Frank Lloyd Wright Home And Studio

Vote for Iannelli Studios

As we enter the home stretch, Iannelli Studios needs your help to win. The Park Ridge studio of noted artist Alfonso Iannelli, who helped design the world famous Pickwick Theater, has been selected for the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2011 This Place Matters Community Challenge! This "treasure beyond measure" which was integral to the roots of American modernism is one of 100 nationwide finalists competing for $25,000. You can help us win by casting your vote and then asking everyone you know to vote as well using Facebook, Twitter, email…even when you meet them face to face. To vote, go to http://vote.kalofoundation.org . To find out more about Iannelli and his contributions to the world of art featured on Chicago Tonight recently, go to http://blogs.wttw.com/moreonthestory/2011/05/24/sculptor-alfonso-iannelli/

“We need the vote of every person in Park Ridge and every person that Park Ridge people know,” said Betsy Foxwell, president of The Kalo Foundation of Park Ridge which is seeking to save Iannelli Studios. “We are half way through voting and we need everyone’s help to win the $25,000 first place prize.

“Once restored, Iannelli Studios could be to Park Ridge what the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio is to Oak Park bringing people from all over the world who are interested in the roots of American Modernism to our town to spend their time and money,” Foxwell said. “It will serve as a focal point to tell not only story of Alfonso Iannelli, and his wife Margaret, but the larger narrative of the artists’ colony that flourished at the turn of the 20th Century and beyond.”

Contributions are being accepted by the Kalo Foundation; P.O. Box 791, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068. Donations may also be made online at www.kalofoundation.org. For further information, call 847-823-5314.

Girl Talk: Marion Mahony Griffin, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Oak ...

The Frank Lloyd Wright scholar Leonard K. Eaton, one of the few specialists to have looked at the architect’s work in relation to the economic, social and cultural status of his clients, emphasized the contributions of middle-class "men of business" like Edwin Cheney, Darwin Martin and Frederick C. Robie to the success of Wright's early practice; yet it is clear that Wright's women clients played a formative role in shaping the new approach to domesticity that is arguably his most outstanding contribution to 20th-century architecture. [1] Both as heads of households in their own right and as the wives of prominent patrons of architecture, clients like Susan Lawrence Dana, Queene Ferry Coonley, Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Aline Barnsdall — to say nothing of Wright’s own family, including his wife Catherine, his mother Anna, and his aunts Nell and Jane Lloyd Jones — not only provided him with opportunities and financial resources to build many of his most important and highly visible early houses, but also served as active participants in the redefinitions of family life, education, religion, and domestic ritual that inspired and shaped these projects. No doubt Wright’s reputation as a progressive architect and insider within Chicago-area reform circles drew these clients to his Oak Park practice, thanks to his family ties to liberal Unitarianism, his affiliation with such institutions as Hull House and the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, and his decision to make his own home something of a model laboratory for early childhood education — to name only a few of his many connections to this milieu. Yet it is also significant that between 1895 and 1909 Wright’s studio was distinguished by the presence, albeit only intermittent after 1903, of the architect Marion Mahony, a designer, teacher and illustrator whose progressive credentials equaled and even exceeded Wright’s own. [2] The unusual overlap between Mahony’s own feminist predilections, her close association with Chicago’s reform circles, and the interests and connections she shared with Wright’s family, clients and friends raises important questions about the origins and implementation of Wright’s evolving philosophy of domesticity and family life. Although scant evidence has come to light on which to base any new claims for Mahony’s authorship on specific projects, there are nonetheless a surprising number of circumstantial details, reexamined here, that suggest that Mahony served not only as close family friend and professional associate in Wright’s Oak Park home and studio during the years leading up to his departure for Europe in 1909 — a break that launched him and his lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney on a journey deep into a far more radical world of feminist reform than his Oak Park circle could have imagined — but also that Mahony’s liberal values and distinctive approach to architectural representation and interior design, honed within the aesthetic and cultural milieu of women’s reform circles in Chicago, contributed a look and character to Wright’s early architectural designs that his women clients found familiar and appealing. When we first hear Marion Mahony’s distinctive, passionate voice as it rises up from the pages of " The Magic of America ," the memoir and manifesto she compiled during the 1940s, we know immediately that we are in the presence of a force of nature, a woman of no uncertain opinions, a person possessed of deep convictions and profound spiritual experiences. [3] And from the very first pages we learn three important things about her: first, that she saw herself as an architect and a professional and conceived of her talent as an artistic gift to be integrated into a life filled with many other creative energies and interests; second, that she idolized her husband, the architect Walter Burley Griffin, and chose as the mission of her life to support, promote and memorialize his contributions to the field of architecture; and third, that she hated Frank Lloyd Wright with a blinding passion, and viewed him as having done irrevocable harm not only to herself and her husband but also to the architectural cause to which she had given her life — that of creating a progressive, democratic, modern American architecture. Each of these components of Mahony’s identity is significant for our understanding of her life and work, and each shaped her career and her reputation among architects and historians. Indeed, although the first component represents a substantial milestone for women in architecture, it could be argued that the latter two played equal if not more significant roles in determining Mahony’s historical reputation, ultimately distorting our understanding not only of her contributions as an independent practitioner, but also of her influence on the male architects — notably Wright and Griffin — with whom she worked so closely during her long career. As we learn more about Mahony’s biography and activities, particularly in the first decade of her professional practice and association with Wright, she emerges as an architect of substantial creativity — one who was, moreover, both a pioneer among women in design and an important member of feminist reform circles. Mahony’s distinctive political outlook, shaped by her formative experiences as part of an influential group of feminists, religious reformers, artists and intellectuals who gathered around her mother, Clara Perkins Mahony — herself a pioneer in public education and a lifelong leader in the campaign for women’s rights — complemented and overlapped with Wright’s well-known views on domestic and educational reform. Indeed, though Wright would ultimately come to reject and publicly renounce his former association with Mahony and her husband, both of whom had worked closely with him at Oak Park, one might easily wonder whether Wright’s very public expressions of disdain and disrespect for his former assistants were fueled by insecurities and disappointments exacerbated by their earlier closeness.

Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, Oak Park

Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, homeward bound

Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio

The Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio

Frank Lloyd Wright interior style & design