Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece

172 Pages·1984·9.09 MB·English

by  Donald Hoffmann

DOVER BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
ALADDIN “BUILT IN A DAY” HOUSE CATALOG, 1917, The Aladdin Co. (0-
486-28591-X)
CONCRETE COUNTRY RESIDENCES: Photographs and Floor Plans of Turn-of-
the-Century Homes, Atlas Portland Cement Company. (0-486-42733-1)
BADGER’S ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF CAST-IRON ARCHITECTURE,
Daniel D. Badger. (0-486-24223-4)
BENNETT’S SMALL HOUSE CATALOG, 1920, Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., Inc.
(0-486-27809-3)
BICKNELL’S VICTORIAN BUILDINGS, A. J. Bicknell. (0-486-23904-7)
THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA: History and Speculation, James Bonwick. (0-
486-42521-5)
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURE, Somers
Clarke and R. Engelbach. (0-486-26485-8)
TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY HOUSE DESIGNS, William T. Comstock. (0-486-
28186-8)
THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, Clarence Cook. (0-486-28586-3)
GREAT BUILDINGS OF BOSTON, George M. Cushing, Jr. (0-486-24219-6)
THE ARCHITECTURAL PLATES FROM THE “ENCYCLOPEDIE,” Denis
Diderot. (0-486-27954-5)
THE ARCHITECTURE OF COUNTRY HOUSES, Andrew J. Downing. (0-486-
22003-6)
VICTORIAN COTTAGE RESIDENCES, Andrew J. Downing. (0-486-24078-9)
PRINCIPLES OF VICTORIAN DECORATIVE DESIGN, Christopher Dresser. (0-
486-28900-1)
PALLADIO’S ARCHITECTURE AND ITS INFLUENCE: A Photographic Guide,
Joseph C. Farber and Henry Hope Reed. (0-486-23922-5)
VICTORIAN HOUSES: A Treasury of Lesser-Known Examples, Edmund Gillon
and Clay Lancaster. (0-486-22966-1)
PHILADELPHIA THEATERS: A Pictorial Architectural History, Irvin R. Glazer.
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(0-486-27833-6)
117 HOUSE DESIGNS OF THE 20s, Gordon-Van Tine Co. (0-486-26959-0)
MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE, Edward Warren Hoak and
Willis Humphrey Church. (0-486-42231-3)
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S FALLINGWATER: The House and Its History,
Donald Hoffmann. (0-486-27430-6)
UNDERSTANDING FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S ARCHITECTURE, Donald
Hoffmann. (0-486-28364-X)
HOLLY’S PICTURESQUE COUNTRY SEATS, Henry Hudson Holly. (0-486-
27856-5)
LATE VICTORIAN HOUSE DESIGNS: 56 AMERICAN HOMES AND
COTTAGES WITH FLOOR PLANS, D. S. Hopkins. (0-486-43598-8)
VICTORIAN ORNAMENTAL CARPENTRY, Ben Karp. (0-486-24144-0)
GOTHICK ARCHITECTURE: A Reprint of the Original 1742 Treatise, Batty
Langley and Thomas Langley. (0-486-42614-9)
THE CITY OF TOMORROW AND ITS PLANNING, Le Corbusier. (Available in
U.S. only.) (0-486-25332-5)
THE OPULENT INTERIORS OF THE GILDED AGE: All 203 Photographs from
“Artistic Houses,” with New Text, Arnold Lewis, James Turner, and Steven
McQuillin. (0-486-25250-7)
THE ARCHITECTURE OF McKIM, MEAD & WHITE IN PHOTOGRAPHS,
PLANS AND ELEVATIONS, McKim, Mead, and White. (0-486-26556-0)
BROADWAY THEATRES: History and Architecture, William Morrison (0-486-
40244-4)
THE BROWN DECADES: A Study of the Arts in America, 1865–1895, Lewis
Mumford. (0-486-20200-3)
PALLISER’S NEW COTTAGE HOMES, 1887, Palliser & Co. (0-486-42816-8)
A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF ARCHITECTURAL TERMS, John Henry Parker.
(0-486-43302-1)
EMPIRE STYLEBOOK OF INTERIOR DESIGN: All 72 Plates from the “Recueil
de decorations intérieures” with New English Text, Charles Percier and Pierre
Fontaine. (0-486-26754-7)
AN ALBUM OF MAYA ARCHITECTURE, Tatiana Proskouriakoff. (0-486-
42484-7)
SMALL HOUSES OF THE TWENTIES: The Sears, Roebuck 1926 House Catalog,
Sears, Roebuck and Co. (0-486-26709-1)
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THE FIVE BOOKS OF ARCHITECTURE, Sebastiano Serlio. (0-486-24349-4)
TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY HOUSES, COTTAGES AND VILLAS: Floor Plans
and Line Illustrations for 118 Homes from Shoppell’s Catalogs, R. W. Shoppell
et al. (0-486-24567-5)
AMERICAN BARNS AND COVERED BRIDGES, Eric Sloane. (0-486-42561-4)
MORE CRAFTSMAN HOMES, Gustav Stickley. (0-486-24252-8)
PLANTATIONS OF THE CAROLINA Low COUNTRY, Samuel Gaillard Stoney.
(0-486-26089-5)
FORM AND DESIGN IN CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE, Arthur Stratton. (0-486-
43405-2)
COUNTRY AND SUBURBAN HOMES OF THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL PERIOD,
H. V. von Holst. (0-486-24373-7)
BRIDGES OF THE WORLD: THEIR DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION, Charles
S. Whitney. (0-486-42995-4)
CALIFORNIA BUNGALOWS OF THE TWENTIES, Henry L. Wilson. (0-486-
27507-8)
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Copyright © 1984 by Donald Hoffmann.
All rights reserved under Pan American and International
Copyright Conventions.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural
Masterpiece is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
Book design by Carol Belanger Grafton
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hoffmann, Donald.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.
Includes index.
1. Robie House (Chicago, Ill.) 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Dwellings. 3. Wright, Frank
Lloyd 1867-1959. 4. Organic architecture—Illinois—Chicago. I. Title.
NA7238.C4H63 1984 728.8’3’0924 83-7227
9780486140261
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The house that was built in Chicago for Fred C. Robie is all too familiar as an
image and not at all known as a reality. It still stands, but I would not wish to argue
that it still truly exists. Because the house today cannot claim to be the primary
document of its own history, I have cast parts of this study in the present tense and
have prepared many illustrations to rebuild in the mind what has been lost to direct
experience. This required the help of many persons. First came Lorraine Robie
O’Connor, who left her father’s house when only 16 months old. Today she is a
most direct and alert woman; and it was my good fortune to discover also that for
many years she has been an acquaintance of my mother’s. Mrs. O’Connor was
quick to share her invaluable collection of family documents. Phillips Taylor lived
in the house as a young lad for nearly a year. His memories have proved as
accurate as they are vivid. The late Jeannette Wilber Scofield, who had lived in the
house from the time when she was six until she was 20, was a woman of great spirit
and kindness. She helped me in every possible way, even into her last months.
Richard Twiss has been extraordinarily generous in providing encouragement
and information. Hanna Holborn Gray, the president of the University of Chicago,
unhesitatingly assured me of the university’s cooperation. In expressing my
gratitude to her, to Peter Kountz, who served as a dedicated curator of the Robie
house, and to Carl F. Chapman, Rolf Achilles, Rudy Bernal, Calvert Audrain,
Michael Boos, M. H. Sullivan and the staff of the university library, I must add that
the university, which came to own the house with obvious reluctance, neither
initiated nor sponsored this study. It remains one of the ironies of academic life that
generations of students were introduced to art history through photographic
reproductions while a very great work of art, next to the campus, was allowed to
decay and nearly to vanish.
For their many kinds of help, I thank especially Hermann Pundt, Kenneth Breisch,
Curtis Besinger, Robert Kostka, James O’Gorman, Buford Pickens, Jack Quinan,
Leonard Eaton, William A. Storrer, Terry Marvel, W. B. Barnard, Joseph T. Dye,
Maya Moran, Jean Green, Kathy Roy Cummings, John Vinci, Tim Samuelson, Janet
Cyrwus, Tim Barton, Donald Kalec, Walter A. Netsch, Edgar Tafel, Charles
Montooth, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Holmes Knaus, Wolfgang Ritschka, Henry
Klumb, Adolf Placzek, Irma Robie, Richard L. Tooke, John Zukowsky, Joseph
Benson, Kathryn Smith and Valerie Hoffmann, my daughter. George Hoffmann and
Alan Hoffmann, two of my sons, made Hyde Park a good place to visit. Edgar
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Kaufmann, jr., and John Hoffmann, both fine historians, were so kind as to read the
manuscript and make helpful suggestions. I am very grateful, too, to the American
Council of Learned Societies and to the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies
in the Fine Arts, which supported my research with grants.
D.H.
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Table of Contents
DOVER BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
Title Page
Copyright Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Chapter I - FROM CLIENT TO ARCHITECT
Chapter II - CONDITIONS AND CHARACTER
Chapter III - PLANS AND CONSTRUCTION
Chapter IV - FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
Chapter V - ON THE GROUND FLOOR
Chapter VI - INSIDE THE GREAT VESSEL
Chapter VII - THE ROOMS BEYOND
Chapter VIII - THE MOST IDEAL PLACE IN THE WORLD
INDEX
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