Wright’s Chicago Years

Wright spent the first twenty years of his career working in Chicago and its suburbs. His experiences in the city would have a profound influence on his architecture, shaping the principles and philosophies that would inform his entire career.

The Oak Park Studio years were a prolific period in Wright’s career, with more than a third of his life’s work produced at the site between 1898 and 1909. Contributing to this legacy was a group of talented young draftsmen, architects and artists drawn to the Studio by Wright’s vision.

Inspired by the expansive landscape of America’s Midwest, and developed at Wright’s Oak Park Studio, the Prairie style was the first uniquely American architectural style of the twentieth century.

Wright spent the first twenty years of his career working in Chicago and its suburbs. Wright’s Chicago years were an incredibly prolific time in the architect’s career as he worked to define his vision for a new American architecture. This online collection is an immersive tool that details the extensive output of buildings completed by Wright during this defining period in his career.