Unity Temple

by Prof. Robert McCarter

Published 24 April 1997
Unity Temple represents the high point of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Prairie" period, and the founding of a place of sanctuary for the Unitarian congregation - a branch of Protestantism founded by his own great-great grandfather in 1726. Located in Oak Park, Illinois, the temple is ordered on a rigorous system of proportion determined on both exterior and interior by the measurements of the central interior sanctuary space. This detailed account invites the viewer (as Wright's creation does itself) to see the act of building as sacred, and buildings as sacred places.