How did the architecture tours in the city go? My family and I have talked about going for years, but we never do!
I've been to the frank lloyd wright house, but not done any of the city tours.
We started with the tour of the Robie house. They are still doing restoration, and the kitchen and bathrooms were torn up. I don't know why they don't let you take photos inside, but you can take photos of the outside, and photos of the inside FROM the outside. The way FLW made visitors hunt for the entrance to a residence (along what he called "the path of discovery") was fascinating. I think it showed how creative he was, while at the same time showing that he thought rather highly of himself, i.e., he thought people should appreciate HIS work, not just enter the house as a guest to see the PEOPLE living there.
Among the clever touches in the Robie house was the custom designed ice box (before the days of refrigerators). It had an opening in the back, and was pushed up against a wall with an outside staircase, so the delivery man could put in the ice from the back without needing to come into the house. I also liked the way the servants' quarters, kitchen area, and entrances were arranged so that servants could get around easily but be mostly out of sight of the family and their guests. That's how life was a century ago. And FLW gave it a three car garage when cars were new!
The University of Chicago business school building across the street was purposely designed so that the side facing the Robie house has a matching style: horizontal lines with overhangs. I spotted that they matched even before the tourguide pointed it out, so I gave myself 2 points for that.
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We took a walking tour of the Auditorium Building, run by the CAF, and that was very cool. It's still a functioning theater, (Bjork performed there last weekend), and I liked hearing about its history and the story of its architects, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler.
The building was closed and left to decay for years, and for a time veterans used the stage as a bowling alley! They've done a lot of restoration work, and are still raising money for more. I got some tolerable low-light photos in there, but then halfway through the tour they said "no photos" to another tourist so I stopped snapping.
Frank Lloyd Wright contributed in some ways to the theater's design, but it isn't known how much of his influence is reflected there. From what I saw, his contributions were relatively minor, other than the FLW tradition of having low entrances that open in large open areas.
The building has sunk around the outside, leaving it with slanted floors, but we were told that it was structurally sound.
There's an interesting marble wall in the back of the theater, with one stone apparently up-side-down, because the grain doesn't match the other stones. One of the theories is that this was done on purpose, because by tradition every building is supposed to have one error, even if done on purpose.
We didn't have time to take other CAF tours, although they all looked interesting. We saw the Segway tour go by us on the sidewalk. I'm not sure I'd want to take the boat tour. It might be too cold and windy, and walking around downtown and looking for buildings we'd recognize was plenty of fun, even if we had to read our own tourist info.
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In Oak Park, we took both the FLW home & studio tour (interesting) and the neighborhood walking tour (even more interesting) and by the end we could spot which houses were the FLW designs without being told. FLW lost his job because he was moonlighting by designing houses in his neighborhood, and he sure did a lot of them. The entire Oak Park neighborhood is considered a historical area, not just the FLW houses.
It was especially interesting to learn how FLW designed
everything for some of this clients, from the home to the furnishings, right down to the tableware. And he'd get annoyed if he found that they put up their own wall hangings! It reminded me of people who put out the wedding gift that someone gave them when that person comes to visit, but in reverse. "Frank Lloyd Wright is coming -- quick! -- take down Grandpa's photo!"
The only disappointment was the Unity Temple designed by FLW. It was contructed of concrete because that's all that they could afford, but it was not especially interesting to see from the outside and a woman inside shooed us out rather unpolitely, so we couldn't see more than the entrance area inside.
