Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park

As graduation approaches (signaling the end of my time inhabiting the North Shore), I have been frantically searching for opportunities to cross items off my Chicago Bucket List. This past weekend my mom was in town, and with her rented car we drove southwest to Oak Park to peep displays of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural genius — something I have planned to do for years.

We arrived at the Oak Park visitor center and, warned the Unity Temple was only open for about another hour, rushed over to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house of worship on Lake Street. The Unitarian temple was the only of his masterpieces we entered, since all the other homes (with the exception of his personal home and studio) are private residences.

After exploring Unity Temple, we visited the architect’s nearby home and studio to rent headsets for the self-guided walking tour. We spent about the next hour walking around Lloyd Wright’s home neighborhood and pausing to learn about ten of his Modern residential creations with our super touristy — but very informational! — audio gear.

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The architect’s work, with its clean, straight lines and strong angles apparent in everything from the Unity Temple’s organ and light fixtures to his houses’ windows, is impressive even to the untrained eye. Learning about the thought process and intention behind Lloyd Wright’s designs reveals even more brilliance.

Here are some points I picked up and found helpful to understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park architecture:

• The homes Lloyd Wright designed in Oak Park are from his Prairie Period, which was around the turn of the 20th Century: about 1892 to 1908.
• The Prairie Period is characterized by long, horizontal lines intended to reflect and work with the flat Midwestern terrain.
• Lloyd Wright considered the hearth the center of the home, symbolically and, in his designs, literally.
• The architect was fascinated with Japanese art and design.
• Lloyd Wright often obstructed or hid the front door; his homes aren’t designed to appear inviting to the outsider. He was more concerned with creating architecture that complemented nature and the surroundings.

My mom recommends the book Loving Frank as follow-up (or if you want, pre) education and entertainment to an Oak Park trip. I haven’t started reading the historical fiction novel yet, but the guy’s life did take some soap opera-worthy turns.

Also, if you happen to be at the Northwestern University Library, ask the archivists about original FLW documents we have somewhere in that massive structure.

-Karina for TKGO

Learning from this Year’s Global Engagement Summit

Missed the Global Engagement Summit at Northwestern University last weekend? No worries! We took diligent notes at two workshops that can help inform your cultural consciousness and perhaps even future travels.

GES: The Rundown

GES is a five-day annual conference and summit held at NU that brings together university students from around the world — “delegates” — who are committed to global change. Events include speakers, panels, workshops and discussions. For full background info, click here.

Confronting Culture Shock

Led by Saul Garlick, Executive Officer, ThinkImpact, Washington D.C. Students in attendance for the workshop were from Peru, China, Japan, Uganda, Australia and Turkey, as well as universities across the U.S.

Quotable: “People go to Africa for six weeks and write a book, six months and write an article, and go for six years and don’t write anything,” he says. “We must assume first and foremost that we just don’t know.”

Takeaway: So how do we find out? When looking at societal norms of any new place, different aspects of culture worth thinking about and exploring, according to Garlick, include:

• Food and its sources. What do people eat and how is it prepared?
• Language. How do people describe their own society?
• Work. What do people to do earn a living?
• The dynamic of gender relationships. Who runs the home or leads the community?
• Entertainment. Everybody, no matter who or where, wants to have fun!
• Dynamics of religion. “You have a sangoma (witch doctor) in a community and you have someone who very strongly believes in Jesus, and you think, how is that possible?” Garlick says.
• Political hierarchies. An explanation of power structure.

OpenShutter Project

We also stopped in the GES OpenShutter exhibit to see some phenomenal student photography. Needless to say, these photos transcend any language barrier.

 

Photo by Alyssa Urish. Click image for additional OpenShutter photos

 

International Reporting and Social Entrepreneurship

Led by Roger Thurow, senior fellow on Global Agriculture and Food Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Thurow worked for 20 years as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal before moving to the CCGA to pursue his passion and cause: fighting and publicizing the hunger issue. He is co-author of Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.

Quotable: “Outrage and inspire!” is one of Thurow’s personal mantras.

Takeaway: Storytelling is imperative, Thurow stresses, as is making the masses — not just Congress — realize change is necessary. For example, U2 lead Bono took to the road in the U.S. in early/mid 2000 to raise awareness of AIDS and debt in Africa, specifically among the constituents of many important Midwest legislators. Soon after his trip, which included a stop at Wheaton College, (“the Harvard intelligensia of the religious movement” according to Roger) the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) passed. The movement Thurow is so invested in also took a cue from the Bono relationship with the celebrity video below, which Thurow mentioned in his talk.

-Tara and Karina for TKGO

A College Passover

In honor of the Jewish holiday, a few of our friends hosted a Passover Seder for Jews and Gentiles alike. We both were in attendance at the event and relished the chance to share (Tara) and learn about (Karina) Jewish culture and traditions with good friends while indulging in delicious kosher food. (You can really do a lot without flour! Take our friend’s homemade matzo pizza, filmed below, as an example.)

Below are some clips from the seder, including the race to find the afikoman, or the piece of matzo that is broken and hidden during the Seder. The prize for being the first to the unleavened bread? An Easter basket.

-Tara and Karina for TKGO

It’s here: TKGO City Guides, Naples, Florida!

Check out the latest addition to the TKGO City Guides collection: Naples, Florida! There’s more to southeast Florida than fun in the sun. This guide is a must-read for any 20-something trying to navigate the land of the retired. Find plenty of great restaurants and — dare we say it — nightlife!

If you’re stuck in the midwest, check out our recent updates to the Chicago and Evanston guides, including a classic brunch spot in Andersonville and a Cuban “food mart” in Rogers Park.

-Tara and Karina for TKGO