"The setting is splendid and has as a background some of the most beautiful peaks in the Rockies. The site is ideal to inspire an Air Force officer training school which will always have organic progress as its aim.
"The buildings must be completely organic in the best modern sense. But at the same time, both the buildings and the site must, when they are completed, present a characteristic beauty of which the whole nation may be justly proud."
– Frank Lloyd Wright quoted in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, July 2, 1954
Asked specifically what the chapel might have been like, he said it would look like something that was characteristic of the landscape, “perhaps like an evergreen.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright quoted in the Colorado Springs Free Press, May 27, 1955
"I went out to the site, and I saw it, and it impressed me so much that I did not sleep at night for a long time. I have the design in the back of my head.
"it [Wright's concept] is woven right in with that site. The chapel is the apex of the thing, and the whole thing is wound down the side of that slope, until you get in the great field below.
"I want to see it appropriate. Your chapel would be the crowning feature of it on top of the mountain, and the whole thing would go up this way [indicating], and out from a central avenue running up the side of the mountain with escalators taking you up as you please. The center line would run up to the chapel on top of the hill. I am not going to give the scheme away."
– Frank Lloyd Wright before the House Appropriations Committee, July 7, 1955
At right is a sketch drawn by Wright on the back of a letter, thought to be a representation of his concept for the Air Force Academy. It is the only drawing of his concept known to exist.
(Wisconsin Historical Society, WHS-26498. Used with Permission)