I, like every other child who went through the
Oak Park public school system, spent a brief time as a guide on one of the Frank Lloyd Wright tours.
I happened to participate in the Christmas tour and my room of specialty was the living room in his famous home and studio on
Chicago Ave.
I was therefore privy to a few little tid bits of info about Frank's Christmastime habits and some of the goings-on that took place around that time of year in his amazing abode.
I know that he had a cavernous kitchen the size of a small apartment and that his family would
ritualistically make a specific series of 15 pies each year for the
holiday. I know that he used real candles on the tree and would not permit his children to enter the vast living room until they were all aglow. One time, a fire started in the living room, causing a nearby wall to become black. He painted a mural over this blackened plaster which was covered during a brief attempt at reconstructing the home after his death, and not rediscovered until something like 25 years ago.
Frank Lloyd Wright used a lot of large shapes, horizontal lines, thick and solid chunks of strong materials varied and juxtaposed in ways that were considered quite cutting edge during his time. He was often known to do bizarre things like build an entire building on the site of a pre-existing tree he happened to like, and manage to find perfectly uncanny ways to accomodate the growth of the tree right through the walls and ceilings of the building rather than cut it down. He was often known to hide the
facades to his buildings behind some kind of an intricate system of corridors, walkways and geometrically shaped arches, usually with some small part of the entrance visible if you look at it from a specific angle.
I suppose I grew up being conditioned to revere in some sense the 12-odd homes and churches he erected in Oak Park. However, conditioning or no, the straightforward, and purposefully balanced '
prairie style' look he utilized in his architecture was bold and ingenious. References to it can be seen today in all kinds of modern structuring, from furniture to landscaping to
graphic design.