Oak Park, 1889
“Be regular and orderly in your life like the bourgeoisie so that you can be wild and original in your art,” wrote Gustave Flaubert in 1876.
No artist was less like Flaubert than Frank Lloyd Wright.
Creditors, divorces, scandal, and bankruptcy hounded Wright for most of his life. It could be said that the pure unfettered joy of his architecture was built on the ashes of his failed relationships.
He designed this small house for his family in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1889 when he was 22 years old. He and Catherine Tobin Wright raised their six children here before their relationship unraveled.
“The architect absorbed the father,” he lamented.
Looking at Wright’s house today, we can remember the turmoil of his family life but the real thrill comes from recognizing the young architect’s incomparable boldness. Here are the natural materials, the bold geometry, the elusive entrance, the home rooted to the earth and open to the sky that would later personify Wright’s style.
On a Saturday afternoon in June the Wright house is dappled in light. Although it belongs to another century it has the whiff of modernism. A breeze shakes the trees and children’s laughter echoes down the street.
