Unity Temple Building

Posted: August 27th, 2021

Unity Temple Building

By

Your Name

Submitted To

Guilford Technical Community College

Date

Title of Your assignment

Unity Temple Building

With the destruction of Oak Park Unity Church in 1905 by lightning, designer Frank Lloyd Wright offered to design Unity Temple for the people of Oak Park in Illinois. With its precise location at 875 Lake Street, Designer Wright applied the principles of Unitarianism in that function always follows form in the Unity Temple’s design and construction (Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 2020). Therefore, the construction of the church building lasted started in 1905 and ended in 1908.

Figure 1. A mold of concrete and façade of Unity Temple

             The principal applied construction materials for the building was concrete. Notably, concrete was considered inexpensive in the 20^th century. Therefore, Frank Wright made use of mold concrete to construct Unity Temple (Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 2020). Hence, with the employment of austere and radical façade as architectural techniques, Wright managed to create a building that represented simplicity, beauty, and truth based on the church minister’s requirements.

Figure 2. A scale diagram of Unity Temple

 Although the budget for the construction of the unity church was limited at $400,000, the designer was reasonable enough to apply the Prairie style that would signify the building(Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 2020). In eventuality, the building could house more than 400 congregants in a spatial three-level squared sanctuary. Consequently, the church building’s construction reinforced the need for congregants to face the same direction as a much democratic space, where each member would see another.

Figure 3. Interior of Unity Temple Building

            Designer Wright experienced a challenge to break the treaty for American and European religious architecture by introducing the ideals of modern architecture (Siry, 1991). Notably, it was indeed a challenge to employ concrete more daringly for such a time when it was essential to follow the established principles of truth and sacredness(Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 2020). Apart from that, the building’s construction was scheduled to end in 1905, but there was a periodic delay up to the year 1908.

 The church building has undergone detailed restoration under a new architect named Gunny Harboe and a contracting company known as Berglund Construction Ltd.  Whereas the restoration was mandated with the refurbishing of the entire building’s form, the contracting firm needed to preserve, revitalize, and modernize Unity Temple based on the intended functionality of the structure. The allocated budget was such restoration that happened at $25 million (Siry, 1991). Therefore, the nature of restoration was chiefly revolutionary so that the ideals of Frank Wright would be reinforced to bring a clear picture of his architectural techniques and principles of modernity.

Figure 4. Custom shotcrete mixing on the exterior of the walls

 The chief challenge associated with restoring the church building was matching the old architectural techniques applied by Frank Wright. Conserving the exterior concrete surfaces seemed difficult for the second designer and contractor because repairing cracks and removing stains on the walls could jeopardize the entire building (Harboe Architects, n.d.). Therefore, the contractor needed to apply the use of abrasive cleaning with a fine-crashed slag to cover up the delaminated shotcrete. Moreover, the restoration involved fixing cold joints at corners of the exterior building, thus matching the former shotcrete placement (Harboe Architects, n.d.). Consequently, the use of multiple mix designs effectively restored the previously rusted away colors of the exterior facades.

References

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. (2020) “Unity Temple.” Retrieved from https://franklloydwright.org/site/unity-temple/

Harboe Architects. (n.d.). “Unity Temple building.” Final Report. Retrieved from https://www.getty.edu/foundation/pdfs/kim/unity_temple_final_outcomes.pdf

Siry, J. (1991). Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple and architecture for liberal religion in Chicago, 1885-1909. Art Bulletin, 73(2), 257-282. https://doi: 10.2307/3045793