By 1941, the year Pope-Leighey House was completed, Frank Lloyd Wright had studied Japan for almost a half-century. He had become a serious collector of woodblock prints--even writing a book on the subject--and had won acclaim for his design of the Tokyo Imperial Hotel, one of the few buildings to survive the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. On this special tour, visitors will discover how the famous American architect incorporated his love of Japanese art, architecture, and philosophy into Usonian homes, and how this East Asian influence shines in Wright’s Pope-Leighey House.

About the Tour Guide: Kristi Jamrisko Gross is Lead Guide at Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House and also works as a museum educator for the Office of Historic Alexandria. She holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Maryland, where she wrote her thesis on Dutch–Japanese material culture exchange in the 1600s. Prior to graduate school, she taught English in rural Japan through the JET Program and worked as a science and nuclear policy analyst at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC.