Frank.LloydWright.info

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)

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Featured work

Residential
Avery Coonley
Arthur Heurtley
A. Goetsch & K. Winckler
Fallingwater House
George Barton House
I. N. Hagan House
John Storer
Frederick C. Robie
Taliesin West
Ward W. Willitts
Institutions
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Towers
Price Tower
Commercial
Anderton Court Shop
Imperial Hotel & Annex
Museums
Guggenheim Museum
Places of worship
Annunciation Church
Beth Sholom Synagogue

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Chicago 1910

Fredrick C. Robie House

Widely recognized as America's most famous architect, Wright made significant contributions to modern architecture during his prolific 70-year career. Completed in 1910, Robie House epitomizes Wright's signature Prairie style, featuring sweeping horizontal planes and a low-pitched roof cantilevered dramatically beyond the walls, and a lightness and transparency provided by 174 art-glass windows and doors.

The House Story;

Robie House was considered by Frank Lloyd Wright his quintessential Prairie School creation, a work of both art and spirituality. The house is generally considered a turning point in modern residential architecture and has been voted one of the ten most important buildings in America- in its structure, as design, as integration of materials, as design for domestic life and layout of living space, as integration of structure and furnishings. All this can be learned in many books or in resources of the Frank Lloyd Wright and Studio and its managing arm, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, or Wright Plus. The Robie House preservation fight in the 1950s was the spark behind the city's first landmark protection ordinance.

When built in 1909-10 for bicycle manufacturer Frederick C. Robie, one could look all the way to Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Midway Plaisance a block to the south and to the University of Chicago's emerging campus a block to the west. There was a scattering of frame house on lands that had belonged to, among others, Marshall Field, and beginnings of a row of mansions on Woodlawn, "professor's row" houses, and other grand houses.

Frederick Robie went bankrupt a couple of years after construction, and the house quickly fell on poor times. In 1926, the Chicago Theological Seminary turned it into a dormitory. It's proposed demolition in 1941 was prevented by a (first) Committee for the Preservation of Robie House.

In 1956-7, the Seminary again proposed to replace it with a high-rise dorm. Wright visited and gave a much-quoted statement: "To destroy it would be like destroying a great piece of sculpture or a great work of art. It would never be permitted in Europe. It could only happen in America, and it is particularly sad that professional religionists should be the executioners...It all goes to show the danger of entrusting anything spiritual to the clergy."

Soon after, the City's new Commission on Architectural Landmarks named Robie House its first "honorary" landmark, although the commission lacked power. The Seminary's response was to suggest giving Robie to the city if the city would relocate it or to build a model in a museum.

Robie House was rescued (likely through the ingenuity of Julian Levi and arranged at a meeting in Mayor Daley's office) by the New York firm overseeing much of the Urban Renewal work in Hyde Park, Webb and Knapp, led by William Zeckendorf, for $125,000. Many Hyde Parkers, including newly elected alderman Leon Despres and his wife Marian (Auditorium Theater, Glesner House), worked diligently for preservation and eventual restoration. Robie House was used as Webb and Knapp's construction office until they gave it to the University of Chicago in 1963. Two successive and notable uses were as the Adlai Stevenson Institute for International Peace and the Alumni Office. Both users took major, although unintended, toll on the building (as did misguided attempts to stabilize and tuck-point the structure and Wright homes' notorious problems with leaks and collapsing cantilevered roofs).

In 1997, the University, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, agreed that the latter two would assume control and responsibility to raise over $4 million for restoration and operation as a museum. In fact, sole responsibility, including raising 4-8 million dollars, has rested with the FLW Preservation Trust. Most of the exterior restoration is complete and planning and pilot-project work proceeds on the interior. Regular house and neighborhood tours are available.

Robie House stamp honors Wright's contributions

A new U.S. postal stamp featuring Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House was made available February 4th, 1998 as part of a series of 30 stamps that honored important people and events of the 20th century.

A ceremony took place at Robie's House in January, 1998 by the U.S. Postal Service and unveiled the new stamp and recognized two Laboratory Schools students who won a contest, sponsored by the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation, to design the corresponding Robie House cancellation stamp. The winning designs, chosen from among 200 entries submitted by students in Hyde Park schools, were created by third-grader Anne Wildman and eighth-grader Walker Thisted. The designs are on display at Robie House.

The house is located at 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue on the campus of the University of Chicago in Hyde Park (South Side of Chicago). If you are looking for publications on the 'House' or the 'Prairie Style' click here.
 

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