Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park seeks spot on World Heritage List
BY TODD SHIELDS Sun-Times Media tshields@pioneerlocal.com August 12, 2011 4:30PM
Unity Temple in Oak Park is being considered for inclusion in the World Heritage List. The temple was designed by famed local architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1906 and 1908. | Shauna Bittle~for Sun-Times Media
Wright nominees
In July, Secretary of the U.S. Interior Ken Salazar announced 11 Frank Lloyd Wright properties would be nominated for the World Heritage List. They include:
• Unity Temple, 1905-1908, Oak Park
• Frederick C. Robie House, 1908-1910, Chicago (Hyde Park)
• Taliesin, begun 1911, Hillside, Wis.
• Hollyhock (Barnsdall) House, 1919-1921, Los Angeles
• Fallingwater, 1934-1939, Mill Run, Penn.
• S.C. Johnson and Son Inc., Administration Building and Research Tower, 1936-1939 and 1943-1950, Racine, Wis.
• Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, 1936-1937, Madison, Wis.
• Taliesin West, begun 1938, Scottsdale, Ariz.
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1943-1959, New York City
• Price Tower, 1952-1956, Bartlesville, Okla.
• Marin County Civic Center, 1957-1970, San Rafael, Calif.
Article Extras
Updated: October 3, 2011 1:51PM
Oak Park’s Unity Temple could be listed among such worldwide cultural landmarks as India’s Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
The Temple and 10 other Frank Lloyd Wright structures in the United States were nominated for the World Heritage List.
The list, maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, includes 936 cultural and natural properties around the world.
The list already has 21 American sites, including Yellowstone National Park, Independence Hall, Grand Canyon National Park, the Statue of Liberty, and Monticello at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
If the Wright proposal is accepted, the architect’s work would be the first modern U.S. buildings listed.
“This step affirms what we have long known — Unity Temple is an international treasure,” said The Rev. Alan Taylor, senior minister of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 875 Lake St.
To be listed, each site must meet criteria of the list and have U.S. National Landmark status, as well as plans for maintenance and ongoing protection of historic qualities.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy asked independent Wright scholars to review about 400 Wright buildings, then selected the 11 nominees, of which the conservancy will provide information. UNESCO will decide on them in June 2013 or June 2014.
Emily Roth, executive director of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Restoration Foundation, said naming the temple to the list would significantly help a current campaign to raise $5 million to $7 million for it. Overall, about $25 million is needed to upgrade the temple’s structure, climate control and interiors with plaster, paint, wood trim and flooring.
The temple was the first major public building Wright designed.
After finishing 1,100 designs and building 532 built projects, he said of Unity Temple, “That was my first expression of this eternal idea which is at the center and core of all true modern architecture. A sense of space, a new sense of space.”
The American Institute of Architects named it one of Wright’s most influential buildings. In 1971, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated it a National Historic Landmark.
For more information, go to http://whc.unesco.org/en/list or www.unitytemple-utrf.org.
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