Abraham Lincoln Center, Chicago
Frank Lloyd Wright and Dwight H. Perkins, 1905
700 E Oakwood Blvd, Chicago, IL 60653
Now the Northeastern Illinois University Jacob H. Carruthers Center For Inner City Studies
Left: rendering of "All Souls Building, Chicago;" right: The Architectural Review, 1902, p. 72
The Abraham Lincoln Center (ALC) was founded as a settlement house in 1905 under the auspices of the All Souls Church. The Center quickly became the home to a variety of social, intellectual and cultural activities. The articles of incorporation at that time, state that the Abraham Lincoln Center corporation was formed to be "the advancement of the physical, intellectual, social, civic, moral and religious interests of humanity, irrespective of age, sex, creed, race, condition of political opinion and in furtherance thereof the maintenance of institutions of learning and philanthropy."
The Abraham Lincoln Center was commissioned in 1898 by Unitarian leader Jenkins Lloyd Jones to serve as a settlement house and community engagement center for his church, All Souls. Lloyd Jones hired his nephew, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, to design the building with classrooms, apartments, and a large auditorium. Wright worked through many designs and many options, but they were continually deemed to complex and to ornate for All Souls’ purposes. In 1903 Wright left the project and his collaborator Dwight Perkins took over until the buildings completion in 1905.
The Abraham Lincoln Center is a huge monolith of a building, a very forward looking simple design built to reflect the progressive views of Jones’ Unitarian congregation. It borrows more from factory design than it does church design with its boxy form and lack of ornament. In this way it is a direct predecessor to the late modern movement of the 30s-50s that also looked to the simplicity of factories for inspiration.
brickofchicago on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/C-Su2ECRCs5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The Center was unique in welcoming members of all races and religions during that period of history. Today, the Abraham Lincoln Center builds on the foundation that was laid in the early 1900s. The Center continues to meet the needs of people regardless of religious, ethnic or cultural background.
Frank Lloyd Wright enlisted the help of Dwight Perkins for his first public building, whose striking exterior was finished by Perkins alone after Wright had a falling-out with the client (who happened to be his uncle). Originally the Abraham Lincoln Center, it contained a health club, training school, rental offices and a social center. The auditorium prefigures Wright’s later Unity Temple. Since 1966, Northeastern Illinois University’s Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies has used the building as a home base for urban studies.
Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones began his innovative ministry in Chicago with the founding of All Souls Unitarian Church on the city's South Side in 1882. Jones's inaugural sermon in June of 1885 was entitled "The Ideal Church," which called for an institution to be based on unbounded intellectual freedom, nonsectarian fellowship, and humanitarian outreach. In 1886, after four years of meeting in rented halls, the congregation built and moved into a permanent building named "The Abraham Lincoln Centre" (ALC).
"We wanted a name that would radiate benignity, humility, a Christ-like patience, in short, a saint of the new order, a martyr of the new day, and such a name we believe 'Abraham Lincoln' to be. So we dare Christen this centre of helpfulness, this home of kindness, this academy of life—The Abraham Lincoln Centre." — Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones
Rev. Jones hired his nephew, Frank Lloyd Wright, as the project's chief designer from 1898 until 1903 (at 31 to 36 years old). It was Wright's first sizeable public commission. The final building plans were designed by architect [Dwight Perkins] at 700 East Oakwood Boulevard at the southeast corner of Langley Avenue in Chicago.
Source: Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal
Chicago Architectural Club, various illustrations in the design process for the Abraham Lincoln Center
Source: Siry: The Abraham Lincoln Center, p. 245
The The Abraham Lincoln Center in 1913. Source: Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal
Floor plans. Source: Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTER CHICAGO SOURCES
Jenkin Lloyd Jones and the Abraham Lincoln Center
Abraham Lincoln Center, www.steinerag.com
Abraham Lincoln Centre, Settlement House of Chicago, and All Souls Unitarian Church, Digital Research Library of Illinois History
Joseph Siry, The Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Sept. 1991
