Touring Oak Park and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio

Today we went out to Oak Park so that we could take both the audio walking tour and the guided tour of the home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. Only me and mom went on the audio tour but me, mom and my grandma did the guided tour of the home and studio. At the audio tour there were 20 different buildings, some of them were built by Frank Lloyd Wright. They were all either done by him or were on the tour to show different styles and things that different architects made. For the audio tour you had to put on head phone connected to an MP3 player and you just held the little MP3 player and as you walked from house to house you paused the player right before she says the name of the next house and you know to stop there because she either gives directions or there is a blank time when she isn't speaking. One of my favorite houses was this pretty orange and red house that was made out of bricks but it looked like it was made out of different materials but it was really brick. It was really pretty as the colors blended together, they made like a whole new color together. During the guided tour we weren't allowed to touch anything and you saw all the differnet rooms. In each room there was a photo of what the room looked like during the time that Frank and his family were living there. Some of the things were blocked off and you weren't allowed to go in some rooms. My favorite room was the room that had part of a tree growing in it because Frank built that part of the home around a living tree and didn't want to cut down nature. He had wanted to make a passageway from his home to the studio but there was a large willow tree in the way so he cut holes in the wall and roof and part of the tree was inside and outside. The tree eventually got old and died and it was replaced with a lotus. Another thing about the guided tour is upstairs is where Frank's studio used to be but when they had more children they needed more space so he built a wall in the middle without blocking the half circle window and they would still have light and it could become two bedrooms. Another one of my favorite rooms was the playroom which had a stage upstairs. In that room there was also a grand piano that Mrs. Wright insisted on having so he cut off the back leg and put a trap door in the stage above it so that music could flow and he hung the back of the piano over the stairs. When you are walking down the back stairs you have to be careful and watch your head so that you don't bang into the back of the piano. In the studio there is the big studio space where a lot of the plans were made. In the foyer before his office there was a really long counter that you could put lots of plans down and lots of people could look at plans at the same time. There was also a library which is where he could have one on one talks with his clients. I really loved the tours and there were lots of cool houses and rooms on both tours. That's how I had the most fun so far this summer.