Located near Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, Samara was constructed in 1955 and is still occupied by the original owner, Dr. John E. Christian. A pharmaceutical chemistry professor at Purdue, he has meticulously preserved and chronicled his Wright and Taliesin Architect-associated contacts and designs. The exhibition includes a selection of Wright-designed furnishings, architectural fragments, and facsimiles of his colored pencil drawings. The Christian family's experiences with Wright are reflected through selected correspondence, contract documents, and digital representation of family photographs and home movies.

The story of Samara began with Dr. Christian’s telephone call to Wright in 1950 about designing their residence. Fortuitously, the architect himself answered and invited Dr. Christian and his wife Kay to visit him at his home in Wisconsin, Taliesin. Three years later, the Christians gave Wright a 27-page booklet describing their intended house site, lifestyle, and expectations for a home. As was Wright's “way,” he or his staff architects provided proposals for Samara's landscape and interior furnishings in addition to the actual building. Lacking the means initially to implement all of Wright's ideas, John and Kay vowed to complete his holistic residential concept over time. Samara, which derives its name from a winged, or whirligig, seed, is a work in progress to this day.

The Christian booklet along with a rare Schumacher sample book of fabrics designed by Wright for mass production (1955) illuminate a key exhibition theme: the push-pull between customization vs. standardization, characteristic of Wright's late commissions when his name and style had become a “brand.” The exhibition also highlights the family's life in the house through snapshots and home movies. A social director at Purdue, Mrs. Christian made clear to Wright that entertaining was a favorite family pastime. Events ranged from daughter Linda's slumber parties to neighborhood barbeques and more formal gatherings like an atomic-themed “radioactive” party.

Exhibition curator Scott W. Perkins is Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Perkins' exhibitions include Wright Restored: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower Interiors (2006) and Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind (2011). Among his recent publications are Building Bartlesville, 1945-2000 (2008), a book exploring the post World War II architectural impact of Wright, Bruce Goff, and William Wesley Peters on the community; and an essay co-authored with Pat Kirkham on the interiors and furnishings of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for its 50th anniversary publication, The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the making of the Modern Museum (2008).