14 Facts About Robie House

Frederick C Robie House is a U S National Historic Landmark now on the campus of the University of Chicago in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago, Illinois.

At the time that he commissioned Wright to design his home, Robie House was only 28 years old and the assistant manager of the Excelsior Supply Company, a company on the South Side of Chicago owned and managed by his father.

Robie House closed his Oak Park studio in the fall of 1909 and left for Europe to undertake the work which led to the publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio.

Consequently, Robie House suffered major interior damage, including the destruction of nearly all the characteristic gold wall sconces.

In 1941, a graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology accidentally discovered that the Seminary was moving ahead with a plan to demolish the Robie House and informed his instructors, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

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Robie House is one of the best known examples of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style of architecture.

However, Wright-designed furniture in the Robie House was only constructed for the entrance hall, the living and dining rooms, guest bedroom, and one bed for the third-floor bedrooms.

One of the most striking pieces of the furniture designed by Wright for the Robie House is a sofa with extended armrests, echoing the cantilevers of the exterior roof of the building, which effectively create side tables on each side of the sofa.

Robie House was one of the last houses Wright designed in his Oak Park, Illinois home and studio and one of the last of his Prairie School houses.

Architectural significance of the Robie House was probably best stated in a 1957 article in House and Home magazine:.

Above all else, the Robie House is a magnificent work of art.

In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, the Robie House was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component .

At the time Robie House was commissioned in 1908, the lots surrounding the house's site were mostly vacant except for the lots immediately to the north on Woodlawn Avenue, which were filled with large homes.

Directly south across 58th Street from Robie House is the Charles M Harper Center of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.