The village of Oak Park, Illinois, immediately west of the Chicago city boundary, is a tourist attraction all its own-the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway and the home of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. However, it is best known as the site of the first home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, the leader of the influential Prairie School (which emphasized horizontal structure) and "organic architecture" (which sought to integrate building designs into their natural settings) movements, and by general accord the United States' greatest architect.

Wright spent the first 20 years of his 70-year career in Oak Park, where he completed 30 projects -most of them residential houses, including his own. In fact, the village has more residences designed by Wright than anywhere in the world, making it a living monument to the legendary architect and a collection of his work. This article, the last in a Newsletter series that highlights places to go and things to see in Chicago-site of the 2009 ICA conference-examines the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright in the adjacent suburb of Oak Park, an easy and highly recommended visit for fans of Wright's work.

The mecca for any Wright devotee, of course, is his Home & Studio at 951 Chicago Avenue-his first independent project. Wright originally built the house in 1889, when he was 22, on a $5000 loan from his employer and mentor Louis J. Sullivan (inventor of the skyscraper). The original structure was a modest two-story house built in the then-popular "Shingle Style," an American variation on the era's Queen Anne style. As he renovated and added to the house, however, it began to reflect the evolution in his concepts of design. An extensive 1895 renovation added a dining room and children's playroom that experimented with the lengthwise horizontals that characterized his Prairie style-and which Wright would develop in his designs for other homes and buildings. He would continue remodeling at a near constant pace for the next decade.

In 1898, Wright built his studio as an annex to the house; it is one of the earliest surviving examples of his mature style, featuring elements that Wright would incorporate into famous designs such as Fallingwater and Chicago's Robie House. It's a low, long, rectangular brick structure with an octagonal balcony suspended from chains and wide pillars (featuring relief sculptures of storks) at the entrance. Inside are a large reception room, a presentation library, and the drafting room in which Wright and his associates developed the Prairie School of Design.

Wright left Oak Park in 1909, and two years later refitted the house as an apartment building. However, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has returned the Wright Home & Studio to its 1909 appearance. It is now a museum and educational center, with tours available.

The neighborhood surrounding the Wright Home & Studio is officially known as the Frank Lloyd Wright/Prairie School of Architecture Historic District. Within the boundaries of that national landmark are 80 buildings designed by prominent architects of the Prairie School, 25 of them designed by Wright himself. Among the most important are:

Bootleg Houses

Oak Park is a famously "dry" (alcohol-free) town, but the Chicago Avenue "bootleg" houses don't take their name from the period of speakeasies and Eliot Ness: They are so known because Wright contracted them against Louis Sullivan's policy of no outside projects for his employees. (The houses, in fact, cost Wright his job with Sullivan's firm.) The three houses at 1019, 1927, and 1031 Chicago-all designed in 1892-share with Wright's home a basis in Queen Anne design; however, they also represent his first attempts to break the conventions of Western architecture, with irregular compositions, polygonal bays and extensions, and very high-pitched roofs. They are also the first of his homes to feature the overhanging eaves that became a signature of Wright's houses.

Frank W. Thomas House and Huertley House
Three blocks from the Wright Home & Studio at 210 Forest Avenue, the Frank W. Thomas House was considered by Wright himself and subsequently by historians as the first Prairie style house. The stucco home was commissioned in 1901 and contains nearly all of the eventual hallmarks of the school: long, rectangular frame; flat roof with wide overhanging eaves and a large central chimney; stained glass windows in horizontal groupings; asymmetrical floorplan with no basement but the main level raised above grade; and an arched entrance.

If the Thomas House is Wright's first Prairie home, the Arthur B. Huertley House one block north at 318 Forest is arguably his first masterpiece. Its square floorplan (with triangular bays) is remarkable for its compact use of space and form, and also features a bold departure from traditional home design: the living, dining room, and porch are on the second floor, with a playroom and bedrooms on the ground level. The home's exterior is a culmination of Wright's ideas of organic architecture, with a variegated brick pattern that gives the walls a natural, rough-hewn look, and continues into a low wall that extends out from the house to create the illusion of building and landscape embracing each other.

Unity Temple
Aside from his home, Unity Temple is probably Wright's most famous design in Oak Park. The temple is home to Oak Park's Unitarian Universalist congregation, of which Wright was a member, and was commissioned by the church when their original building burned down in 1905. The exterior of the building combines Wright's trademarks with the characteristics of classical Greek temples, but its interior was the real breakthrough for Wright-the moment in which he realized, in his words, that "the real heart of a building is its space, not its walls." He organized the building into two sections, one for the congregation and one for the community, such that neither section's occupants or noise would disturb the other. Those sections, as well, are designed with an eye towards acoustics and space efficiency-particularly in the sanctuary, where the seats are distributed across three stories but none is more than 40 feet from the pulpit.

One of the most acclaimed of all Wright's works, the Unity Temple is open for touring; however, please note that it is still an active church, with regular Sunday services and congregational business being conducted.

Oak Park is easily accessible on the Blue and Green lines of Chicago's El Train, and there are walking tours available of the architectural landmarks by Wright and his followers in the village (highly recommended for fans of the legendary architect's work). Conference attendees with even a general interest in modern architecture should not miss Oak Park.