WRIGHT, Frank Lloyd
(b. 1867, Richland Center, d. 1959, Phoenix)

Unity Temple: exterior view

1905-09
Photo
875 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois

By the close of this first phase of his career in 1909, Wright was also widely recognized for two non-residential works, the Larkin Co. Administration Building in Buffalo, New York (1902-06; destroyed 1950), and Unity Temple, the Universalist-Unitarian church in Oak Park, Illinois (1905-09), which featured flat-roofed, exterior cubic masses that distinctly articulated different internal spaces. Unity Temple was especially innovative as a church building of monolithic concrete exposed inside and out. In harmony with Wright's philosophy of organic architecture, the concrete was left uncovered by plaster, brick, or stone.

The plan of this Unitarian church is a front square (perhaps suggestive of unity), an entrance hallway, and a rear rectangular parish house. The whole is built of concrete, a cheap material, and a daring move for church architecture in the early twentieth century.




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