{"id":3073,"date":"2021-03-28T13:14:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T13:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omnihomeideas.com\/design\/organic-architecture\/frank-lloyd-wright\/annunciation-greek-orthodox-church-milwaukee-wisconsin\/"},"modified":"2024-07-06T11:54:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T11:54:35","slug":"annunciation-greek-orthodox-church-milwaukee-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/design\/organic-architecture\/frank-lloyd-wright\/annunciation-greek-orthodox-church-milwaukee-wisconsin\/","title":{"rendered":"Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is certainly one of the most dramatic Wright buildings in existence.\u00a0When talking with one of the docents on the tour, she wondered why it didn’tshow up in more Wright publications.\u00a0 I didn’t have an answer for her onthat, but I know that on the three main publications that it is a part of, iteither has a HUGE central pictorial and description, or its on the cover.\u00a0This is a building that deserves to be on the cover!!!<\/p>\n

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We visited the church on one of the few days each year when itis open to the public.\u00a0 You’ll notice in many of the photos that the churchis surrounded by tents and rides and most of all, people!!!\u00a0 It was theannual Greek festival and it was quite a spectacle.\u00a0 The main source for alot of the information we got was the wonderful talks that were given during thetour of the church.\u00a0 We found ourselves going through the tour again andagain to hear a different talk by a different person.\u00a0 We really enjoyedthe hospitality and inspiration that each of these people shared.\u00a0 THANKYOU!<\/p>\n

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The Greek Festival surrounded the church with tents andcarnival rides.<\/p>\n

Originally designed not long before Wright’s death in 1959, themain construction was completed in 1961.\u00a0 Later additions included the artglass Icon windows, as well as some repairs and revisions along the way.<\/p>\n

As the story goes, it was not an easy time getting people toagree on Wright as the architect.\u00a0 It seemed that each group in thebuilding committee had their own choice for an appropriate architect.\u00a0 Whenthey finally agreed on Wright and notified him of this agreement, the waitingbegan.\u00a0 They waited and waited for a design… most on the committeegrowing increasingly more anxious about the wisdom of selecting Wright.\u00a0One day, Wright had one of his apprentices bring him some fresh paper andpencils and he sat down and wrote up the design, in its entirety,\u00a0 in asingle morning.<\/p>\n

Wright had to do some research over this time to understand thenature of Byzantine architecture so that his creation would fit in well with thefaith and beliefs of the congregation.\u00a0 Byzantine architecture is primarilyhorizontal and uses domes and features in an odd number… usually 3.\u00a0 TheOrthodox cross is an equilateral cross that usually appears within acircle.\u00a0 This theme of a cross within a circle appears throughout thedesign of the church.<\/p>\n

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The layout of the pews and altar are in the shape of a cross,with the dome of the church providing the circle.\u00a0 On the lower level youcan see one of the points of the cross ahead and another to the left.<\/p>\n

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The brass work that sets off the altar and holds the paintedicons is all made up of stylized crosses within circles.<\/p>\n

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Even the lights around the outside of the sanctuary, when putone on top of another, make up a cross within a circle.\u00a0 There’s one lighton either side of the spiral stairway.<\/p>\n

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Air conditioning vents are hidden within this design.<\/p>\n

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Looking up the center of the spiral staircases reveals a cross within acircle.\u00a0 The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n

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Spiral staircases add a lot to the decor.<\/p>\n

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The spiral staircases each surrounded a light spire.<\/p>\n

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Interior stained glass<\/p>\n

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The other side of the front door.<\/p>\n

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Stained glass icons in the top floor of the sanctuary.<\/p>\n

After the extended wait for the design, the building committeewas certainly a bit shocked at the drawings that finally arrived.\u00a0 Wrightcertainly had his work cut out for him when it came time to sell thedesign.\u00a0 As the story goes, his most basic description of the churchinvolved a cup of tea.\u00a0 He took the cup, placed the saucer upside down ontop of the cup, held it up and said, “This is your church.”<\/p>\n

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Stitched photo of the sanctuary<\/p>\n

The most amazing thing about the construction of the church isthe dome.\u00a0 As with any Wright building, light is very important.\u00a0There needed to be a way to let natural light into the building in such a waythat it really brought out the beauty of the interior.\u00a0 If you look atphotographs of the inside of the dome, you’ll notice that it is completelybounded by these small portal windows.\u00a0 That means that the entire weightof this 104′ dome is held up by the small spaces between these windows.\u00a0 Inaddition to this, it had to be done in such a way that the structure couldhandle the seasonal forces that cause expansion and compression with theconstant freezing and warming.\u00a0 Though there were some problems with theinitial implementation of the design, the principles behind its structuralintegrity held true.\u00a0 The dome is quite secure with what appears to be aminimum of support.<\/p>\n

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Anotherview of the outside.\u00a0 Notice the Orthodox Cross at the top of each verticalmember.<\/p>\n

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Stylized Orthodox Cross at the entry of the Annunciation GreekOrthodox Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1284,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[18,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-3073","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"category-frank-lloyd-wright","6":"tag-flw","7":"tag-wi","8":"infinite-scroll-item"},"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"gform-image-choice-sm":false,"gform-image-choice-md":false,"gform-image-choice-lg":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Peter Beers*","author_link":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/author\/peter\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"... Read more","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17059,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3073\/revisions\/17059"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}