I’m ‘cheating’ a little with this post since it doesn’t involve RoVer Too, but now that Mark and I live 30 miles from the country’s 3rd largest city (and the very best US city, in my opinion!), we get to do cool touristy things locally and I thought some of you may be interested and enjoy the photos. I’ll start the title of these posts with “Chicago” so they’re easy to distinguish, and you can skip them if you’re not interested!
Yesterday was a full day of fun, starting with a tour of The Robie House, another beautiful home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s located on the campus of the University of Chicago, and is owned by the University. Completed in 1910, it’s possibly the only of his designs to be completed on time and on budget, largely because Wright and Robie were perfectly in sync on their design ideas and didn’t need to stray from the original plan. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of eight of FLW’s buildings with this designation.
The Robie House is full of the typical FLW characteristics – long, horizontal bricks, cantilevered roofs, gorgeous art glass, and flow between interior & exterior spaces. We found it interesting that much of the home’s original furniture (also designed by FLW) still exists but is being kept in storage by the University…the home has almost no furniture in it. We think it’s a bit crazy to store it away when it should be seen and enjoyed in the home where it was intended to be used…oh well.
The billiards room, which has never held a billiards table 
Intricate screen over the ceiling lights 
Beautiful ceiling beams 
Flow from one room into the next 
One of the cantilevered spaces 
A wall of windows… 
Check out the shadow from this light fixture. They had trouble recreating these lights and achieving the shadow that FLW intended.
From there, we headed about a mile East to The Museum of Science and Industry. The building itself has a fascinating history, having been constructed for the 1893 World’s Fair (aka Columbian Exposition) and serving as the “Palace of Fine Arts”. MSI is the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere.
Our primary motivation for this visit was a special, temporary exhibit about Pompeii and it was absolutely incredible. While the eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii, it also preserved it. It was awesome to see artifacts from 79 AD (almost 2,000 years ago!) that are in such amazing condition.
Fully intact, from the first century! 
A section of mosaic floor tile; apparently the first time this has left Italy 
Great quote seen in the exhibit 
Gorgeous table from Pompeii 
Ancient medical instruments 
Kitchen tools including frying pan and colander 
All these years later and he’s just missing a thumb. Amazing. 
Archaeologists were able to create casts of bodies found in the ruins – this one covering his mouth to guard against the toxic gases, just before he died
This is an interesting, short clip from CBS News about Pompeii…worth watching if you’re interested…
https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/exhibits/pompeii/video/
We wandered through a few other areas of the museum; the exhibit about the human body was fascinating – cross sections of every part of the body so you can see the muscles, bones, blood vessels, etc. There’s so much to see there, we will definitely be back. We love that they offer free admission on certain days for Illinois residents; yesterday was one of those days so we only had to pay the separate fee for Pompeii.
May 19, 2023, 5:12 pm
How fun! Did you get to do the coal mine?
May 20, 2023, 9:57 am
Very interesting and inspires an interest in visiting Chicago, the FLW house and the museum. I am a CBS Sunday Morning fan and enjoyed the Pompeii video, though it is a troubling piece of history. Thanks for sharing!