Oak Park

A native Midwesterner, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chicago work is easily accessible for architecture nerds in search of inspiration, especially in the Oak Park neighborhood. This is where you’ll find Wright’s own former home and studio, designed when he was just twenty-two years old. While you could happily amble about the leafy streets and see the Robie House and the Harry S. Adams House—two of the most well-known Wright-conceived homes in the area—it’s really his own home place that makes the best starting point. You’ll see features, like his obsession with horizontal lines, cantilevering, and inglenook fireplaces, that would become Wright’s signature in his later projects. It’s a fascinating history lesson to walk through his early experimental, trial-and-error canvas.