Carpet History Then and Now: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House

In Chicago last month for the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair,  I did something I have always wanted to do – tour a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Every year, NeoCon organizes tours of the Chicago area, which is famous for its interesting blend of architectural styles, and for being the city where several famous architects established themselves.  Most famous of all is the brilliant, colorful Frank Lloyd Wright. One of his most notable early projects is the Robie House in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Robie House for a successful young Chicago businessman and his family. Completed in 1910, the house now belongs to the University of Chicago, but it is in the process of a major renovation that is being funded by a private trust.

When I entered the low-ceilinged front lobby, I immediately noticed the carpet that covered the floor, continued up the stairs and went throughout much of the house. I picked up one corner and saw that the carpet was tufted – a modern reproduction of the original woven carpets that were manufactured in Austria in 1908 specifically for the Robie House. Just like the original, the new carpet repeated the stylized motif Wright used throughout the house – in the ceiling beams, light fixtures, and the 174 art glass windows and doors that wrapped the house in what Wright called, “light screens.”

I contacted the research department of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust to find out who the manufacturer was and they sent me a reprint of a 1989 article that appeared in Architectural Business magazine. It told me what I had wanted to know: the carpet had been designed and manufactured by California’s Bentley Mills, using Dupont Antron nylon and Bentley’s brand-new, ChromaTech computer color placement technology. The project had won the 1989 DuPont Antron award for historic product adaptation. Of course, the company known in 1989 as Bentley Mills is now internationally recognized as Bentley Prince Street. After reading the article, I went on the Bentley Prince Street website and discovered something that really made me smile: Valerie Venancio, the young designer who, in 1989, was Bentley Mills’ Director of Design, and who worked on the Robie House project, was none other than Valerie Ottaviano,  Bentley Prince Street Vice President of Product Design, (who, coincidentally, was also at NeoCon in Chicago the same time I was.)

I asked Valerie to talk about the process of designing carpet for a beloved architectural icon.

BR: What was the creative process for you? What were the challenges?
VO: To be able to see copies of the real working drawings and placement of the motifs was very cool; the challenges were to get the placement per the original direction on an entirely brand new kind of technology.

BR: What was the new technology?
VO: It was an injection dyeing machine that used air pressure to deliver a full ten colors all the way to the bottom of the carpet substrate, versus traditional screen printing which colored only a small portion of the depth.

With the Robie House wanting a plusher look, it was very important to them that the technology replicate a true woven look that would last.

The machine was manufactured in Germany, and the only other one running in the world was in Egypt. Ralph Mishkin, one of the founders of Bentley Mills, travelled there to see it and bought the first one to be used in the U.S. It was really state-of-the-art

BR: Was FLW’s carpet installed wall-to-wall? Did you find anything out about FLW’s feelings about carpet and soft floor covering?
VO: At the time I did as much research as I could, and we had an entire team on this project. The motifs are very specific in placement, so the production arm of our manufacturing team was just as important to the success of the project as I was with what I was recreating on the disc. Let’s just say there was a lot of math involved!

BR: What was most personally satisfying for you?
VO: To be part of recreating history. Remember this was before shows like History Detectives and Antiques Roadshow!

BR: Any other historical reproductions for you?
VO: No, that period was followed by the wonderful dot com craze, so I moved from projects embracing heritage to those embracing portals to the internet. Believe me, at that time I thought, “portals to the internet?” – is that statement in English?

BR: It still looks great – are you surprised?
VO: No not at all. Bentley has other projects that we still win awards for on their “sustainable” aspects that have been down even longer. Product life is an unsung element of sustainability! We need to celebrate that factor – it’s way more sustainable to specify something that will last a long time versus worrying solely about the percentage of recycled content.

Thank you, Valerie – I really enjoyed seeing your beautiful work in that wonderful historical setting – it is a perfect example of the creativity and innovation that has always been integral to the carpet industry

~Bethany

Credit for images above: Collection of Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. Photographer: Tim Long.

Click here for a link to the 1989 article titled The Robie House… Wow!