18 Jan searching for architectural identity: frank lloyd wright’s george blossom house (1892)
photographic survey of frank lloyd wright’s george blossom residence (1892), located at 4858 south kenwood ave, chicago, ills.
To supplement his salary, Wright began taking on independent commissions in violation of his five-year contract with Louis Sullivan. Known as the “bootleg houses,” these early designs typically reflect historical architectural styles, yet exhibit elements that would manifest themselves fully in Wright’s mature Prairie style.
Reflecting the nineteenth-century taste for academic Colonial Revival design, the George Blossom house is nearly symmetrical in plan. A library, reception room, and living room radiate from a hall, and Palladian windows are distributed evenly across the first floor of the western elevation. A semi-circular conservatory at the rear of the building echoes the covered, columned porch at its front. Despite the Colonial design of the exterior, interior elements, such as the centrally located fireplace framed by an inglenook, also appear in Wright’s more progressive designs.
