Frank Lloyd Wright home
Any great artist of the past has a house changed into a museum where a lot of people come and analyze shyly each corner, evoking the personality of that great artist. The same happens with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
An amazing building in Oak Park, Illinois represented the Wright family home from 1889 to 1909. Frank Lloyd Wright started the building of this house in 1889 immediately after his wedding. Catherine Tobin was his wife. He used for this building $5,000 which he borrowed from Louis Sullivan. The Wright family now, Frank and Catherine, together with their six children lived here during the time when he improved his architectural style, creating what became the Prairie architecture style.
Initially, the room located at the front of the house, on the second storey was his sketches room, until he completed the Studio Annex in 1898. In 1895, he built the two level polygonal Bays, on the south side. In the first storey of this Bay, Wright designed his original dining room, with the amazing dining table and chairs which are an expression of his style. The windows of the dining room bay were changed after that, when another house, to the south of their home was constructed, obstructing the entrance of light into the bay. That year, Wright added as well two level extensions to the east side of the house, whose upstairs is the considered, the children’s play room. This room has light from series of art glass windows along the north and south walls as well, and from the skylight located overhead, creating a unique, unforgettable ethereal effect!
Studio Annex
The studio annex was ready in 1898, and it is one of the most amazing work spaces ever imagined! The area where Wright received his guests, the hanging lights in the drafting room, having octagonal shape design, his library, everything was like a sanctuary of a great artist.
Wright changed the principal house into a rental unit in 1911, modifying the image significantly! A porch was built, and the principal entrance was located to the south side. An important renovation program by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has renovated the Wright Home and Studio and it looks now the way it looked in 1909, which was the last time when the Wright family lived here. Nowadays Wright's Home and Studio is a historic house museum and a place for education about the ideas and works of Frank Lloyd Wright.
A short description can not have the effects of imagining yourself living in this house, while you are walking through it. For those who know Wright’s architecture, there are many traces of a great artist.
He left us ideas according to which nature is the greatest source of inspiration in architecture and glass, through light and color can create special effects not only from the aesthetic point of view but also from the functional one.
If you ever have the opportunity to visit Chicago, don’t forget to visit Frank Lloyd’s home and museum.
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