Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
From the Robie House in Hyde Park to what seems like every other house in Oak Park, Chicago’s a kind of open-air Frank Lloyd Wright museum. To comprehend it all, start at his home and studio. Wright began work on the house in 1888 when he was only 21, and made additions and changes for almost a decade. After establishing his own practice, he added the open-plan studio and continued to tinker with the design of the rest of the building. In effect, the tour guide’s descriptions of the house’s evolution match the evolution of Wright’s style, so it’s like walking into his cranky baroque mind. There are traces of the influence Japanese design had on Wright, insights into the growth of the Prairie Style, and one particularly pleasant revelation: an amazing, barrel-vaulted children’s playroom that any adult would wish to have nostalgia for having played in as a child.
951 Chicago, Oak Park (708)848-1976.
Best of Chicago 2002
