Though underrecognized during her lifetime, the unsung architect played a key role in shaping the more famous architect’s work.
Welcome to Origin Story, a series that chronicles the lesser-known histories of designs that have shaped how we live.
Though Frank Lloyd Wright is arguably America’s most famous architect, what often goes unmentioned in narratives about his influence is the impact of a woman named Marion Mahony on much of his earliest work. Mahony was one of the first licensed female architects in the United States and Wright’s first employee. Her designs and renderings helped create the Prairie School style, which propelled Wright’s career into the international spotlight. Though she was underrecognized during her lifetime, a closer look at Mahony’s career and starting role as FLW’s design collaborator reveals an architectural force to be reckoned with.
Marion Mahony became the first woman in Illinois to secure her architecture license in 1898. She’s considered one of the first licensed female architects in the United States—and the world.
Photo by Rowland Herbert, courtesy Willoughby City Library
Early Blueprints
Born in Chicago in 1871, months before the Great Chicago Fire, Marion Mahony spent much of her formative years witnessing the city’s reinvention through development. Raised largely by her mother, aunt, and grandmother (her mother was a prominent school principal who socialized with suffragists), Mahony pursued architecture even though, at the time, women were almost entirely excluded from the profession. In 1894, Mahony became the second woman to receive an architecture degree from MIT and returned to Chicago to work as a draftsperson for her cousin, architect Dwight H. Perkins. The next year, after they were introduced by Perkins, Wright hired Mahony at his burgeoning practice, which eventually became his Oak Park, Illinois, studio. The decision was groundbreaking for the era, though the pair had much in common—both were Unitarians and found inspiration in the work of architect Louis Sullivan. In 1898, Mahony became the first woman in Illinois to secure her architecture license.
Frank Lloyd Wright hired Mahony in the mid-1890s as he was setting up his burgeoning practice, which eventually became his Oak Park, Illinois, studio (pictured above left).
Left: Photo by Philip Turner, courtesy Library of Congress. Right: Photo courtesy MIT Museum.
Mahony drafted plans and skillful renderings for many of Wright’s early-1900s projects, including the Unity Temple in Oak Park—one of his most celebrated buildings.
Photo courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art/Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library)
See the full story on Dwell.com: If You Know Frank Lloyd Wright, You Should Know Marion Mahony Griffin
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