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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)

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Highland Park, Illinois 1901

Ward W. Willitts House

At the end of the century, Frank Lloyd Wright was struggling towards a new architecture. Buildings of the 1890s such as the Winslow and Charnley houses led the way but it was not until 1901 and the Willits’s house that his new ideas gain full realization.

Many architects in the United States at this time were still taking their inspiration either from classical architecture or from European styles. However, Wright was determined that there should be an indigenous style that reflected the surroundings of buildings and their purpose - their human scale as places for humans to live, in a landscape that the architect acknowledged and integrated into his design. 'The house began to associate with the ground and became natural to its prairie site.' Because of the harsh winters and baking summers, protection from the elements was vital, so the characteristic overhanging shallow roofs were the most appropriate. In two articles in the Ladies Home Journal in 1901 Wright expressed these goals, and commissions followed in generous numbers.

These and many other Prairie-house features are clear in this building. Its walls seem to rise straight from the earth - Wright was not enthusiastic about cellars - and a sense of movement is created from the first by the positioning of the entrance to the right of the main facade. The visitor therefore sees the house from the street and then has to walk around the side of it to a sequence of open and tight spaces: the spacious porte-cochere, the enclosed entry, the airy stairwell and then the short stairway bordered by wood screens, beams and panels. Only then does the visitor reach the large living room, which was the first room seen from the street and which opens on to the lot through long windows. These windows give the room a feeling of great spaciousness and anticipate later two-storey rooms in Usonian houses with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Ward W. Willitts House is located at 1445 Sheridan Road, Highland Park. If you are looking for publications on the 'Ward W. Willitts House' or the 'Prairie Buildings' click here.
 

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