Frank Lloyd Wright-Robie II

Even before the tour began I asked a question of all four of the guides as they caucused before one of them led the tour. I knew of Wright's desire to "connect" the home with its natural surroundings. So I asked what kind of tree sat in the back yard. No one knew. Ah, they didn't have to know, but it reminded me of a lesson. People think they are offering a tour of the Robie House, and so the tour-training only includes the house. But why not the gardens and trees? Were they original? Did Wright choose them? Did he favor any particular plants? Indeed, planters galore were around the house--surely Wright felt that having nature "grow" on and next to the house was crucial. When you begin to learn knowledge "on your own," you come up with loads of questions that people, even the experts, don't anticipate, questions which really, when you think of it, are pretty important.

Off the Soapbox and Into the House

The prairie style was supposed to be horizontal, organic and democratic. We saw the horizontal style in the external bricks, which were narrow and long Roman bricks rather than the normal ones. Mortar in the vertical spaces between bricks was colored to look "brickish," while the horizontal spaces were left unpainted. Thus, it looks as if the bricks form layered bands around the house, like layers in an archaeological dig. The organic nature of the house was evident in a very low first floor (ceiling less than 7') and the wide and expansive second floor, which was low enough to the street to seem like it was the "first and a half" floor, but was high enough to give the family privacy as it looked South over the prairie grasses towards the Midway. The only "undemocratic" feature of the house was its cost--approximately $60,000 to acquire the land and build and furnish the house. I think a stylish Victorian wouldn't have cost quite that much, though the guides were mum on that one, too.

The low entry area was a room, and not a hall. It was dark, almost catacomb-like. Just as the Gothic structures wanted to establish a mood by having the viewer's eyes elevate to the celing and thus think of the self as "small," so Wright wanted his visitors and the owners to "feel big" as they entered the home space. The darkness of the space, however, emphasized its liminality--its transitional position between outside and inside. Only when you climbed the stairs from the first to the living floor (and the staircase had a 90 degree turn in the middle in order to prolong the air of mystery a bit longer) did you emerge into a light, airy and open space. Indeed, the main living floor, with the living room connected to the dining room through two hallways, had all the makings of a sort of "nave" for me. The stained glass windows (what was depicted on the glass--was it a sheaf of wheat or something else?), the longer-than-wide room and the prow-shaped front of the room all gave the impression that this was a sort of secular nave, a place where the Holy Trinity was the father, mother and child in the house rather than those that occupy Heaven. One went on a journey, then, from "compression" to "release" as one came rose to the second floor.

Impressive about the living space were a number of things, two of which I will mention. First, Wright had an ability to give the impression of a "room within a room" by having small sections of space where privacy could be enjoyed. Whether it was in the "prow" of the boat, or the little "room" created by the 90 degree, high-backed dining chairs or the way that the arms of the couch became like private spaces when a person sank into the couch, you had the notion of public and private space in the same room. Very impressive. Then, there was a new concept of the role of family members that came to fruition architecturally. The family room was the place where the family would gather and each would have his/her place. There were places for dad and mom and kids all to be doing their tasks. This stood in considerable contrast to the architectural design of the "box-like" Victorian mansions--where after dinner dad would retreat to his smoking or billiard room, the children would be neither seen nor heard and mom, well, what would she do? Thus, the non-religious man, Wright, did more to build a philosophy of family through architecture than the grand imported architectural precedessors of the late 19th century.

Conclusion--A Word on the History of the House

Though the Robie's had the house built, they only lived in it for about a year. Frederick had inherited the debts in his father's company, and he could not afford the house. The next family only stayed for a year, also, and then the Wilbur family lived there from 1912-1926. But they lost a daughter during that time, and so the house became known as a place where an inordinate number of tragedies took place. It was taken over by the Chicago Theological Seminary (the school of the Congregational Church--not related to the University) in 1927, which used it as a dorm for married students. By the 1940s the CTS wanted to bulldoze it for a dorm, but were dissuaded. Then, in 1957, they wanted to bulldoze it again. But Wright, 89 at the time, showed up to protest. According to more than one source, he said at the time: "It all goes to show the danger of entrusting anything spiritual to the clergy."

So, the house was saved. A larger issue is why there wasn't a groundswell of support to "save the home" at this time, but I think American culture went through a profound shift between about 1957 and 1964 regarding the value of some of its historic structures. By 1964 many old structures were preceived to have an intrinsic value, either because of their architectural merit or their bearing witness to a time or style that should be preserved. Frank Lloyd Wright isn't the only person grateful that the Robie House wasn't destroyed. Now it stands tall, occupying one of the four corners of 58th and Woodlawn, equally as impressive as the Rockefeller Chapel or the Graduate School of Business and brilliant in its mute testimony to American architecture's having made a name for itself.

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