For as long as I’d been obsessing about architecture and furniture, I’d been obsessing about architects who designed furniture as part of their architectural commissions. There is no more famous furniture designing architect than Frank Lloyd Wright. While working in the offices of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, a young Frank Lloyd Wright worked on and completed in 1892 the design of a house for the Charnley family. The Charnley house included a few built-in pieces of furniture, but no custom free-standing furniture that I was aware of.

One year later Wright was fired by Adler & Sullivan, and in 1894 Frank Lloyd Wright would complete his first independent residential commission the William Winslow House. The William Winslow House was filled with both built in custom furniture and free- standing custom furniture. Something happened between 1892 and 1894 in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and/or career that inspired him to combine architecture and custom furniture design, a practice he would continue throughout his entire career.

In 2004 I attended a lecture/reading by Richard Longstreth at the Charnley House. Richard Longstreth had just completed his book “The Charnley House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Making of Chicago’s Gold Coast.” I’d read Mr. Longstreth’s book, listened to his lecture/reading, and afterwards during the question-and-answer portion of the event, I asked about any custom free-standing furniture that may have been designed by Wright and/or Sullivan for the Charnley House and Mr. Longstreth confirmed that he was not aware of any custom free standing furniture and agree this was a curiosity given Wright’s interest in custom furnishings and the custom furnishings he would create for the Winslows two years later.

Prior to the second iteration of my IIT Architecture & Furniture class, I was thinking about what type of an assignment I would devise for my students. I remembered the enigma of the missing Charnley House free standing custom designed furniture and thought it might make an intriguing assignment.

I proposed the following “Charnley Challenge” to my students…

This class will investigate the relationship between furniture and architecture as part of an historic Chicago tradition dating back more than 125 years. In 1889, James & Helen Charnley hired Louis Sullivan to design a house for his family on the corner of Astor & Schiller. Sullivan and his young employee Frank Lloyd Wright designed everything but the free-standing furniture. 117 years later, we’re going to pick up where Sullivan and Wright left off. Students will individually design & fabricate furniture as part of a master plan developed collectively. Students will explore contemporary theory, materials and fabrication techniques as they relate to the innovations realized by Sullivan & Wright 117 years ago.

Our class began with a site visit and tour of the Charnley House.

I designed, printed, and burned a CD with all of our furniture designs for the Charnley House. The aesthetic for the CD cover was based on 1950s era Blue Note jazz album covers. I intended for the CD to include not only images of our work, but a soundtrack that was simultaneously of the Charnley’s era and whatever my students were listening to.

I negotiated with the Charnley House an installation of our furniture proposals and a final review that would take place within the Charnley House interior. I anticipated that the Charnley House might look a bit sparse with only our furniture proposals so I also negotiated with my former employer Crate & Barrel/CB2 the borrowing and installation of CB2 furnishings that would accompany our student furniture design work.

On Wednesday night May 9, 2007 our final review took place at the Charnley House from 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. and our exhibition was allowed to remain in place for approximately a month afterwards.

Enjoy the show!

Catherine Budzinski, Outdoor Bench, Recycled Plastic

Wendy Byerly, Desk Lamp, 12.5” X 8” X 20”, Red Pine, Red Oak, Walnut & Wenge, Polyurethane

Jessica Cawvey, Side Table Lamp, 42” X 24” X 6”, Copper Tubing, Oak, Acrylic & Ceramic, Hammered Silver

Natalie Clemens, Planter Boxes, Oak & Brass, Lemon Shellac & Finishing Wax

Philip M. Haywood, Coffee Table, 48” X 18” X 16”, White Oak, Glass, Stainless Steel, Fumed Oak & Wax

Steven Henry, Hanging Light, 29”H. X 12” Diam., Copper, Steel, Glass & Laser Cut Diffusers

Matthew Lechowick, Light Fixture, Walnut & Acrylic, Stainless Steel

Jonathan Lockridge, Conference Table, Various Materials, Various Finishes

Michael Lynn, Game Table

Jaime Mcclain, Untitled, 29” X 15” X 48”, Steel, Wood, Acrylic, Brushed Chrome, Laser Cut Acrylic

Dan O’brien, Bean Toss, Laser Cut Oak

Jackie Tijerina, Floor Lamp, Solid Maple

Matthew Walczuk, Cubes, 16”, Various Materials, Various Finishes

(Prof.) Paul Pettigrew, icharnley, 4” X 14.5” X 8”, Fumed White Oak, Tung Oil & Wax