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Frederick C. Robie House
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The Frederick C. Robie House, completed in 1910 for the manufacturing executive Frederick Robie, is considered the purest expression of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style and one of the last and most refined designs to come out of his Oak Park studio before he left for Europe in 1909. Its long horizontal brick massing, cantilevered roof planes and 175 art-glass panels in 29 distinct patterns were meant to evoke the flat open prairie landscape of the American Midwest, and the house included an early attached three-car garage, unusual for a 1910 residence built around the automobile rather than the carriage. Threatened with demolition twice, in 1941 and again in 1957, it survived through public advocacy and is now owned by the University of Chicago and operated as a museum.
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Location5757 South Woodlawn Avenue, Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, United States 1 Architectural StylePrairie style, with long, ground-hugging horizontal massing, deep overhanging eaves and continuous bands of art glass windows. 1 Structural SystemSteel beams cantilever the roofs from a central core with almost no visible support at the corners; the brick piers and glass walls are non-structural. 1 Primary MaterialCustom narrow Roman brick, cut stone, steel, art glass and red Ludowici tile roofing. 1 Building TypeHouse museum (private residence, now a public house museum) 1 Commissioned ByFrederick C. Robie, a bicycle and automotive-parts manufacturing executive 1 Construction Floor Area (sqm)Approximately 9,065 square feet. UNESCO Inscription YearOne of eight Wright buildings inscribed together as The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Current UseHouse museum owned by the University of Chicago, operated with the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and the National Trust for Historic Preservation 1 Visitor AccessOpen to the public on guided tours 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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