Style and Works
Van Bergen designed Prairie style homes, influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, as demonstrated in this quote from Van Bergen:
Since the American architect has a great opportunity as a leader of the people toward honesty, simplicity and directness, he can educate their tastes and control, to a great extent, their morals and happiness.
Van Bergen's homes can be found throughout northern Illinois. Three of his Prairie style homes with nearly identical layouts can be found in the A.O. Anderson House in DeKalb, Illinois, the Max and Cecile Przyborski Residence in North Chicago, Illinois and the C. Percy Skillin Residence in Wilmette, Illinois. All three buildings are almost identical and were all probably built around 1913.
Another notable home designed by Van Bergen can be found in the Chicago suburb of Maywood, Illinois. The Richard Cluever House is a large estate which not only represents an exceptionally large Prairie style design but also notable for its landscape design which was created by Jens Jensen, famous landscape architect. The landscaping includes an artificial pond and stream complete with a limestone bridge. The stream's water is pumped from the nearby Des Plaines River. In his hometown of Oak Park Van Bergen designed the Charles Flitcraft House in 1914 and then in 1923 he designed a unique, underground garage addition for the home. The driveway retaining wall is made of the original rough-cut and stratified limestone, a style Van Bergen used in many houses after the 1920s.
The renowned Prairie style, “Fireproof House for $5,000”, was a design developed by Frank Lloyd Wright and later adapted by Van Bergen in his practice. The design was intended to serve as an attractive model of space and cost efficiency. Van Bergen designed many as sixteen variations of this plan in Oak Park alone from 1911 through 1923. Built in 1913, “The Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence” is a fine example of this. What also adds to the unique character of this home is a specifically designed upstairs art studio, for then noted local artist Mary Agnes Yerkes, over its main entrance. The "Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence" is an Oak Park Preservation Trust 2001 award recipient.
Prairie style homes designed by Van Bergen are often considered "excellent" or "outstanding" examples of the style and some of them have been declared local landmarks. The city of Chicago declared the Miller House, a 1915 example of Van Bergen's Prairie style on South Paxton Avenue, a landmark on December 1, 1993. The Miller House was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
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Frank Wood Bungalow; Maywood, Illinois 1914
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Anderson House; DeKalb, Illinois 1913-16
Read more about this topic: John S. Van Bergen
Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or works:
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.”
—William James (1842–1910)