By Patrice Hein
College Hill residents are familiar with the Allen-Lambe House, easily recognizable as a Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie House design, with its strong horizontal lines and enormous concrete vases atop the north garden wall.
But what of the other Wright-designed building in town? Those who have admired the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Corbin Education Center as they drive past the Wichita State University campus on 21st Street will have a unique opportunity to explore the building in April.
Tours of the Corbin Education Center will be offered at the WSU College of Education open house scheduled for Saturday, April 19 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Corbin Education Center is the only building in Wichita designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, other than the Allen-Lambe House at 255 N. Roosevelt.
Architectural interpreters from Wichita’s WDM Architects will give tours of the center, offering insight into design features and elements of Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie style. The unique building on the WSU campus was based on a design that Wright had originally intended as the post and telegraph building in Baghdad (it was never built). Those who attend the open house will see that the interior of Corbin Education Center carries the same Wright hallmarks as the exterior. Many of the original furnishings from Wright’s design studio are still in use in classrooms and offices.
The featured speaker for the open house is Rob Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation vice president for campus planning, restoration and development. Jones is responsible for the restoration and preservation of the foundation’s two national historic landmarks, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wis., and Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Craig Rhodes, executive vice president of WDM Architects, has conducted extensive research on Frank Lloyd Wright and has served as a docent at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla. and for the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation in Oak Park, Ill.
At the open house, Rhodes will make a presentation, “Frank Lloyd Wright and Kansas: Six decades of artistic interaction.”
