Billiard room window for the Frederick C. Robie house [Robie window number 23]

In 1910, Frank Lloyd Wright stated: “It is quite impossible to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings another, its setting and environment still another.” Wright, the leading architect of the Prairie School, designed Dining Table and Six Chairs for the Frederick C. Robie Residence in Hyde Park. The stylized wheat motif, seen in the table lighting fixtures and the windows of the house, illustrates Wright’s belief in unified design. The combination of wood, ceramic, and leaded glass of the table set echo the exterior materials of the residence. Similarly, dynamism of emphatic horizontal and vertical elements gives form to the dining room furniture and the outer masses of the house. By designing both the shell of the house and its furnishings, Wright brought the exterior and interior in harmony with an overall aesthetic scheme.