Emil Bach House

The Emil Bach House is a built in Prairie Style house in Rogers Park, a neighborhood of Chicago in Illinois, United States that was designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1915 for Emil Bach, who was an admirer of Wright and co-owner of the brickyard Bach Brick Company. The Bach House was declared a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977, registered on 23 January 1979 in the National Register of Historic Places.

History

Emil Bach and his wife bought the property for their planned home on December 5, 1914 by Amelia Ludwick and her husband; In 1915 she commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design the building.. In 1934 Joseph Peacock purchased the house and owned it until 1947, in 1951 changed the owner twice; finally passed the house in December, on the property of Manuel Weiss, who sold it in 1959 to Joseph Blinder.

The fifth owner of the house in 2005 offered it for sale. The initial selling price fixed was 2.5 million U.S. dollars; later the price was reduced to 1.9 million U.S. dollars. The object was for a few months on the market before eventually an auction was proclaimed. The starting bid was at $ 750,000, less than a third of the originally requested price. Among the reasons for the difficult sale of the Wright -designed home includes monument protection regulations, but also the specifics of the neighborhood Rogers Park.

The preservationists were concerned about the auction and because of the fate of the side garden which is 13.5 meters wide and 45 meters long and is located in a zone may be erected in the high-rise apartment houses. When the house was finally auctioned, well above the starting price, gave the new owners announced they wanted to live in the house and get the garden.

Architecture

The house is one of the few houses that Wright designed after his return from Europe in 1911 and which are in Chicago at the same time. This is the part of a series of geometric, cube-shaped houses, with overhanging flat roofs, as Wright designed in the early 20th century. The first was the Laura Gale House in Oak Park, Illinois, followed by Oscar Balch House, also in Oak Park, Coonley Kindergarten, Bogh the House and then the Bach House. From the houses of this type in the Chicago Bach House is the only building still standing.

The building with an area of ​​2,700 square feet is designed as a two-storey house with basement. When it was originally built, it was a " cottage", was on its back front on the east side of Lake Michigan in sight. Due to the changes in the neighborhood Rogers Park, where it is located, the house now stands between commercially used buildings and apartment blocks on a busy road, the North Sheridan Road. Due to the Seeblickes the building originally a large rear porch and a sun terrace; both were transformed into closed rooms, were built as other buildings between the Bach House and the lake, which interrupted the view. This glass was mainly used, whereby the intention of Wright impression and the original design remained largely intact. Other changes to the building to the removal of obstruction from the pen of Wright. A chair was removed from the living room, and a breakfast bar disappeared from the dining room. On the second floor the servant's room was converted into a second bathroom.

Importance

The Bach House is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style late and was designed by him in the period, which was just before the time at which his style became more expressionistic and influenced by the Japanese -influenced aesthetic. The uniqueness of the house, his high artistic value and the reputation of the famous architect represent the significant historical and cultural value

The Bach House is located in a prime location in Chicago, just one block from Lake Michigan. The district is an area in the urban development corporation bought land to build hochgeschossige apartment blocks there. A twenty -year-old conservation plan, which prohibits the destruction or alteration of the house without the consent of the city and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, was the opinion of the Director of the Association Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy in Chicago probably the only reason the demolition of the prevented.