This finding aid is made available for public use following the Universal 1.0 Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons designation.
1954-2004 (bulk 1954-1958)
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
The collection includes 55 architectural drawing prints (blue line, wash-off, and electroic static) and small group of papers including specifications, copy of a photograph of Wright on the site, and some statements and financial records. Additional creators in the collection include landscape architect David Lawson, Northwest Mill & Supply Corp., and Taliesin Associated Architects.
Source of acquisition--David McArdle. Method of acquisition--Donated;; Date of acquisition--2018. Accession number--2018.004.
The Louis B. Frederick House (1954-8), located on a ten-acre site in Barrington, Illinois, is one of the last houses designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The house is an unusual hybrid of the prairie style pioneered by Wright at the turn of the twentieth century and the Usonian Automatic system he had created by the 1950s. The L-shaped open plan and built-in storage speak to the low-cost Usonian system, but Wright's use of wood trim and horizontal Roman bricks to accentuate the abstract geometries of the design recall the prairie houses he built outside Chicago circa 1900-10.
Wright originally intended to construct the house using the concrete-blocks typical of his Usonian Automatic system, as the preliminary drawings for the Frederick House. The client, however, disliked the concrete blocks and asked Wright to design a second scheme made of brick and wood, which was constructed.