{"id":6741,"date":"2017-07-21T07:51:59","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T11:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6741"},"modified":"2017-07-27T08:09:24","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T12:09:24","slug":"oak-park-illinois-frank-lloyd-wright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6741","title":{"rendered":"Oak Park, Illinois, & Frank Lloyd Wright"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fallingwater,

Fallingwater (photo: Vicki Weisfeld)<\/p><\/div>\n

This year marks the 150th year anniversary of architect Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s birth, and the design world is using the occasion to reexamine his ideas and precepts, as well as to celebrate his lasting legacy. My parents were big FLW fans in the 1950s, and my dad designed our little house with many of his principles in mind. Although Wright died almost 60 years ago, in 1969, he\u2019s probably still the architect most Americans can name.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s of course known for his many heavily visited landmarks: Fallingwater and the nearby Kentuck Knob<\/a> south of Pittsburgh, Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Taliesin West in Scottsdale, and if you go to the Guggenheim Museum, you\u2019re in the Wright place. I\u2019ve also visited the lesser-known, but beautiful Dana-Thomas House<\/a> in Springfield, Ill., but until this month, had never been to where it all started, in Oak Park, Ill.<\/p>\n

If you go, the FLW Trust offers a guided tour of his studio and home, where he lived with his first wife and their children. There\u2019s also an easy walking tour of nine Wright-designed houses in the immediate neighborhood. The Unity Temple, recently refurbished for millions of dollars, is nearby (not yet reopened for visitors as of early July).<\/p>\n

After these experiences, you\u2019ll recognize how Wright\u2019s prairie-style designs, daring cantilevers, and use of simple materials for complex effects continue to influence architects today. You may be surprised at how many of his rooms are rather small. He emphasized the quality<\/em> of the space people were to inhabit, not the quantity.<\/p>\n

Wright was a larger-than-life personality\u2014with a messy personal life\u2014and maybe that\u2019s what it took to break with the past and develop new approaches and methods to solve design problems. While he was a modern architect, he didn\u2019t go in for the spare, unembellished approach we think of as \u201cmodern.\u201d His work contains a surprising amount of beautiful decoration, in the form of leaded glass, wood carving, brickwork. He even designed the furniture and light fixtures for his buildings.<\/p>\n

In a Wright structure, there is always something interesting to draw the eye, including nature\u2014outdoor views he brought inside through thoughtful window placement. So in this 150th year, celebrate an American icon.<\/p>\n

See:
\n<\/strong>Frank Lloyd Wright at MoMA<\/a>, New York City \u2013 an exhibit with much new material and insights
\nTaliesin West<\/a>, Scottsdale, Ariz.
\nFLW Trust<\/a>, Oak Park, Ill.
\nFLW Public Sites Directory<\/a><\/p>\n

Special coverage:
\n<\/strong>Architectural Digest<\/a>, \u201cFrank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Beautiful Houses, Structures & Buildings\u201d
\nMetropolis<\/a>, July\/August, \u201cWright, Relevant as Ever\u201d
\nBloomberg<\/a>, \u201cFrank Lloyd Wright Is Not Who You Think He Is\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year marks the 150th year anniversary of architect Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s birth, and the design world is using the occasion to reexamine his ideas and precepts, as well as to celebrate his lasting legacy. My parents were big FLW … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Oak Park, Illinois, & Frank Lloyd Wright - this is the influential architect's 150th birth anniversary","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[266,104,78],"tags":[1103,351,1102,416],"class_list":["post-6741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-architecture","tag-frank-lloyd-wright","tag-oak-park","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1KJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6742,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741\/revisions\/6742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}