[wyliepoon]

I spent Sunday morning on a walking tour of the suburban Oak Park neighbourhood in Chicago, which are famous for the early Frank Lloyd Wright homes. Frank Lloyd Wright designed 25 buildings in Oak Park between 1892 and 1913. The tour I went on covered three blocks of the neighbourhood, which goes to show the density of FLW works here.

I've mixed in some photos of non-FLW homes in this thread... I think you can tell which homes are by FLW very easily!

These were the earliest homes that FLW designed by himself, known as "bootleg houses" because they were designed without the knowledge of his employer at the time, Louis Sullivan.

This home was designed twice by FLW, the first time in an English Gothic style, and then rebuilt in the 1920s with the Mayan motifs that FLW was interested in at the time.

The resident of this FLW house is also a NIMBY, opposing the construction of a tower in downtown Oak Park

FLW bust in a local park

Next stop... Unity Temple, the FLW masterpiece that is also the home of the local Unitarian congregation (the denomination that FLW belonged to). Its use of concrete, mixed with clean design and the famous FLW motifs found on the stained glass and the lighting features make Unity Temple a very modern building architecturally.

Oak Park has a nice downtown area, focused on Lake Street.

Post Office

Oak Park station

 

[ShonTron]

I see that you had the same lady that did the spoken tour when I went to Unity Temple!

Oak Park would certainly be one of the few areas I could see myself living in if I ended up in CHicago.

 

[unimaginative2]

Great pictures, Wylie. We got in to the Unity Temple later when a service was going on. It was quite interesting to see!

I couldn't agree more, spmarshall. It was very impressive. I liked the intermodal transit station!.

 

[wyliepoon]

I see that you had the same lady that did the spoken tour when I went to Unity Temple!

I did the self guided tour, but that woman you mentioned is very impressive. I heard her talk for 10-15 minutes about architecture, FLW and Unity Temple without looking at any notes, and she wasn't BS-ing either.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Wylie: Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park-Nice! What always amazed me about Oak Park is the proximity to Chicago's rough West Side from the nicest parts of Oak Park-Austin Street is the City Line N/S-but the CTAs Lake Line as well as UP's West Line made access easy from Downtown CHI. LI MIKE

 

[harryc]

Wylie: Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park-Nice! What always amazed me about Oak Park is the proximity to Chicago's rough West Side from the nicest parts of Oak Park-Austin Street is the City Line N/S-but the CTAs Lake Line as well as UP's West Line made access easy from Downtown CHI. LI MIKE

Close is across the street - one of the attractions of Oak Park is that it has a fair number of kids from the West Side in the schools, kids who have a grandparent or other address in the village, and parents who put a high priority on education. The rest of us pay some pretty high taxes, grumbling but assured it goes mainly to the schools. This mix of parents and backgrounds makes it the top community in the Midwest for raising kids.

Forest is a great street according to my dog.

This is the tower they were objecting to, https://skyrisecities.com/forum/threads/chicago-vantage-oak-park-m-21s-golub-company-gensler.24961/