“It is quite impossible to consider the building one thing and its furnishings another…
They are all mere structural details of its character and completeness.”
When Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Robie House in the early 1900s, he created a template
for modern living which would continually define residential architecture through modern
day.
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Today we are exploring the house that defied tradition and established our modern way of
living.
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Before open floor plans became the norm in residential construction, most American homes
featured a series of smaller rooms, dedicated to choice-functions.
But Frank Lloyd Wright rebelled against this idea, arguing that spaces should be continuous,
flexible, and above all else, in harmony with nature and their surroundings.
He developed a school of thought based on these principles, which would later be named
by scholars, The Prairie School.
This approach to design emphasized long, horizontal lines and open space, tying back to the expansive
prairies of the Midwest.
With craftsmanship taking the place of ornamentation, conveying strength and persistence in contrast
to the artistic styling found in the Gilded Age and Victorian Era architecture of the
time.
The way in which we interact with our homes can be traced back to a single house.
Finished in 1910, the Robie House on the South Side of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood
became that very house.
Frank Lloyd Wright arranged the façade to exaggerate its horizontal lines by incorporating
low pitched roofs cantilevering far beyond the structure’s curtain walls.
To further emphasize the horizontal, he instructed that two separate mortars be used to join
the brick, a terracotta color for vertical joints and a cream colored mortar for horizontal
joints, creating an illusion for a distance that each row of bricks was one continuous
linear element.
The interior of the home was centered around a massive chimney, punctured by four fireplaces,
from which each main public space would be anchored.
The overall effect lead to an open floor plan, the likes of which the world had never seen
before.
Entering the home from the sidewalk, you would pass along a brick terrace before passing
below it to find the front door hidden in the shadows.
You would then arrive in the entrance hall with low ceilings compressing the dimly lit
space around you.
On the first floor you would find a billiards room, a play room, and rooms for utilities
including a broiler and a coal storage room, but if you approached the stairs, you would
see natural sunlight illuminating the climb to the main floor of the house on the second
level.
As you arrive in the stair hall, the massive chimney obscures your view of the dining room
and living room going in either direction of the chimney.
In these spaces you would find custom furniture, carpets, lamps, all designed by Wright and
his associates to perfectly balance the interior décor with the architectural elements tying
the spaces together.
To remove the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces, Wright incorporated curtain
walls composed of art glass opening onto terraces covered by the roofs cantilevered eaves.
To achieve this, he removed the necessity for the walls to support the ceiling by utilizing
steel beams anchored in piers on two sides of the house.
The ceiling inside was decorated with simple, linear elements directing the eye towards
light sources, such as globes and screens allowing both electric and natural light to
flood each space.
The dining room boasted furniture designed specifically to suit its space against a back
drop of art glass angled to become one of the two prows we saw on the exterior.
All throughout the house, wright played with shadows and lighting to exaggerate space with
dramatic effect.
He further relied on perfect craftsmanship to create straight lines to guide the eye
and delineate spaces.
The openness of the floor plan allowed for flexible use of each space with minimal separation
for function.
The ability of the interior of the home to echo the exterior was found not only in the
design of the furnishings, but also in the design of the kitchen with continuous cabinet
lines behind glass panels and a central island, of which the surface was made cantilever in
the likeness of the roofs overhanging eaves.
Up until 1926, the house changed hands along with its furnishings from owner to owner until
it was sold to the Chicago Theological Seminary which essentially gutted the house to use
as a dining hall.
As they were throwing the furniture in the dumpster, one of the seminary’s janitors
pulled most of the discarded furniture out to save.
In 1941, the seminary announced plans to demolish the house, causing a massive protest to ensue,
but as things started to heat up during World War Two those plans were put on hold.
In 1957, the seminary once again announced plans to demolish the Robie house and replace
it with dormitories prompting international outrage.
Protests, letters, articles, and speeches were directed by prominent architects around
the world including notable architect Mies Van De Rohe who had gained inspiration from
Wright’s work.
Frank himself, at the age of 90 years old, even participated in the protests taking shots
at the seminary, saying, “It all goes to show the danger of entrusting anything spiritual
to the clergy.”
Realizing that they would not budge on their plans, Wright reconnected with his old Fraternity,
Phi Delta Theta which was located just a couple doors up the street.
With the help of another Fraternal Organization, negotiations were put forth to demolish the
Fraternity houses for the dormitories instead of the Robie House.
Thankfully, the seminary found this to be a suitable compromise and spared the Robie
house from demolition.
But the house was still in terrible shape, it had been stripped of its glorious detail
and desecrated by its users.
One of Frank’s friends, real estate developer Wiliam Zeckendorf purchased the Robie House
and donated it to the University of Chicago.
The Seminary’s Janitor then donated the furniture which he had rescued to the University
and it was slowly put back together.
Finally, in 2002, the house was turned over to the Frank Lloyd Wright trust who began
painstakingly putting the house back together as it was in 1910.
Then, in 2019, the organization completed its restoration and preservation work, opening
the house to the public for tours.
While much of the interior now appears as it did over 100 years ago, several of the
furniture collections have made their rounds to various museums such as the dining room
set which can be found at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago.
If you have had the opportunity to visit and tour since the house has been opened to the
public for tours, I would love to hear about your experience down below in the comments
section.
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