Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School

Original design drawings of furniture, carpets and art glass windows by the leading figures of the Prairie School. Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth Portfolio and vintage photographs of his greatest early buildings.

"Few exhibitions of historic material in a Chicago commercial gallery have had the point and depth of this."
*click here to read the review by Alan Artner, Chicago Tribune Art Critic

Frank Lloyd Wright began the 20th Century by transforming architecture from its Victorian dialect of turrets and finials into a modern language that spoke with flowing spaces and prairie hugging volumes. The more modern architects and designers in the Midwest followed Wright's lead as well as the latest currents flowing out of Austria and Germany to create a new direction for architecture: the Prairie School.

Primarily used in suburban houses, the Prairie vocabulary established a horizontal geometry of low pitched roof lines with wide eaves. It challenged the rigid demarcation of rooms by eliminating wall partitions, letting the living spaces flow together seamlessly. Carpets, textiles and art glass shared similar motifs and color was limited to muted earth tones instead of the riotous palettes and clashing styles of "fashionable" upscale houses.

The clients for these remarkable dwellings were generally self-made men and a few iconoclastic women who dared to defy traditional suburban taste. As such, the Prairie Style houses that surrounded Chicago were often built to flaunt the owner's "anti-establishment" social position as well as to create an artistic statement. These houses could never have been invented on America's East Coast.

ArchiTech Gallery has assembled original design drawings and historical prints by Wright, George Mann Niedecken, Orlando Giannini, Alfonso Iannelli and Fay Barnes that demonstrate the finest avant-garde architecture of the early Twentieth Century. Interior designs for houses by Louis Sullivan, Barry Byrne and Frank Lloyd Wright are featured in addition to rare vintage photographs rarely found outside of museums.

"Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School" opens Friday, September 20th and runs through Saturday, November 30th.