Art and Coffee in Oberlin
Details
We’ll grab a coffee at Blue Rooster Bakehouse and then proceed to the Allen Memorial Art Museum on the Oberlin University campus. Cass Gilbert was the architect who designed the museum along with several other buildings on campus. He also designed the US Supreme Court, West Virginia State Capital, and Woolworth Building in New York. a Monet exhibit over the next few months. We will also visit the Frank Lloyd Wright home and arboretum nearby.
The Weltzheimer/Johnson House at Oberlin College is a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian House situated several blocks from campus. Designed in 1947 and completed in 1949, it is the first Usonian house in Ohio and one of the few in the nation open to the public.
A clear expression of Wright’s Usonian design philosophy, the Weltzheimer/Johnson House demonstrates an architectural answer to the demand for beautiful and affordable middle-class homes in post-World War II America. The concepts of organic architecture had evolved into these Usonian characteristics by the time of the house’s construction: a flowing floor plan with distinct public and private wings; a slab floor of concrete with grid patterning and radiant heat; a flat roof and cantilevered carport; a centralized masonry fireplace; board-and-batten ceilings with “sandwich” walls; built-in furniture; and tall glass windows and doors opening to the landscape.
The Weltzheimer/Johnson House may in certain ways be a typical Usonian home, but has notable aesthetic idiosyncrasies, including the wooden balls ornamenting its cornice, the uniquely curvilinear design of its perforated board windows, and the use of redwood (instead of the usual cypress) throughout its interior and exterior.
Commissioned by the Weltzheimer family in 1947 and completed in 1949, the house originally stood amid cornfields on a large lot across from the Oberlin Golf Club (founded in 1899 and active today). After the Weltzheimers sold the property, alterations to Wright’s design were made by intervening developers. The property went through several stages of conservation before it was bequeathed to Oberlin College in 1992.
In 1968, the home was purchased by Ellen H. Johnson, the distinguished art history professor at Oberlin College who started its famed art rental program. Johnson, a well-known art critic and collector, hosted such artists as Robert Morris in her home. With the help of her many students and local contractors, Johnson restored much of the property to its original state as designed by Wright. She bequeathed the house to Oberlin College and, following her death in 1992, it has been overseen by the Allen and the Art Department.
Click here for tickets. Choose November 1 at Noon.