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New film narrated by Brad Pitt explores Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple

2020-10-22T14:01:00-04:00

Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright's Modern Masterpiece is a new film by Lauren Levine that is narrated by Brad Pitt. Streaming October 30th to November 15th, the documentary will look deeply into Wright's first public commission in the early 1900s and the efforts to restore it 100 years later.

From the film website: The dedicated team of historians, craftspeople, members of the Unitarian congregation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation reveal the history of one of Wright’s most innovative buildings that merged his love of architecture with his own spiritual values.

Check out the trailer below:

Blair Kamin calls restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple "triumphant"

2017-05-22T14:29:00-04:00

Frrank Lloyd Wright was never one to fret about meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets or roofs that leaked. So there is something fitting about the delayed, but altogether triumphant, restoration of Wright's Unity Temple, [...] the finest public building of Wright's Chicago years and home to one of the most beautiful rooms in America. Instead of finishing on schedule last fall, the $25 million project is wrapping up just in time for the 150th anniversary of Wright's birthday, June 8.

"Success, it's often said, has many fathers, and so it is with here," Kamin writes. "A team of consultants led by Chicago's Harboe Architects has lavished exacting care on every aspect of this project, from the restoration of jewel-like art glass to the recreation of textured plaster walls."

Frank Lloyd Wright's "Unity Temple" getting a $23M restoration

2015-07-30T18:15:00-04:00

this is the deluxe rehabilitation package, a stark contrast to the mostly emergency work that's been done through the years to keep the building grunting along. [...] “It's one of Frank Lloyd Wright's greatest works, and it's a masterpiece of modern architecture ... It's a building that changed a lot of architects' ideas about what architecture could do.”

The $23 million comes from a variety of sources, including part of a $1.75M Getty grant to fix compromised concrete in "Important Modern Buildings", and $200K in federal funds for general repairs. Unity Temple is also one of ten FLW buildings recently nominated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Getty awards over $1.75 million to fix crappy concrete in "Important Modern Buildings"

2015-06-24T13:58:00-04:00

"Modern architecture is a defining artistic form of the 20th century at considerable risk, often due to the cutting-edge building materials that characterized the movement." -Deborah Marrow

In news that will surely make Prince Charles sigh with displeasure, the Getty Foundation announced it is awarding $1.75 million of grants to help preserve 14 structures in the modern style, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, Walter Gropius’ residence ‘The Gropius House,’ and the Rietveld Schröder House. This is the second year the foundation has awarded the grants, and has chosen the buildings because (ironically) concrete as a building material has proven to be less than solid. “The use of concrete, while visually striking and radical for its time, has created a unique set of challenges for conserving some of the world’s most important modernist structures,” noted Antoine Wilmering, a senior program officer at the Getty Foundation. “Our new grants offer an excellent opportunity to advance research and conservation practices for this material. The accumulated knowledge that will result from the projects will be of tremendous benefit to the field.”

While the first year's gra...

Stolen lettering from Wright's Unity Temple re-created, restored

2012-07-06T15:04:00-04:00

Soon after the September 2010 theft, leaders of the Unitarian Universalist church and the restoration foundation assembled a team of architects, Wright scholars and others to help design precise replicas of the letters and determine how to attach them to the structure. After extensive research, replicas were crafted and installed in May. As shiny as experts believe the originals looked when the church was dedicated in 1909, the new letters look brighter than the stolen ones...