Growing up in Illinois, I often visited family in Oak Park and Hyde Park, but I never got to delve into Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture in and around Chicago until visiting on a cruise ship.
It was an eye-opener.
The newly revived Victory Cruise Lines highlights America's most famous architect in a "premium" precruise shore excursion. And a new partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is bringing enrichment programming to the Victory I and Victory II along with architectural experiences in Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich.
Shore excursions are a standout of Victory's Great Lakes program. Varied, high-quality tours at every destination are included, while extra-charge "premium" and "immersive" tours are commissionable when travel advisors book their clients ahead of sailing. Many of these tours are truly special and would be time-consuming or, due to exclusives woven in, tough to arrange independently.
Excursions are "one of the most important aspects" of Victory's Great Lakes program, said Kari Tarnowski, vice president of marketing, "which is why we have this partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, just like our association with the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, [Ohio], and the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit."
Such partnerships give an "additional dimension," she added.
Victory Cruise Lines vice president of marketing Kari Tarnowski examines columns decorating the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Photo Credit: Anne Kalosh
"People travel to Europe to see Unesco World Heritage Sites, and you have them right here with Frank Lloyd Wright," Tarnowski said. "You're in cities you can feel safe walking around in, learning something different, and it's not a 10-hour plane ride to get there."
The Unesco designation came in 2019 with the inscription of Wright's 20th century architecture. This makes it one of just 26 Unesco World Heritage listings in the U.S.
The designation includes eight iconic Wright buildings, including New York's Guggenheim Museum and the Fallingwater residence in Pennsylvania. But two are highlighted on the Victory tour: Oak Park's Unity Temple and Hyde Park's Frederick C. Robie House.
The playroom on the second floor of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park, Ill. Photo Credit: Anne Kalosh
Oak Park beginnings
On Victory's Chicago tour, I enjoyed a comprehensive, rich experience -- even though I already knew the city well. The on-site interpreters were excellent.
Wright was just 22 when he began designing his Oak Park home. It was completed in 1889, but he continued to revise, refining ideas that would shape his work for years to come and adding a studio. It's now a museum, and an interpreter-- which is what the guides here call themselves -- gave a helpful grounding in the context of Wright's work and development.
Following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Oak Park was part of a movement to return to country living, with wide-open prairie all around.
We learned on the tour that Wright designed his shingle-style house using natural materials and earthy colors, wanting it to seem part of the landscape. Detailed woodwork, lots of leaded glass and custom furniture became some of his lasting hallmarks.
The surrounding blocks comprise a historic district with several Wright houses, all private residences, and his Unity Temple, completed in 1908.
It was dramatically different from other churches. Wright used concrete to meet the Unitarian congregation's limited budget. Gray and cubist outside, inside it is grand yet intimate, with warm colors. Light flows in from clerestory windows and amber-tinted leaded glass skylights.
An interpreter at Hyde Park's Frederick C. Robie House. Photo Credit: Anne Kalosh
Hyde Park masterpiece
In Hyde Park, Wright's 1910 Robie House is considered a masterpiece, the consummate expression of his prairie style, the on-site interpreter told us, and a forerunner of modern architecture. It is stunning.
The home has 175 doors and windows, and 12 sets of double doors with leaded glass in the sweeping living/dining space open to balconies. Electricity came to Hyde Park with the 1893 Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World's Fair), and the home's electric lights are originals.
The Robies lived there just about a year, and it was occupied as a house only until 1926. It was threatened with demolition in the 1940s and '50s, and Wright himself campaigned to save it.
Located in Chicago's financial district and one of the greatest surviving examples of early commercial skyscrapers, the Rookery Building (1888) was designed as a prestigious office address by Daniel Burnham and John Root. In 1905, Wright modernized the lobby into a spectacular, sky-lit space, encasing the iron columns in gilded white marble and adding bronze chandeliers with prismatic glass.
The excursion, 8.5 hours and $169 including lunch, is curated for a seamless experience from the included pre-cruise hotel to the ship at Navy Pier. Demand is strong, so advisors should book clients at least two weeks before their sailing.