"Engineering the Organic: The Partnership of J.J. Polivka and Frank Lloyd Wright," an exhibition designed and organized by UB and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, will open on Saturday in the Historical Society, 28 Nottingham Terrace, Buffalo.

It will explore Wright's professional collaboration with noted Czech-American structural engineer Jaroslav Joseph Polivka, who introduced a number of daring innovations to the field of structural design, particularly in the use of pre-cast and pre-stressed concrete.

Their partnership resulted in the design of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Johnson Research Tower in Racine, Wisc., two of Wright's best-known and most highly regarded buildings.

The two also produced functional designs for several unrealized-but spectacular-structures, including the San Francisco Butterfly-wing Bridge, the Belmont Racetrack Pavilion and "Seacliff," a dramatic, cliff-hugging home designed for the Morris family of San Francisco.

The exhibit, which will run through Jan. 7, was organized by the UB Archives, the School of Architecture and Planning, the Department of Media Study, Lockwood Memorial Library and the Historical Society. The official Web site for the exhibit can be found at http://polivka.buffalo.edu.

Organizers say the exhibits will employ computer and interactive displays that will permit visitors to explore and "experience" Wright's work in new and unique ways. It also will allow viewers to consider such fundamental issues as space geometry and proportion in a manner far superior to reliance on still photography and video.

Catalogues for the exhibit will be produced in both Web-based and print formats.

A public symposium that will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 14 will feature Wright scholar Jack Quinan, UB professor of art history. Matthew Drutt, associate curator of the Guggenheim Museum, will present a lecture on Nov. 12 on the exhibition in the historical society at a time to be announced.

The exhibition was designed and coordinated by Rodney Gorme Obien, senior staff assistant, UB Archives; Jean La Marche, assistant professor, School of Architecture and Planning; Susana Tejada, art and art history specialist, Lockwood Memorial Library, and students Dan Puff and Chris Paa of the School of Architecture and Planning.

"Our purpose here is to more fully reveal the synergy of art and science that shaped Wright's unique structures," says Obien. "Several exhibits will employ interactive architectural-engineering displays and other tools developed by the School of Architecture and Planning, and the Department of Media Study in the College of Arts and Sciences."

The exhibit also will feature material from the extensive collection of Wright documents, letters, photographs, plans and other materials from the UB Archives, including its collection of Polivka's papers.

"Our purpose here to help people of all ages to understand the basic structural principles of Wright's architecture," Obien says, "and to appreciate the bold engineering innovations that made his ideas a reality."

"By making the exhibit available over the World Wide Web, we will demonstrate ways of integrating new technologies, like virtual reality, into exhibition design," Obien says.

"The Web also is tool for the dissemination of scholarship developed and presented here in Buffalo and makes it possible for us to offer a unique educational opportunity to students-and Wright aficionados-all over the world.