Thomas H. Gale House
| Thomas H. Gale House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| Historic District Contributing Property | |||
 Thomas H. Gale House |
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| location | Oak Park , Cook County , Illinois | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 53 '38 " N , 87 ° 48' 6" W | ||
| Built | 1892 | ||
| architect | Frank Lloyd Wright | ||
| Architectural style | Queen Anne Style | ||
| NRHP number | 73000699 | ||
| The NRHP added | 4th December 1973 | ||
The Thomas H. Gale House or simply Thomas Gale House is a house in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park in the US state of Illinois . It was designed by the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 and is an example of his early work. The house was designed by Wright on the side when he was still employed by Adler and Sullivan . The house is significant because it sheds light on Wright's early development. It has been a Contributing Property of a Historic District since 1973 and was raised to a Landmark in Oak Park in 2002 .
history
The Thomas H. Gale House, along with the Robert P. Parker House and the Walter Gale House, is one of three Wright houses along Chicago Avenue in Oak Park, known as "Bootleg Houses". They were designed independently by Wright while he was still employed by Adler and Sullivan. Architect Louis Sullivan had loaned Wright money to build his own house, which Wright practically finished off (Sullivan did not want Wright to work independently). The Thomas Gale House is very similar to the Robert P. Parker House, and in total Wright designed at least eight of these houses as after-work hours, despite being under contract with Sullivan. When Sullivan found out about these side projects, in late 1892 or early 1893, he fired Wright. The Thomas Gale House is one of at least four of these buildings that are still standing (the number varies depending on the available source).
The three houses were part of a series, the houses of which differed slightly, but had almost identical floor plans. These were the aforementioned houses that Wright had designed for Walter Gale and Robert Parker, the Francis Woolley House , also located in Oak Park , and the Robert G. Emmond House in La Grange , Illinois. Thomas H. Gale, a noted Oak Park resident, bought six adjacent building lots on Chicago Avenue from his father Edwin when he married Laura Robeson in 1891. He chose Wright as the architect. Construction began in July 1892. The planned construction costs were $ 3,000. The newlywed couple lived with Thomas Gale's parents until their own house was completed. The following year, Thomas's brother Walter bought the neighboring property and commissioned Wright to plan a house for him too, but only after Wright had left Adler and Sullivan.
architecture
The appearance of Thomas Gales and Robert Parker's houses - this also applies to a limited extent to the Walter Gales house - was inspired by the more elaborate Emmond house in La Grange. All three residential buildings are characterized by irregular roofs with raised and polygonal dormers . The Thomas Gale House reflected the style of Wright's first teacher, Joseph Silsbee . Sullivan's influence, on the other hand, can be seen in the unmoving bulkiness of the house, his way of thinking of “geometric simplification” is evident in the design of the Parker house. Although both houses are basically Queen Anne style , the Parker house has more lusciously rounded shapes than most Queen Anne houses built at the time.
The small size of the Thomas Gale House belies its spaciousness. The oriel turrets have walls with more than half of the area made up of windows. The fireplace is located in the middle of the house, which means that two rooms can be served and heated, the reception room and the dining room. The side fronts of the house are symmetrical , but the neighboring buildings are too close to show this clearly.
The house is based on a rectangular floor plan and is supported by a stone base. The outer shell is made up of wooden shingles . The building has a raised hipped roof with polygonal dormers, a brick chimney, and overhanging eaves (a feature that later became common for Wright's Prairie Style). At the northeast and southeast corners of the building there are tourelles with conical roofs. The bay windows arranged in horizontal strips (another common element of the Prairie style) are a mixture of casement windows and immovable windows. The current front terrace has replaced a non-original version with iron railings seen in illustrations by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust Architectural Guide . The front facade also has a dormer window with a pair of casement windows.
meaning
Although the building is small and decorated with inexpensive details, the Thomas Gale House, like the Parker House, has an important role in Frank Lloyd Wright's work because it provides information about his development as an architect. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1973 as a Contributing Property of the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District . On November 18, 2002, Thomas Gale House was declared a Landmark of Oak Park.
At first glance, the Thomas Gale House, like the rest of his buildings from this period, seems to represent a step backwards compared to Wright's James Charnley House , as he used architectural styles such as Colonial Revival , Queen Anne and Dutch Colonial . The houses, however, show Wright's growing individuality in how he adapts traditional styles to his own perspective; the Thomas Gale and Parker House represent a streamlined version of the Queen Anne Style. The houses combine features of the rectangular construction that later became a hallmark of the fully developed Prairie Style Wright.
Web links
literature
- Virginia and A. Lee McAlester: A Field Guide to American Houses. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, New York 1984, ISBN 0-394-73969-8 , pp. 439-451.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Frank Lloyd Wright Architectural Guide Map, Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.
- ↑ a b c d e Thomas H. House , Oak Park Tourist , excerpted from: Sprague, Paul E. Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright & Prairie School Architecture in Oak Park Oak Park Bicentennial Commission of the American Revolution and Oak Park Landmarks Commission, Village of Oak Park: 1986, ( ISBN 0-9616915-0-6 ) (accessed August 4, 2007).
- ↑ a b c Lockwood, Charles. The houses Wright built . In: The New York Times , June 8, 1986 (accessed August 8, 2007).
- ↑ a b c d e Thomas H. Gale House ( June 16, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive ), (PDF), Oak Park Landmark Nomination Form, HAARGIS Database, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (accessed August 8, 2007).
- ^ A b Thomas A. Heinz: The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright. Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey 2006, pp. 55-56, ISBN 0-7858-2145-7 .
- ^ Walter H. Gale House ( Memento June 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), (PDF), National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, HAARGIS Database, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (accessed August 8, 2007).
- ^ Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District , Property Information Report-District listing, HAARGIS Database, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (accessed June 9, 2007).
- ^ Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 11, 2017.
- ↑ Oak Park Historic Landmarks ( Memento of the original from July 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , (PDF; 19 kB), Village of Oak Park , website, November 8, 2006 (accessed June 9, 2007).
