Lisa D. Schrenk - The Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism)

Lisa D. Schrenk

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

This book is supported by a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and by funding from Norwich University and the University of Arizona.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2021 by Lisa D. Schrenk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-31894-3 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-31913-1 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226319131.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schrenk, Lisa Diane, author.

Title: The Oak Park studio of Frank Lloyd Wright / Lisa D. Schrenk.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020026482 | ISBN 9780226318943 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226319131 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Wright, Frank Lloyd, 18671959Homes and hauntsIllinoisOak Park. | Frank Lloyd Wright Studio (Oak Park, Ill.) | ArchitectureIllinoisOak Park.

Classification: LCC NA737.W7 S294 2020 | DDC 720.9773/11dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026482

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To John Thorpe, Don Kalec, and the rest of the early volunteers of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation who contributed countless hours to the restoration of Wright's Oak Park home and studio, preserving it for future generations.

Recognizing that architecture possesses two distinctive sides and that its highest development depends upon properly combining its artistic and commercial elements, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright of Chicago has adopted to this end a rather unique plan. Mr. Wright has his business office at 1119 The Rookery, and has erected an architectural workshop containing draughting rooms, studio, architectural and private libraries, at the corner of Forest and Chicago avenues, in the pretty suburb of Oak Park. The perspective of the studio as one passes on the electric cars, presents an original and interesting study and reflects strongly the personality of its author, as is characteristic of all of Mr. Wrights work. A neat circular of announcement of this change contains a photogravure of the studio and also presents the motive of the architect in a salient comment to the effect that the practice of architecture as a profession has fine art as well as commercial elements; that these should be combined to their mutual benefit, not mixed to their detriment.

Construction News, 9 February 1898

P.1 Early rendering of the front of the Oak Park studio with diamond-paned windows, sculpture in the second-floor niches, wood fence, and broad entrance stair. John Lloyd Wright Collection. 1974.004.00005, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York.

P.2 Oak Park studio drafting room interior showing the door to the reception hall with panels of the Heller house frieze on the fireplace, a rendering of a residential design for Aline Devin on the drawing board, and copies of classical sculptures, including a bust of Michelangelos Dying Slaveand Venus de Milo.