FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT CHICAGO TO FALLINGWATER MAY 15-27, 2022 TOUR LEADER: STUART BARRIE 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 15-27, 2022 offers a unique opportunity to view 16 buildings designed by Wright, including suburban homes, rural villas, churches and commercial offices. Tour leader: Stuart Barrie 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: $9,870 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: $2,120 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: February 2, 2021 Accommodation is in comfortable four-star hotels, with breakfast daily and several meals at carefully chosen restaurants included. Your tour leader Stuart Barrie is a social historian with strong Europe and the USA in the twentieth century, and lately modern architecture, especially the residential architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. The development of his latest interests arose from the intersection of the Bauhaus Movement and the Prarie style of architecture developed by Wright. Stuart has a BA from Macquarie University and a MComm from the University of NSW and has been leading tours for over 30 years. He started working for a leading coach tour operator in the mid 1980’s leading tours throughout the UK, Western Europe and into the then Soviet Republic and Eastern Europe. His passion for tour leading led him to be a founding director of Academy Travel and he has led over 20 tours for Academy. Enquiries and “Exceeded my expectations, so many places were ticked off bookings my wish list. The group was lovely and Stuart was a great tour leader.” For further information and to secure a place on this tour – Feedback from Stuart’s Frank Lloyd Wright: Los Angeles to New York please contact Lynsey Jenkins tour, October 2017. at Academy Travel on 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney) or email [email protected] 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 15, at the Kimpton Gray Hotel, Chicago. The tour ends at 1:00pm on Friday May 27, at Pittsburgh airport. Sunday May 15 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 16 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 17 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 18 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 19 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 20 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. Overnight Madison (B, D) Saturday May 21 Taliesin Above: looking up to the chimney seeper and ceiling in Wingspread, also This remote site in rural Wisconsin was the architect’s home known as the Herbert F. Johnson House; and the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wright’s modernist interpretation of Byzantine from 1911, and is of central importance to understanding architecture Wright.