Austin Gardens Park

We took the 7am train from Ann Arbor to Chicago to pick up our rental van in Villa Park, a suburb of Chicago. We arrived at Union Station in Downtown Chicago and had to walk to a different railway station to catch a local train. The set up of the train was really weird. There were tiny stairs going up to the second level and it felt like sitting on the hat rack up there.

We got our rental van called "Squares" without any trouble (I have to admit that I was quite nervous the whole day...).

We wanted to make the most of our daytrip to Chicago and thus stopped at Oak Park, another suburb of Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright lived here with his growing family between ~1890 and ~1910, hence in the first 20 years of his 70 year long career. When he bought the lot for his house, everything around was just prairie and forest, but the area was about to be developed, which accelerated his career providing several opportunities to restore houses in the neighborhood or draw and build new ones.

His own house was changed several times to satisfy the needs for his family and work. After they sold the house, it was again converted and changed owners numerous times. Only in the 80ies, some FLW fans bought the then very run-down place and made it a museum.

The house tour was great. Of course, it is not yet Falling Waters, but even in this early period of his craft, you can find many elements of his unique style, such as clever lighting, incorporation of nature into the house (a tree grew partially inside the house!) and smart combination of practical needs with asthetically pleasing interior design (a grand piano in the wall to reduce the space needed, but still have the full musical experience; the tail of the piano hung in the staircase and filled the whole house with music when played).

After the house tour, we strolled around the neighborhood and tried to find as many FLW houses as possible. Some of them are obvious, but others are quite untypical. This is due to the fact that he had to take on all jobs he could get early in his career and it was still the 19th century! His style was already very unusual and somewhat futuristic for the time.

We were very elated seeing these houses and still wonder why we don't see such houses in Germany...Read more