The Robie House: How it Changed and Reflected the Culture of 1900s America While discussing the nature of art, architect Frank Lloyd Wright remarked, “Without architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization” (WEBSITE NAME). This statement was true of early 20th century America; Wright was angry that many architects continued to designing buildings that harkened back to ancient European aesthetics that he didn’t feel represented what it means to be American (Robie House Guided Tour). When Frederick C. Robie approached Wright to construct a home for his family, Wright saw it as an opportunity to help progress his efforts to give America its own style of architecture—its own soul—in the heart of the University of Chicago. In
…show more content…
At the Robie house’s construction, the bustling city lay to one side of the home, while the other long stretch of windows overlooked the uninhabited natural prairies of rural Chicago (Robie House Guided Tour). In this setting, Wright’s design will mark the peak of Prairie School Style: one of the first uniquely American architectural movements started by several architects in the Chicago area at the time. The style was known for its “gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet sky lines, suppressed heavy-set chimneys and out-reaching walls sequestering private gardens” (Hoffmann, 17). It's true, everything about the Robie house screams of the prairies that it once resided in. Wright’s ability to create this flat, prairie iconography owes part of its success to the industrial revolution itself. Due to the invention of steel, Wright could eliminate many of the vertical pillars that would have been necessary to support the large cantilevered roofs that extend over every side of the building—a feature that would have disrupted the horizontal motifs throughout the work (Robie House Guided Tour). Even the exclusion and privacy that many would find in the country is translated into a livable …show more content…
When first viewing the Robie house, you never think vertically. Frank Lloyd Wright took particular care into emulating the expansive countryside through similar sweeping horizontal lines across the exterior and interior of the building. What makes the Robie house particularly iconic, especially when compared to the modern suburban areas of the 21st century, is how Wright was able to carry those horizontal components through the low pitched roofs and silhouette of garden beds. Likewise, I took particular interest in the construction of the bricks themselves. Wright could have easily laid a normal brick pattern without much thought, but instead, he took care in dimming the vertical spaces between bricks and creating thick mortar slabs between each bricklayer (as seen in image 1 at the right). These horizontal motifs all reinforce the image of the calm grasslands that this school of thought was determined to depict. What makes these horizontal movements pop however is the serene smoothness of the building. If Wright had created this work with course stone it would have distracted from the image and the portrayal would have been ruined; instead, he used a smooth brick so that each brick would run into the next, and thus creating a striped pattern composed of flattened expansive shapes. Eventually, skyscrapers would climb around the building, but the running
At the Robie house’s construction, the bustling city lay to one side of the home, while the other long stretch of windows overlooked the uninhabited natural prairies of rural Chicago (Robie House Guided Tour). In this setting, Wright’s design will mark the peak of Prairie School Style: one of the first uniquely American architectural movements started by several architects in the Chicago area at the time. The style was known for its “gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet sky lines, suppressed heavy-set chimneys and out-reaching walls sequestering private gardens” (Hoffmann, 17). It's true, everything about the Robie house screams of the prairies that it once resided in. Wright’s ability to create this flat, prairie iconography owes part of its success to the industrial revolution itself. Due to the invention of steel, Wright could eliminate many of the vertical pillars that would have been necessary to support the large cantilevered roofs that extend over every side of the building—a feature that would have disrupted the horizontal motifs throughout the work (Robie House Guided Tour). Even the exclusion and privacy that many would find in the country is translated into a livable …show more content…
When first viewing the Robie house, you never think vertically. Frank Lloyd Wright took particular care into emulating the expansive countryside through similar sweeping horizontal lines across the exterior and interior of the building. What makes the Robie house particularly iconic, especially when compared to the modern suburban areas of the 21st century, is how Wright was able to carry those horizontal components through the low pitched roofs and silhouette of garden beds. Likewise, I took particular interest in the construction of the bricks themselves. Wright could have easily laid a normal brick pattern without much thought, but instead, he took care in dimming the vertical spaces between bricks and creating thick mortar slabs between each bricklayer (as seen in image 1 at the right). These horizontal motifs all reinforce the image of the calm grasslands that this school of thought was determined to depict. What makes these horizontal movements pop however is the serene smoothness of the building. If Wright had created this work with course stone it would have distracted from the image and the portrayal would have been ruined; instead, he used a smooth brick so that each brick would run into the next, and thus creating a striped pattern composed of flattened expansive shapes. Eventually, skyscrapers would climb around the building, but the running