Frank Lloyd Wright Never Built His Travel Trailer. Now He Has an Airstream

About a decade after the word "snowbird" was first used to describe workers moving south for jobs, Frank Lloyd Wright became the embodiment of its modern meaning. From 1937 until he died in 1959, every winter before the first snowfall, the architect would depart Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin, for his Arizona residence, Taliesin West. Wright, his then-wife Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, and his apprentices would pack up and relocate for half the year, camping along the way. For as much as Wright was on the road, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest his caravans could have made use of a travel trailer or two—something, say, like an Airstream.

At a gathering at Wright’s Scottsdale home in May, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation unveiled a collaboration with the famous travel trailer maker that’s inspired by archival materials at Taliesin West, including a trailer he designed but never built and a passage from one of his books. Says Sally Russell, the foundation’s director of licensing, the new Airstream is meant to give an owner "the experience of living in a Wright home and the daily enrichment organic architecture provides."

Windows and skylights are designed to let nature flow through and a muted color scheme found in Wright’s homes abound. Elements reference the architect’s specific works, too. For example, with its vertical slats, a desk chair is a compact version of the Robie House chair, which can be tucked away when not in use, like the foldable benches Wright designed for the First Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin. The dinette’s cherry-stained veneers are a nod to the plywood modular chairs Wright designed for Usonian homes, and an accordion wall panel hides electrical controls, of note since Wright hated clutter. (He once went so far as to design a closet only a foot deep just to hold horse reins at the Bradley House in Kankakee, Illinois.)

The trailer is perhaps closest in design to Wright’s Usonian homes, marketed as an affordable means of organic architecture. There’s a compression-release effect from the kitchen in front to the sleeping area in back, where higher ceilings offer relief. Skylights and windows on all sides coax in natural light. In the same way Wright’s homes featured unique stained glass—like balloons for the Coonley Playhouse—the Airstream adopts a motif, too. A chrome-leaf pattern, designed by an apprentice of Wright’s in 1956 for House Beautiful editor Elizabeth Gordon, appears in the main entry with its matching die-cut screen door, two sconces, the dinette, and cabinetry pulls.

Bob Wheeler, president and chief executive officer at Airstream, said in a statement that "...by focusing on Wright’s design principles, we were pushed to think differently about materials, textures, and small-space efficiency in our floor plan." There’s the dinette that tucks away, for example, and an adjacent work surface that does the same. The trailer also functions slightly differently than other Airstreams in that the primary sleeping area is at the rear, where the dinette normally is, letting you stargaze from bed or wake up to nature views on three sides. Open shelving replaces locker cabinetry, and two porthole windows reflect Wright’s love for geometrical shapes, particularly circles.

A partnership of this kind has been on Wheeler’s mind for at least 20 years, he says. He lived in a Prairie-style home designed by an acolyte of Wright’s, where he experienced what it’s like "to be in a space with so much intention." Says Henry Hendrix, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s vice president and chief marketing officer: "When we look for partners, we want to make sure what you’re going to see is not just two companies coming together," adding that the common denominator between Airstream and Wright tourism is "the ethos of people traveling."

Airstream founder Wally Byam rolled out the Clipper, Airstream’s first all-aluminum product, in 1936, a year before Wright began his migrations to Taliesin West. Neither the archives at Airstream nor the foundation knew whether Wright was aware of Byam or his trailer company. But, says Russell, "We can speculate that if Wright did run across Airstream, he would have appreciated the freedom its trailers gave its users, based on a passage from his book, The Living City, published in 1958."

In it, Wright wrote: "... motor house or motor barge could go about from place to place, linger at mountain lakes or resorts otherwise inaccessible to him—or upon suitable rivers and lakes—as the nomad once upon a time drifted over the desert with his camel and his tent. Under proper control this type of total mobility might be added to Usonian life."

Though the trailer Wright designed in 1939, the Dinky Diner, was never created, for his migrations, Wright and his apprentices "would take a small trailer in their caravan of trucks and cars which included kitchen items like a butane stove, a kettle, and some pans to make themselves breakfast while camping along the way," says Russell, adding that there’s a photo of Wright’s fellows using it at the Grand Canyon. One can’t help but wonder, what would Wright think of an Airstream trailer that now bears his name?

"It’s very important for us not to be frozen in time, but instead, [build on] something that Wright did when he was alive," says Hendrix. During the 1950s, Wright began licensing his work as a way to democratize design, a core tenet of his working philosophy. In recent years, following partnerships with the likes of furniture companies Steelcase or Brizo, the foundation has partnered with streetwear brand Kith on a pair of New Balance sneakers that reference an unbuilt utopian development by the architect, and a Wisconsin baseball team, the Madison Mallards, on bobble heads that use Wright’s likeness down to a porkpie hat he wore.

"[Wright] wanted to know the world around him…and changed how people lived," explains Hendrix in a video announcing the Airstream. Building on that point, he later says, "Wright very much wanted to bring the indoors and outdoors together through mitered glass and lots of windows," which the trailer exemplifies—you’re in a sheltered place, but feel nature all around you.

According to Jay Cullis, a company historian for Airstream, "Byam just keeps refining and perfecting [the trailers] over the years. He does this for decades in pursuit of living the perfect life." Like Byam, Wright had a relentless curiosity and penchant for perfection. Like Airstream owners, Wright’s fan base is huge—many travel around the country to see his work. "Wally and Frank are renaissance men," says Cullis. "They want to create things that give you better lives. It’s two design icons coming together. It’s not just design—it’s nature and community. It’s not these static things that are set in factories and museums. They’re a way of life."

Related Reading:

What You Need to Know About Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Homes

A 1973 Airstream Gets an Organic Remodel Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright