Frank Lloyd Wright Chicago to Fallingwater
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FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT CHICAGO TO FALLINGWATER MAY 16-28, 2021 TOUR LEADER: DR MATTHEW LAING Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater (1939) FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Overview CHICAGO TO FALLINGWATER Academy Travel’s Frank Lloyd Wright from Chicago to Fallingwater tour Tour dates: May 16-28, 2021 offers a unique opportunity to view 16 buildings designed by Wright, including suburban homes, rural villas, churches and commercial offices. Tour leader: Dr Matthew Laing Inspired by nature, forward looking, varied and highly original, Wright’s works continues to astound us. A journey through Wright’s architecture is Tour Price: $9,470 per person, twin share also a journey through modern America from the ‘Gilded Age’ of the 1890s to ‘mid-century modern’ when American architecture, design, art Single Supplement: $1,740 for sole use of and literature dominated the world stage. double room The tour also visits buildings by Wright’s predecessors, contemporaries Booking deposit: $1,000 per person and followers, including Daniel Burnham, Louis B Sullivan, Mies Van Der Rohe and Norman Forster. We begin with four nights in Chicago, a city Recommended airline: Qantas or United brimming with fine architecture and fine art, and where Wright developed his Prairie Style of architecture. We then travel north to Milwaukee, visiting the SC Johnson Wax Administration Building, and on to Madison, Maximum places: 20 Wisconsin to see some of Wright’s commercial work as well as Taliesin, his beloved estate. Our next stop is Buffalo, near Niagara Falls, to visit the Itinerary: Chicago (4 nights), Milwaukee Darwin Martin complex of houses. Travelling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (1 night), Madison (2 nights), Buffalo (2 nights), we conclude the tour with a private in-depth tour of America’s most Pittsburgh (3 nights) famous house, Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Date published: May 13, 2020 Accommodation is in comfortable four-star hotels, with breakfast daily and several meals at carefully chosen restaurants included. Your tour leader Dr Matthew Laing is a historian and political scientist at Monash University who has led tours to the Americas and Europe with Academy Travel for five years. He has a strong personal interest in architecture, cultural history and modern art, with a particular expertise in the United States. Matthew holds a BA and PhD from the Australian National University, and wrote his doctorate on the history of the United States presidency. He has worked as a lecturer and research fellow at the Australian National University, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and now at Monash University in Melbourne. He currently teaches United States history and leadership, and has published on both topics. He has lectured and written on a wide variety of US subjects, including the American Revolution, the Gilded Age, and American Modernist Enquiries and architecture. bookings Matthew’s tours strive for intellectual engagement and to reveal the For further information and to stories, both big and small, that can bring history to life. A voracious secure a place on this tour reader and traveller, Matthew strives to be a generalist and draws upon a please contact Lynsey Jenkins wide range of subjects – from politics to architecture – to develop his at Academy Travel on 9235 understanding of a place. Matthew’s passion for the United States started 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside as an intern in the United States Congress in 2007. Since then he has Sydney) or email made dozens of trips across the country, for both work and pleasure, and [email protected] is closing in on his goal of visiting all 50 states. Wright visits his 1910 Robie House in Chicago, Ill., March 18, 1957 Key Sites WRIGHT'S HOME AND STUDIO Visited: (1889) Wright began his career in Oak Park and his first See over 15 masterworks studio is one of his earliest masterpieces. We’ll take spanning seven decades a private tour of the home and studio, as well have of incredible creativity. a walking tour of the Oak Park neighbourhood where many of his earliest houses are to be found. UNITY TEMPLE (1905) DARWIN MARTIN COMPLEX A beautiful experiment in modern materials and religious (1903) design; our tour takes us through this recently restored icon Built for one of his most faithful patrons, the Darwin in depth. Martin House is a revolutionary pioneer of many concepts of modern residential architecture, including an open floor plan and nearly 400 art glass windows. ROBIE HOUSE (1909) TALIESIN (1911-1925) A landmark of the Prairie-Style on the campus of the Wright's Wisconsin estate and architectural school, University of Chicago. We’ll enjoy a private evening brimming with innovations and experiments. Our in- cocktail reception here. depth tour takes in his entire property and its many buildings. SC JOHNSON WAX JACOBS HOUSE I (1937) HEADQUARTERS (1936) The first of his Usonian homes and forerunner of the ranch house, this influential Wright design is privately Wright reinvents himself in the streamlined modern owned by a former art professor, who will take us style here, and its great work room has been described through it. as the 'most beautiful room in America'. Our special tour takes us through this still-working corporate headquarters. FALLINGWATER (1939) KENTUCK KNOB (1953) Wright's unrivalled masterpiece set upon a waterfall in From the twilight of his career and one of his most the Bear Run of Western Pennsylvania, where we'll mature Usonian creations, our tour here will give us enjoy a private, before-hours visit to give the best insight into the lasting legacy, and struggle to conserve, possible access to the house and the least crowds. Wright’s work. Detailed itinerary Included meals are shown with the symbols B, L, D and C for canapés. Tour start & finish time The tour begins at 6.00pm on Sunday May 16, at the Kimpton Gray Hotel, Chicago. The tour ends at 1:00pm on Thursday May 28, at Pittsburgh airport. Sunday May 16 Arrive Arrive in Chicago and meet your tour leader and fellow travellers for a welcome drink. Overnight Chicago Above: Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, reflecting and distorting the city's Monday May 17 skyline in Millennium Park Downtown Chicago Below: Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Oak Park; and American Gothic by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of The Great Fire of 1871 destroyed the entire Chicago CBD, Chicago leaving the way open for architects to design a new and modern city. The first steel-framed high-rise building rose in 1885 and the skyline today is densely packed with skyscrapers, many by renowned architects. Our walking tour this morning takes us past some of the city’s most iconic buildings. We visit the lobby of the Rookery Building, the masterpiece of Daniel Burnham and remodelled by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1905. In the afternoon we take the Chicago Architectural Foundation River Cruise to gain an overview of the city’s historic and modern architectural styles. Tonight, we have a welcome dinner and lecture in a local restaurant. Overnight Chicago (B, D) Tuesday May 18 Frank Lloyd Wright – the early years & Farnsworth House Today we take a private coach tour of Oak Park. This Chicago suburb is where Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked and where much of his early work can still be found. We have an interior tour of Wright’s home and studio, which Wright used as his architecture laboratory for his early designs, as well as Unity Temple, one of his most celebrated designs. We then view the numerous examples of Prairie Style architecture in the surrounding neighbourhood. In the afternoon, we drive west to Plano to visit Farnsworth House, the masterpiece of Modernist residential architecture by Mies van der Rohe, set in a beautiful landscape beside the Fox River. Overnight Chicago (B) Wednesday May 19 Chicago art and architecture We begin our day with a walk through Millennium Park. Originally occupied by railyards and parking lots, the area was redeveloped into a public space featuring an outdoor concert venue, gardens, restaurants and some spectacular art installations. From here we make our way to the highly-regarded Art Institute of Chicago, boasting a fine collection of both European and American painting and over 60 ‘decorated rooms’ – accurately reconstructed furnished interiors from a broad range of times and places. After a private guided tour, there is time to explore the collection independently and a break for lunch. In the afternoon we travel by coach for a private interior visit and evening cocktail reception in Robie House. Our trip takes us through the ‘White City’ – the site of the 1893 World’s Fair. Overnight Chicago (B, C) Thursday May 20 SC Johnson Complex We farewell Chicago and travel north to Racine, Wisconsin to visit the SC Johnson Wax Administration Building and Research Tower, a landmark in commercial office architecture. Subject to availability, we will also tour Wingspread, the expansive low- lying home designed for Herbert Johnson, one of Wright’s great patrons. We continue onto Milwaukee to visit the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wright’s modernist interpretation of Byzantine architecture, and take in some of the history and architecture of the city. Overnight Milwaukee (B) Friday May 21 Milwaukee This morning we tour the Burnham Block, one of the few intact examples of the American System-Built homes, Wright’s venture into mass suburban housing. We then enjoy a visit and some free time at the Milwaukee Art Museum, before travelling west for a private visit to Jacobs House I, considered the first ‘Usonian’ home, part of Wright’s ideal of a new world architecture free of previous conventions. We arrive in Madison, Wisconsin, our base for two nights and enjoy dinner in a local restaurant.