Midwest Modernism The Great American City and the Prairie
Midwest Modernism is synonymous with Chicago, suburbia, Frank Lloyd Wright, the home and the hearth, Mies van der Rohe and, the steel industry. The spirit of Modernism in the Midwest is most obviously influenced by the flat and expansive landscape, as in the development of the Prairie Style by Frank Lloyd Wright , and the density and verticality of the great American city, Chicago. The two create a wonderful duality that is only seen in the architecture of the Midwest. These unique conditions gave rise to some of the most notable and respected architects in the world, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe.
Chicago gained attention as a major urban center shortly after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The city mobilized and rebuilt quickly in an impressive display of collaborations among great architects like William LeBaron Jenny, Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root and Louis Sullivan. The high-rise soon took form and proliferated in the city, serving to redefine the architecture of the late 19th and early 20th century. Structural expression reigned supreme as the quintessential expressions of economy and efficiency, classical forms and heavy ornamentation were reminiscent of the past and Chicago was making the future.
The onset of the Great Depression and World War II slowed progress in the city, as it did across the nation, but soon after Chicago re-established itself as a the center of architectural innovation in the United States. The arrival of Mies van der Rohe from the Bauhaus and his subsequent position as head of the newly formed Illinois Institute of Technology positioned Chicago as a leader in Modernism. Mies’ influence is seen in generations of modern architects, his aesthetic of “less is more” quickly became the catchphrase for the city teeming with modernists.
Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright; three Chicago architects whose legacy is cited over and over again as the progression of American architecture from classicism to a new Modern ideal. Richardson executed his architecture in a certain Romanesque tradition, while at the same time developing spatial relationships, arrangements, and use of the home in unprecedented ways that would influence later Modernist forms. Sullivan celebrated the skyscraper and its height; the industrial revolution gave Sullivan the tools he needed to execute his visionary architecture.
Wright worked in the office of Sullivan and eventually crystallized his own theories towards Modern architecture. He arrived at the Prairie Style and completely altered the notions of the American home. Wright sought to create an architectural language most appropriate to the Midwest prairie around Chicago and its suburbs. In his own words, “We of the Middle West, are living on the prairie. The prairie has a beauty of its own and we should recognize and accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet level. Hence, gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet skylines, suppressed heavy set chimneys, and sheltering overhangs, low terraces and out-reaching walls sequestering private gardens.” He later revealed in An Autobiography, first published in 1932, “I loved the prairie by instinct as great simplicity- the trees, the flowers, the sky itself, thrilling by contrast. I saw that a little of height on the prairie was enough to look like much more- every detail as to height becoming intensely significant, breadths falling short… I had an idea that the horizontal planes in buildings belong to the ground. I began putting this idea to work.” He put his nine-point manifesto to work and produced the Robie House, creating the ideal image of the modern house for years to come.
