Like pair of Basquiat Crocs, there are innumerable dangerous methods to license an artist’s work. So when Airstream seemed to accomplice up on a mission with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the aluminum-clad trailer model may have simply printed one of many architect’s well-known patterns on a restricted run of its autos and referred to as it a day. It in all probability would have even offered nicely. However that’s decidedly what Bob Wheeler, Airstream’s president and CEO, didn’t need to do.
“We stated, ‘All proper, let’s be sure that all the pieces has a function and a perform—that approach it’s not only a pastiche, or some form of lame try and mimic one thing,’” Wheeler recollects. “We didn’t need it to look overdone or kitschy.”
As a substitute, the model launched into a multiyear collaboration with the specialists at Wright’s Taliesin West residence and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, and as we speak the 2 are rolling out the 28-foot Airstream Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Restricted Version Journey Trailer. With simply 200 numbered autos that retail for $184,900 on supply, you—like me—won’t be capable to afford one in the intervening time, however they only may also restore your religion within the artwork of the artist collab at massive.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Wheeler has a ardour for midcentury design (as you would possibly anticipate of Airstream’s CEO), so it tracks that he’d be a pure fan of Wright’s organic architecture.
“Actually, this has been a dream of mine for the final 20 years, which is about so long as I’ve been president of Airstream,” he says. “Why are Wright’s designs so celebrated as we speak? It’s as a result of they’re timeless. I believe there are values there that incentivize somebody to purchase an Airstream that overlap in some significant methods.”
Although Wright and Airstream founder Wally Byam have been lively on the identical time and sure shared among the identical design fan base, there’s no document of them ever assembly. However a collaboration between the 2 finally proved inevitable when Wheeler reached out to Wright’s basis in 2022. Basis historian Sally Russell says her staff wasn’t initially positive how strong a joint mission might be. They finally toured the Airstream manufacturing facility in Ohio the place the trailers are handmade utilizing 3,000 rivets over the course of 350 hours, and noticed how a lot customization was really attainable. Then she realized that it might be a terrific showcase of Wright’s work.
Past an Airstream’s signature aluminum exterior, Wheeler says the trailer is actually a clean canvas. “And that’s the place we are able to actually flex some design muscle and permit others to take action.”
Russell says the inspiration first explored whether or not to make the trailer really feel like an adaptation of a selected Frank Lloyd Wright residence. “The reply to that was no,” she says. “We didn’t need to attempt to re-create the Rosenbaum House and shove it into the scale of a trailer. It didn’t make sense, as a result of Frank Lloyd Wright actually designed for every of his particular person initiatives—he created one thing new, one thing that expressed the person types of the mission, the wants of the consumer. So there was a terrific consciousness of eager to proceed that legacy by the work that we did on the trailer.”
The 2 groups finally homed in on the idea of Usonian design, a mode that aimed to democratize design by way of small, reasonably priced houses with a give attention to environment friendly ground plans, performance, and modularity.
In different phrases: an excellent match for an Airstream.
COLLAPSIBLE CHAIRS AND CLERESTORY WINDOWS
If you method the trailer, the connection to Wright is quick on the customized entrance door that includes the Gordon leaf sample, which the architect commissioned his apprentice Eugene Masselink to design in 1956. It’s a tip of the hat to nature, presumably an Airstreamer’s vacation spot, and will be discovered subtly all through the trailer in parts like sconces and cupboard pulls—however not an excessive amount of, per the design mission on the outset. (“At one level we had much more of that Gordon leaf in there,” Wheeler notes. “We dialed that approach again.”)
With the push of a button, the bench seating converts right into a king-size mattress—one in all Wheeler’s favourite parts. It’s the largest mattress in any Airstream, and is a primary for the corporate, he says.
One other convertible ingredient, consistent with that target modularity, is the residing house on the entrance of the trailer. Right here, a eating desk, desk, and seating impressed by the slant-back chairs that Wright used all through his profession collapse right into a wall cupboard. Wheeler says Airstream used to deploy intelligent options like this within the midcentury period, earlier than trendy preferences trended towards built-in furnishings. “So in some methods, it is a little bit of a flashback to an earlier design within the ’50s, which is acceptable.”
The groups additionally honored Wright’s give attention to pure gentle, relocating Airstream’s typical overhead storage in favor of clerestory windows, that are outstanding in Usonian houses. In the meantime, the general coloration palette comes from a 1955 Wright-curated Martin-Senour paint line. Russell says the staff chosen it for its harmonious mix with the pure settings the place the trailer is probably going headed, that includes ocher, pink, and turquoise.
In the end, “It’s like a Frank Lloyd Wright residence, the place you stroll into it, and it’s a very completely different expertise from another constructing,” Russell says. “I hope that he can be very joyful to see that design legacy proceed, as a result of he actually did that along with his personal fellowship and the apprentices that he labored with.”
USONIAN LIFE
Beginning as we speak, the limited-edition, numbered trailers shall be out there for order at Airstream dealerships. Wheeler says the corporate was initially going to launch simply 100 of them, however obtained a lot optimistic suggestions from sellers and others that they doubled the run.
On the entire, the collaboration comes within the wake of a increase time for Airstream, which is owned by Thor Industries. Airstream skilled a surge through the pandemic, resulting in a 22% leap in gross sales in 2021 as folks embraced distant work or realigned their relationship to the world.
“We’ve come again to earth now, and now we’re rather more tied to precise market retail charges, which is what we all know,” Wheeler says.
In its third-quarter financials, Thor reported $2.89 billion in income (up 3.3% from earlier 12 months). Whereas the corporate declined to supply Airstream-specific numbers, its general North American towable RV division is up 9.1% from the identical interval in 2024.
However there’s an issue afoot: The present administration’s tariffs, which Wheeler says made selecting the value for the Frank Lloyd Wright collaboration tough. He provides that the corporate is battling shortages attributable to the disruption within the provide chain, and excessive rates of interest are additionally an issue.
“Look, we’re 94 years previous,” he says. “We’ve been by extra of those cycles than we are able to depend, so we’re superb, and we’ll proceed to commerce on authenticity, high quality, nice service and help, a terrific vendor community, and a model that basically has develop into a part of the material of the U.S. touring journey.”
