Unity Temple | The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago with Geoffrey Baer
Unity Temple
He really wanted to bring nature in. He said he wanted the sanctuary to feel like it was a happy, cloudless day at any point in time…the soft yellow that he brings in really reflects the light, and it does feel light.— Heide Ruehle, Unity Temple Restoration Foundation
Geoffrey Baer stops by the Unity Temple in Oak Park.
When the original Oak Park Unity Church was struck by lightning and destroyed in a fire in 1905, the commission to design a new, more modern building was given to Frank Lloyd Wright. Completed in 1908, Unity Temple was one of the first public buildings to be made of concrete poured in place, and it was unlike most other houses of worship at the time, which tended to adhere to very traditional European architectural styles. The exterior of the building looks like an impenetrable fortress. According to the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust, “The introspective nature of the building is in part a response to its corner site situated along a busy thoroughfare.” Wright created a sense of anticipation for people entering the building with an architectural technique called compression and release. As people make their way from the entrance to the sanctuary, ceilings get lower and hallways narrower, creating an almost claustrophobic feeling, which is then dramatically released when the visitor enters the open, high-ceilinged sanctuary space. Heidi Ruehle from the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation told Geoffrey Baer that the seating arrangement was not typical for a church, either. Instead of traditional front-to-back rows of pews, it’s in the round. “That way, you can see the people you’re communing with,” Ruehle said. “Community is really important in Unitarianism.” Restoration of the temple took place between 2015 and 2017, and in 2019, Unity Temple (along with seven other Frank Lloyd Wright buildings) was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Read more about Frank Lloyd Wright’s connection to Unitarianism and his Welsh roots here.
