Transcript Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio Tour

Frank Lloyd Wright
Home & Studio Tour
Rick McNees – Interpreter
630-983-1820
[email protected]
April 2011, Revised April 2012
0 – Rules
Please help us protect this site and it contents and preserve it for future
visitors – please use museum behavior while in the home and studio.
• Backpacks, bags, parcels, and cameras must be checked before
entering the museum.
• There is no interior photography, so we do require that
cameras be among the items checked at this time.
• Food and beverages are not permitted inside the museum:
please consume, discard, or check these items. Please also
discard chewing gum before entering the building.
• There is no smoking inside the museum or on our campus.
• Do not touch or lean on walls, furnishings, or artifacts.
• Turn off cell phones and other non-Wright-era communication
devices.
• Please stay with your group throughout your tour.
Do not open closed doors or enter restricted areas.
Transition – Walk down street to front of house – notice homes along Chicago Ave.
Good neighbors.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
1 – Forest Avenue Front
Historical Significant
• FLW - Most significant Amer architect of all time – AIA 1991;
• Wm Wright preacher, music teacher; Anna Lloyd Jones, teacher
• FLW first complete work – own home & studio;
• 1889-1909; w. Kitty Tobin raised six children; 1/3 of life’s works
• experimental laboratory – constant renovation
• Changes 1895 DR/gym, 1898 studio - restored to 1909
Home and Studio
• Contrast with neighborhood - color, site, materials, shapes
• Geometric shapes – triangular gabled roof; rectangular banded
windows; deep eaves for shelter; sturdy base ties house/ground
• ‘of the site’; organic architecture-in harmony w site & humanity;
natural native materials/colors; tied to nature; set-back
• Large porch – masonry grounded, lifestyle, nature, round shapes
• Studio to left – flat roof, octagonal geometric shapes;
tied to home by shingles, brick materials, construction
Transition – Please have tickets ready as I’ll check for them at the front entrance.
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2 – Living Room
Design creates the experience Integrated architecture – function, furniture, ornamentation, arts
• Open floor plan – break-box; flowing entry, living room,
study, inglenook; earth colors; natural wood banding; horizontal
• Central fireplace - Inglenook – intimate, built-ins
• integrated architecture; built-in seating, cabinets, bookcases
• Chairs, print table; authentic designs for house
• Banded windows – window seats (side 95 renovation)
• Light screens – banded, geo shapes, art design, privacy, plasticity
of form – corner dissolves
Decorative Arts
• Entry way - Original plaster frieze - classical art, JS Bach
• Japanese prints, sculpture, oriental rugs; piano pictured
Transition – Pass thru study / original dining room; past connecting corridor
passageway between home & studio; note TREE; pass thru pantry to Dining Room .
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3 – Dining Room
1st room total environment— integrated architecture,
interior design, furniture, lighting, heating, decorative arts
• Lower ceiling; Sky(indirect) light carved oak grill (ash leaf)
• ‘room within room’ dining table/chairs-ceiling symmetry;
1st furniture designs; original, designed for room
• Fireplace – hearth tiles extend to entire floor
• Walls – artists canvas in natural state (don’t lean)
• 1895 addition extended bay (former kitchen)
• Banded light screen windows – (center blocked for privacy)
• Quarter-sawn red oak woodwork, cabinetry, heat register
covers
Transition – APPOINT last person – can use handrail – use care up-the-stairs.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
4 – Children’s Dormitory - Studio
1889 Wright’s studio while at Adler & Sullivan; “bootleg“ houses;
converted to children’s bedrooms about 1893 (own downtown office)
• Divided partition wall – restored
• High Ceiling – reminiscent of Wisc farms barns legacy
• Wood trim carries the eye up to the vaulted ceiling, simulate roof
rafters, strength.
• Opening vent to attic – flow through ventilation
• Two-color paint scheme keeps room from being excessively
vertical, unites the partition with end walls
• Banded windows – from studio era
• Built-in cabinets; hooks – coat hangar patented 1896- Mayer May
• Electric lights
Family/Lifestyle
• Daughters, Catherine & Frances, south side;
• youngest boys, David & Llewellyn, north side; older boys, Lloyd &
John to Wisconsin @ aunts’ Hillside Home School, uncles’ farms
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5 – Master Bedroom
Integrated architecture - furniture, lighting, window
openings, decorative arts to make a harmonious design.
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High ceiling
Two closets, one w/ window, built-in drawers, shelves, unusual for then
Stairwell, west closet, bathroom - sound buffers for bedrooms.
Balcony cut back when Studio added – northerly view of virgin prairie
Birch and Basswood – master BR different, exotic wood
Murals - Orlando Giannini ~1900;stylized American Plains Indians exotic
costumes - covered w/ 8 coats paint; removed by Art Institute restoration
conservators
• Hanging pendant lights designed by Wright part of mural design – Lights, Indians’ robes are Egyptian feel; Egyptology popular at time
BATHROOM
• Bathroom – unique for time, shared by all
• Horizontal board-and-batten walls – same quarter-sawn red oak,
extravagant quantity ; Japanese character
• Projecting right-angle window – affords privacy & ventilation.
Transition –DIRECT VISITORS INTO CATHERINE’S DAYROOM.
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6 – Catherine’s Dayroom
Wright made each room not just a box
– high/low ceilings, woodwork and trim
Architecture
• Low ceiling bay end (1895 addition ala dining bay below)
• Intimate space for reading and sewing – (room within a room).
• Banded light screen windows
• Built-in furniture (wardrobe, radiator cabinets
• Clerestory window, southern sun, yellow reduce heat, healing
• Stencil and wall color from the original nursery decoration –
Contrast 1889 decoration with distinctly Prairie-like wood trim
and linen fabric wall
Family/Lifestyle
• Spool crib original Tobin family, ca. 1850.
• Wright family in 1909 photo collage.
• Framed passports used on first trip to Japan in 1905
Transition –Note Low Ceiling – We’ll learn why! Note confined space of the long narrow
corridor as we move to the DOWN THE HALL TO THE CHILDREN’S PLAYROOM.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
7 – Children’s Playroom/Family Room
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Compress/release - contrasts low-high, dark-light, narrow-wide
Room expands visually in 5 directions: mural, gallery, bay windows; skylight.
Passage directed attention to MURAL - Fisherman & Genie – kid’s fav story, from Arabian
Nights – by Charles Corwin , brother of architect protégé Cecil Corwin
Ceiling – real skylight, grilles soften natural light - prickly ash tree leaves – ala dining room
Wood carries eye up/length of room visually increasing space. Auditorium theatre – Sullivan
Scaled for children - bay windows; ceiling starts child’s height. Upper gallery too low for adult
Roman brick wall treatment, unusual for interior - withstand wear & tear of children.
Kitty conducted neighborhood kindergarten - principles Friedrich Froebel, “father of kgarten”.
Upper gallery expands into attic area – visual - play area – stage or gallery.
Features FLW’s 5 acknowledged influences –
Nature (window vistas, skylight grille); Froebel Blocks (balusters, Kitty’s k-garten);
Japanese Prints (displayed for children, side lights); Lou Sullivan; Music (e.g., piano, concerts)
Grand piano - under/above stairs conserve space - risers hinged; trap-door landing for sound
Lincoln logs – invented by architect son – John Lloyd Wright
Transition - APPOINT Last Person – Caution – head/piano - Down stairs
Note 1895 KITCHEN – period – not original. Ice boxes (6) • EXIT TO THE COURTYARD.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
8 – Studio Exterior – Chicago Ave
• Bold geometric shapes – express space within
• Same natural materials, colors, textures as home;
- concrete foundation ties structure to ground;
- brick base wainscot ties studio/home together;
- design windows
• Originally broad steps, wall added; privacy; created Path of
Discovery – (ala Japanese garden) each turn different views,
features; door search – five turns to interior
– Wright Logo – Cross/circle/square – urns
– Decorative arts – Boulders by Richard Bock
– Stork Capitals – concept by FLW, sculpted by Richard Bock:
- Tree of life, books of knowledge and architectural specs;
- pendant scroll embossed with plan (the architects “work”);
- storks standing guard representing fertility & wisdom
– Clear window panels reveal elegant interior spaces
Transition –Enter, turn right, then left thru glass doors to multi-story atrium drafting room.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
9 – Drafting Room
Here FLW & Associates produced Prairie Style
• Ornament integrated w/ function; octagonal ceiling,
• windows, chains, balcony, furniture, fireplace
• open multi story vertical space - balcony, light from above;
- (Larkin Bldg, Unity Temple, Johnson Wax Bldg, Guggenheim)
• Chains - horizontal counteract outward forces – vertical support mezzanine
• Clarestory light-screen windows
• Balcony arts - sculpture, drawing, art glass - Shelf ala beams
• Ground floor; architects’ drafting tables, print cabinets ala pillars, windows
• Vault – storage of architectural drawings as well as Japanese prints
• Fireplace – central feature like in a home – Hellar Maidens by Bock
• Associates - Marion Mahony, William Drummond, Walter Burley Griffin,
Barry Byrne, Orlando Giannini – associates went on to distinguished careers
• Buildings created here: Unity Temple; Thomas, Heurtley, Gale, Mamah
Borthwick & Edwin Cheney Residence; Robie House – AIA most significant
of 20th century
Transition –- Exit past / note Robie
House
model- 630-983-1820
– Pass thru Wrights Office to Reception
Rick McNees
- Interpreter
9a – Reception Room
OFFICE
• Business office, only telephone; Isabel Roberts
• Wood trim , ceiling, linear quality wood enlivens space
• Shelf at door-top height for photos, fresh/dried foliage, art
• Lay light art glass and art glass windows.
RECEPTION ROOM
• Low-ceiling – contrast to drafting room and library
• Lay light panels (1904–05) of most intricate Wright designed
• Detailed elegance – rich colors, warm wood
• Plan desk for contractors - check blueprints with draftsmen
• Separation from busy noisy Chicago Avenue
Transition – Follow into Library.
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10 – Library
One of Wright’s favorite rooms – form fitted to function—
private reading room; client consultation / presentation space
• “library“ - original intent “free, circulating fine arts library“ to
neighborhood
• Octagonal form rotates several times – table legs
• Skylight - frosted glass – diffused light
• High windows - tree tops – best natural light
• High cabinets - building samples (bricks, stone, wood trim)
• Drawing display panels
• Furniture – designed purpose built
• Fireplace– offset flu/chimney; Magnesite floor- sawdust, concrete
Transition – LEAD THE GROUP OUT THE WEST DOOR OF THE STUDIO. HOLD DOOR OPEN.
CLOSE THE DOOR - BE SURE IT IS LOCKED. PROCEED TO THE GINGKO TREE.
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820
11 – Close – Gingko Tree
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H&S restored to 1909
Anna’s house – 1860’s – Mother & Sister - Admin for FLWPT
Gingko tree – Blair property – amateur horticulturist
Garage – 1911 after return – apartment income
Gift shop – more materials – tour, mentioned people, bldgs
Stay involved – Support FLWPT –
– Sign up
– Join FLWPT – savings on purchases – tour (s)
– Tour Unity – Robie House – Rookery Building
– Volunteer
– Financial support - $3.5mm FLW H&S - $10mm Robie
• Thank you
• Questions
Retrieve checked items – Visit Gift Shop
Rick McNees - Interpreter - 630-983-1820