Legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is known for many spectacular building designs, from unique homes to the Guggenheim Museum. But did you know he also sketched a “mobile kitchen” food truck concept in 1939? It never went into physical production, but it did help inform this new collaboration between Airstream camp trailers and the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation.
Behold the Airstream Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Limited Edition Travel Trailer. This 28-foot beauty retains Airstream’s iconic chrome catarpillar silhouette but adds some of FLW’s signature design elements and colorways inside.
Airstream will build 200 over the next two years with a list price of $184,900. That’s a lot of coin, but hardly outside Airstream’s normal pricing. A 28-foot Classic model starts at $179,900.
“Usonian” was a term Wright used instead of “American” to refer more specifically to the United States as opposed to North and/or South America. It’s also applied even more specifically to the small dwelling designs he did, so invoking it for the trailer’s name makes sense.
Obviously, Mr. Wright himself did not work on this collab—he passed away in 1959. But the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which works out of Wright’s Taliesin West home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, is still very much active and applying his design philosophy to new projects such as this customized camper.
If you look at FLW’s projects casually, you might think his style is all about intense lines and big, sweeping shapes. But the core of Wright’s design philosophy was complementing nature. In his words: “I’d like to have architecture that belonged where you see it standing.”
That was translated to Airstream’s trailer here by adding windows and rearranging the interior layout a bit to maximize natural light. The primary sleeping area is moved to just in front of the large rear hatch “to create a focal point for blending interior and exterior,” Airstream explains in a blog post.
A slatted ceiling fixture runs along the spine of the interior, “framing skylights, concealing venting, and creating dynamic light and shadow throughout the interior.” All the interior elements are made of similarly strong and clean-looking dark wood pieces with a very mid-century modern vibe.
Interior details also play a big part in giving the camper a distinctive Wrightian look, though much of the trailer’s smaller elements and accessories were inspired more specifically by Eugene Masselink. He was at one time Wright’s personal secretary, and “one of Wright’s most trusted apprentice designers.” Masselink is credited with the Gordon Leaf pattern that appears throughout the trailer.
Finally, the color palette is pulled from the “Wright-curated 1955 Martin-Senour Paint collection,” featuring heavy desert influence and earthtones.
Frank Lloyd Wright might not have lived to see his food truck idea come online. But even though this Airstream looks pretty standard from the outside, I think some of his signatures are pretty well nodded to in the interior. It’s a great looking trailer, regardless. Finally—a Wright house on wheels!
If you’d like to get a little deeper on the specifics after scrolling through the photos above, check out this contextual video featuring Bob Wheeler and Mollie Hansen from Airstream, and Henry Hendrix from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, expounding Wright and Airstream’s well-known looks coming together in the project.
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