Unity Temple restoration wins national historic preservation award

Just months after being honored with a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple can add another feather to its cap. The Unitarian Universalist church received a 2019 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the organization announced Wednesday.

Although the 1908 building is considered to be one of Wright’s most significant designs, the Oak Park building had suffered decades of deterioration and even earned a spot on the Trust’s 11 Most Endangered Places in America list in 2009. A $25 million restoration effort painstakingly repaired the building’s concrete exterior as well as the sanctuary’s plaster, paint, woodwork, and art glass skylights.

“It was phenomenal before, but it’s even more amazing now,” Gunny Harboe, the Chicago-based architect who led the restoration, told Curbed Chicago in 2017. “We were able to recapture the original intent and feeling of the space. Its organic pallet of colors is executed in a way that provides a rich softness that was missing for some time.”

The finished result gives new life to a historic building which “continues to serve its original purpose as a house of worship and has become a tourist destination for Frank Lloyd Wright enthusiasts from all over the world,” said the National Trust in a statement.

Nick Fochtman

The annual Driehaus awards are selected using a juried competition process. Reserved for projects that “demonstrate excellence in execution and a positive impact on the vitality of their towns and cities,” the award is considered one of the most coveted and prestigious accolades for historic preservation.

Oak Park’s Unity Temple is one of three projects to earn that distinction in 2019. It joins Boston’s Longfellow Bridge and the adaptive reuse of a former power station in Providence, Rhode Island, into the South Street Landing development.

For all of Unity Temple’s architectural distinctions, the battle to protect the structure is an ongoing endeavor. Earlier this year, a developer proposed a 28-story apartment tower just down the street. The plan was ultimately abandoned after preservationist groups raised concerns about the high-rise casting shadows over the Wright-designed landmark and its restored skylit sanctuary.