Oak Park

We took the 7 a.m. 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 another station to catch a local train. The layout 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 problems (I have to admit I was pretty nervous the whole day...).

We wanted to make the most of our day trip to Chicago, so we stopped in Oak Park, another suburb of Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright lived here with his growing family between ~1890 and ~1910, the first 20 years of his 70 year career. When he bought the land for his house, it was all prairie and woods, but the area was about to be developed, which accelerated his career and provided several opportunities to restore houses in the neighborhood or to design and build new ones.

His own home was remodeled several times to meet the needs of his family and his work. After they sold the house, it was remodeled again and changed hands several times. It was not until the 80's that some FLW fans bought the house and turned it into a museum.

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

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

We were very excited to see these houses and still wonder why we don't see houses like this in Germany...Read more