Unity Temple

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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

Interior of Unity Temple.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Unity Temple

875 Lake Street

Oak Park, IL

Website:  Unity Temple Restoration Foundation

The Treasure:   Unity Temple was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright’s major public building commissions and he seized the opportunity to create a masterpiece.

Accessibility:  Unity Templeis open for self-guided tours and pre-arranged group tours Monday through Friday from 10:30 to 4:30, on Saturdays from 10 to 2, and on Sundays from 1 to 4.  There is a modest admission fee.

Or… since Unity Temple is the home of an active Unitarian Universalist Congregation, consider experiencing Unity Temple at a Sunday morning worship service at either 9 or 10:45 a.m.

Unity Temple exterior.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple
Restoration Foundation.

Background:  Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple was a game changer.  Completed in 1908 and dedicated by its congregation on September 26, 1909, Unity Templetook the brilliant and innovative ideas that Wright had been lavishing on residential houses for over a decade and integrated them into a sublime public space.  Looking back, Wright later said, “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.”  Our built world looks different today because of this building.

For the first time, the relatively new building material of reinforced concrete was celebrated as a bold artistic medium.  Wright made no attempt to hide the concrete under 19th century embellishments;  he ushered in 20th century modern architecture by leaving the concrete exposed and then demonstrating how beautiful it could look, both graceful and austere, with light streaming in.  As Paul Goldberger, chief cultural correspondent of the New York Times, wrote in 1996, “In the temple’s great sanctuary, at once monumental and intimate, all of Wright’s ideas about space and spirituality gain their first mature expression.”

Closeup of the deteriorated
concrete.  Photo courtesy of Unity
Temple Restoration Foundation.

But reinforced concrete posed challenges that were not fully understood in the early years of the 20th century.  As Unity Temple turned 100 in 2008, its preservation needs reached a critical point.  A large section of concrete and plaster broke off the ceiling after several days of rain that September.  A major restoration effort was launched to save the building.

Scaffolding on the east side exterior of Unity Temple
during restoration of the south roof slab.
Photo courtesy of Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Reinstalling Frank Lloyd Wright's beautiful art glass
clerestory windows under the south slab.
Photo courtesy of Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

With funding from Save America’s Treasures, state funds, corporate donations, a generous donation from Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and hundreds of individual supporters, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation took up the challenge to lead a long-term plan to restore Unity Temple both by shoring up the original structure and by complementing it with new systems, such as a state-of-the-art roof drainage system and galvanic anodes to prolong the life of the reinforced concrete.

Because of the extreme deterioration of the concrete and reinforcing steel on Unity Temple’s south roof slab, an enormous section of ceiling had to be nearly entirely rebuilt.  During this process, a rusted horseshoe was discovered embedded in the concrete, lying open side up for good luck.  The workers replaced it with a shiny new horseshoe, now part of the new ceiling at Unity Temple.

Horseshoe found in the south slab concrete,
apparently tucked in when the concrete was
poured in 1908.  Photo courtesy of
Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

A view of the underside of the south roof slab which was repaired and
replaced with funding from Save America's Treasures.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Other Recommended Sites:  Tour America’s Treasures previously visited the Frederick C. Robie House, another of Wright’s architectural masterworks in the Chicagoarea.  On that entry, I recommended the tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, just a few blocks from Unity Temple.

While Unity Temple is the most famous of Wright’s buildings of worship, he did build some others.  Very early in his career, Wright collaborated on Unity Chapel in Spring Green, Wisconsin, helping to design the interior when he was just 21.  Much later in his career (1949-51), Wright designed the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin.  The Beth Shalom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvaniais the only Wright-designed synagogue, dedicated in 1959, five months after Wright’s death.  Also completed posthumously, the Church of the Annunciation (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) was dedicated as a Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961.

A view of the columns on the exterior of Unity Temple.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

© 2013 Lee Price