store, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was put on public view in London for the first time in 20 years. It’s now permanently installed at V&A East Storehouse, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s revolutionary museum warehouse, which is open to the public and has been visited by nearly 500,000 people in its first eight months.
Designed and built for department store owner Edgar Kaufmann Sr. exactly at the same time as Fallingwater (1935-1937), the office is, understandably, overshadowed by Wright’s most famous building. But Kaufmann’s office, much loved and never altered by its owner is, in compact form, a beautiful and remarkably complete example of Wright’s work and of his philosophy of organic architecture. All of its floors, walls, ceiling, built-in and freestanding furniture, upholstery textiles and rugs are original to the room and designed by Wright, an unusual level of completeness for a museum period room. Christopher Wilk of the V&A, will tell the story of this remarkable commission and its design, the volatile relationship between Wright and Kaufmann, and the role of Kaufmann’s son, Edgar Kaufmann jr., in preserving the room and donating it to the V&A.
Registration opening soon on Carnegie Museum of Art Theater website.
Christopher Wilk
Christopher Wilk is Keeper of Performance, Furniture, Textiles and Fashion at the V&A, its largest curatorial department. He was Chief Curator of the project to create the British Galleries 1500-1900 (which was awarded the European Museum of the Year prize) and conceived the V&A’s Dr Susan Weber Furniture Gallery, devoted to the materials and techniques of furniture making. His V&A exhibitions have included ‘Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams’, ‘Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939’ and ‘Plywood: a material story’. Most relevant to today, he was responsible for the installation of the Kaufmann Office at V&A East Storehouse.
Before joining the V&A he worked at the Brooklyn Museum (Decorative Arts Department) and, before that, the Museum of Modern Art (Architecture and Design Department). At Brooklyn he was project coordinator for ‘The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941’ and, at MoMA, he curated the exhibition ‘Marcel Breuer: Furniture and Interiors’.
In addition to exhibition-related books on Marcel Breuer, Modernism and Plywood, he authored Thonet: 150 Years of Furniture (the first monograph in English) and Frank Lloyd Wright: the Kaufmann Office. He also edited and contributed to Western Furniture 1350-the present day and (with Nick Humphrey) The British Galleries: a study in museology.