Charnley-Persky House, Frank Lloyd Wright Lecture
By Margaret Lyons in News on Jun 8, 2004 3:30PM
Look, well never get tired of Stallone or Hooters (maybe a teeny bit), but sometimes we all want a little architectural history in our lives. Word? Word. Tonight Chicagoans can soak up some enrichment at "The Elusive Charnley House," a lecture by Richard Longstreth. Nerds know that the Charnley house is now called the Charnley-Persky house, and big nerds know that its the home of the Society of Architectural Historians. Chicagoist is saying nerds but really were jealous of their cultural knowledge.
The Charnley-Persky House, on the Gold Coast, was designed by Louis Sullivan and his student, Frank Lloyd Wright. Or was it? Even though the house went up in 1891 when Wright was only a junior draftsman, Wright later claimed that he was the sole designer of the influential building. Tonights lecture will explain the design of the house and its urban context [and] explore the question of the house's authorship (Louis Sullivan versus Frank Lloyd Wright), unusual aspects of its interior design, the role the Charnleys may have had in developing the scheme, and important relationships between this design and other work of the period. The fun starts for free at 6 p.m. at the Arts Club of Chicago.