Precedent Analysis - ESSAY

The story of the unity temple begins in 1871, when the Unity Church, (Unity Temple’s predecessor) was built in Oak Park, Illinois. The church was in the gothic revival style and was built for a congregation who in the late 1880’s was lead by Augusta Chapin. Chapin happened to be a long time friend of Anna Jones Wright, mother of Architect Frank Lloyd Wright. On the night of June 6th 1905, in the midst of a severe thunderstorm, lightning struck Unity Church and by morning the entire structure had burned to the ground. Eager to help out his congregation, Frank Lloyd Wright volunteered himself to design the churches replacement the next morning. Construction began on the new “Unity Temple” as it was now called in 1906. The congregation initially wanted the church to be done by mid-November 1906 and for a budget of $40,000. When the building was finally completed in 1908, the costs had moved up to $60,000 which was still moderate when compared to the cost of most other churches and government buildings of the time.
Important qualities of the Unity Temple are easy to find. First off, the title of Unity “Temple” rather than “Church,” stems from Wrights idea that this structure should reflect the power and simplicity of the ancient temples and pyramids. When looking at the building, it is obviously stark in contrast to any other traditional church or cathedral that came before it. Massive concrete planes with no visible door in the front façade helped to quiet the noise of the busy street when one is in the main worship space of the structure. No front door meant that to enter the building one must walk by the enclosed central space where its importance and private nature are implied by the heavy physical and visual weight of the concrete walls. Upon entering the main space, your eye is intentionally directed upward by the use if vertical wood details and lines in the construction.
The control and use of light is also a key element to the essence of overall “holiness” of the space. The use of a grid-like pattern of concrete beams, enclosing massive skylights provide a wash of a constant yellowish light over the main worship space. Equally important to creating feelings of connection to heaven from earth while in the temple are the three balconies that wrap the space. It is quite amazing that while the room has a capacity of four hundred people, no matter where you are in the room, because of the use and placement of the balconies, you are never more than forty feet from the lectern.
The main overlying reason this structure is important to architecture in the context of the beginning of the twentieth century is its concrete construction. This is one of the earliest examples of the use of what previously had been considered a solely construction material, not to be shown as a finished surface. One example of how this construction process was innovative is evident when you look at the plan of the building, its four main corners are symmetrical, which meant once the concrete set for one corner section, the form could be taken away and reused for the next corner of the building. Ultimately the quiet power of the Unity Temple and its presence can be felt from inside the space as well as in its influence which echoed out into the designs of the early twentieth century and beyond. Wright no doubt achieved building a structure that achieved the words he inscribed above the entrance, “For Worship of God, and Service of Man.”