Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois


Related people
John P. Schooley Jr. (was created by)
Frank Lloyd Wright (was created by)
Date
1889; Studio Annex completed 1898
Description
Built with 5,000 dollars borrowed from Louis Sullivan, this is Wright's personal residence and studio in River Forest where he developed his Prairie Style. This image shows an exterior column in front of the studio annex. "The house was built in the fashionable Shingle style and may have been modeled most closely after the 1886 Chandler House in Tuxedo Park, New York, designed by Bruce Price. Wright's former employer before Sullivan, Joseph Lyman Silsbee, also designed in the Shingle style, as did America's most famous architect of the time, Henry Hobson Richardson. In 1898, in an effort to return to a closer work-family relationship and in response to a growing practice, he decided to build a new studio adjacent to his home, connected by a passageway, Both would serve as laboratories for his emerging style, as he constantly remodeled them to try out new ideas" Cannon, P. F. (2006). Hometown Architect: the complete buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park and River Forest, Illinois. San Francisco: Pomegranate. p.15 This house also includes a "play room" design for his children, the first of many such spaces in subsequent Wright designs.
Style/Period
19th Century (1800 - 1899 CE)
Prairie School
Material
brickwork
concrete
wood (hardwood or softwood)
metal or metal products