Project Information
Unity Temple [Oak Park, Illinois] (1905)
Note: The following information concerning this project represents original research and analysis by John Geiger, and is based in his long and detailed study of the Frank Lloyd Wright literature as well as personal contacts with members of the Taliesin Fellowship and architectural historians. In addition, he added his own categories of building type and compositional form, as well as other points of consideration that he deemed important to understanding of the design. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided. Sometimes there is an indication of attribution for which there is no matching footnote recorded. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field.
Name of client: Unity Temple.
Sobriquet or alternative place name: None.
Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.
Occupancy form or use: CIVIC/Religous.
Principal building materials: CONCRETE/Poured in place.
Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 46.
Drawing Number and Description
Individuals recorded as contributing to project:
Note: Not everyone who contributed to a project may be named; only those whose participation has been confirmed from a source appear above. Occasionally names presented as contributors to a project may seem chronologically anomalous. This usually occurs when an individual prepared drawings for publicity, exhibition, or publication long after the original date of a commission.
Klumb, Henry
Mahony, Marion
Okami, Takehiko
Wright, Frank Lloyd
Working drawings coordinator: Byrne, Francis Barry
Working drawings coordinator: White, Charles Elmer
Specifications writer: Mueller, Paul F. P.
Construction supervision: Drummond, William
Roof pattern type: 0203 Rectangle/applied
Note: Records a category devised by Geiger to classify types of roof pattern from an aerial perspective found Frank Lloyd Wright projects.These terms were applied consistently through a choice list on Column [
ROOFPATTERNTYPE] in Table MMTFDRAWINGS FILE, and may be searched.
Project Drawing Date Range
Note: Dates for preliminary and working drawings, as well as the start and completion of construction, appear here only when present in the database. Through careful study of original, reproduced, or published Wright drawings, John Geiger developed an elaborate granulation for design process dates and their attributions. Such information is largely available only for Wright projects dating from the mid-1930s until 1959. Sources were often footnoted by an alphanumeric system, but the references are sometimes missing from the locations where they were intended to be recorded; the relationship between footnote letter or numeral and reference is absent. In order to retain the presence of available information, citations are here shown grouped together in one comment field. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field. The relevance of references provided by John Geiger can often be recovered through examination of the publications used in his research.See the list of principal bibliographical sources used for this purpose.
Date recorded by John Geiger for chronological sorting: December 12, 1905.
Preliminary drawings date: December 12, 1905.
Notes and References
Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: White; Brooks, H. Allen. Writings on Wright: Selected Comment on Frank Lloyd Wright (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1981), p.90.
Note: The information shown above is collected from a series of data table columns intended originally to record not only comments or notes, but also to cite sources of attribution for dates assigned to the various stages of drawing preparation in the design process. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution shown here should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided.
This commission is referenced and/or illustrated in the following publications:
Not recorded.. Home and Studio Foundation: The Plan for Restoration and Adaptive Use The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago.
Cleary, Richard (editor). Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. New York: Skira/ Rizzoli. [ISBN: 978-0-8478-3262-0].
Drexler, Arthur. The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0-8180-0019-8].
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly: 2009, Vol. 20, No. 3. Phoenix, Arizona: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1887-1941. Boston, Mass.: Da Capo Press.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1887-1941. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
Kaufmann, Jr., Edgar. Frank Lloyd Wright: Drawings for a Living Architecture. New York: Horizon Press.
Kruty, Paul. Frank Lloyd Wright and Midway Gardens. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. [ISBN: 0-252-02366-8].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1715-6].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings: Masterworks from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives. New York: Harry H. Abrams Inc.. [ISBN: 0-8108-1773-4].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1902-1906 (Volume 2). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-513-3].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph Preliminary Studies, 1889-1916 (Volume 9). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-520-6].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, In His Renderings 1887-1959 (Volume 12). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-523-0].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Heroic Years: 1920-1932. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 978-8478-3174-6].
Riley, Terence and Reed, Peter (editors). Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. [ISBN: 0-87070-642-X].
Siry, Joseph M.. Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Architecture for Liberal Religion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. [ISBN: 0-521-49542-3].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Buildings, Plans and Designs. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0790979667].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Early Work by Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: Bramhall House.
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings Volume 1, 1894-1930. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1546-3].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Drawings and Plans of Frank Lloyd Wright, The Early Period (1893-1909). New York: Dover Publications, Inc.. [ISBN: 0-486-24457-1].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Ausgeführte Bauten . Berlin: Verlegt bei Ernest Wasmuth A. G..