In 1939, Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and recently appointed Dean at the Harvard School of Architecture, and Marcel Breuer, former student of the Bauhaus and now partner with Gropius in their fledgling American architectural practice, were commissioned by Cecelia and Robert Frank, Pittsburgh industrialists and philanthropists, to design a home for their family.

The architects, steeped in the tenets of the Bauhaus, approached the bold commission as a total work of art that fully integrated architecture, furnishings, and landscape. The 11,000+ square foot stone, steel, and concrete building, the largest and most important residence the architects were to design, was completed on the cusp of WWII with every detail-including innovative furniture, light fixtures, mechanical systems, and fabric by Anni Albers-designed and built expressly for the house. The sumptuous residence immediately fulfilled its promise as family home and as a stage for Cecilia’s philanthropy of Pittsburgh’s performing arts.

Shielded from public view as a private family home for the past 85 years, the house and its interiors and furnishings are authentically intact along with thousands of pages of correspondence between the clients and architects, drawings, film and photography documenting the journey from visionary dream to reality.

Barry Bergdoll has remarked “It is almost as if, for a historian of American modernism, a vault had been opened and one could step back more than a half-century. The fullness of the designer’s intent is virtually intact. There is not such another modern house in America for which one could make such a claim."

Now, after the passing of Alan I W Frank, son of Cecilia and Robert Frank, this American treasure is confronting the crossroads of its future.

Join Darcy Frank Mackay, granddaughter, for an intimate walk through the house, its history and untold stories.

Alan I W Frank House: The Modernist Masterwork by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer (Rizzoli), by Alan Frank, Kenneth Frampton, Barry Bergdoll and Charles A. Birnbaum, the first book to feature this Modernist masterpiece, will be available for purchase following the presentation. thefrankhouse.org