Isabel Roberts
Isabel Roberts (March 1871[1] – December 27, 1955) was a Prairie School figure, member of the architectural design team in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and partner with Ida Annah Ryan in the Orlando, Florida architecture firm, "Ryan and Roberts".
[2] James was a mechanic and inventor born in Utica, New York; Mary, a homemaker and a native of Prince Edward Island.
The Roberts family were active members of the First Presbyterian Church of South Bend,[6] and social and civic groups through which they became friends of Laura Caskey Bowsher (later, DeRhodes).
[8] Isabel Roberts was among Wright's first employees when he left Louis Sullivan and opened his own studio in Oak Park, Illinois.
Frank Lloyd Wright was one of a number of emerging architects who were part of a movement that Marion Mahony called The Chicago Group and later came to be known as the Prairie School.
The Chicago Group espoused Louis Sullivan's credo, "form follows function," which became evident in their work, hallmarks of which include: a close relationship of the building to the landscape, an openness and informality of the floor plans, large overhangs on the exterior structure, a use of horizontal bands and clustered windows and a restrained use of conventionalized forms from nature as a harmonious ornamental theme throughout each building.
John Lloyd Wright relates that William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert McArthur, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis were the draftsmen.
He further clarifies that they made up the five men and two women who each were making valuable contributions to Prairie style architecture for which Wright became famous.
Wright biographer Brendan Gill calls Roberts "the office manager of the Oak Park studio".
[11] Similarly, Diane Maddex labels "Isabel Roberts, the office manager of his studio in neighboring Oak Park.
"[15] This is consistent with Frank Lloyd Wright's writing about the Oak Park "...studio adjoining my home, where the work I had then to do enabled me to take in several draughtsmen and a faithful secretary, Isabel Roberts..."[16] Grant Carpenter Manson wrote "Isabel Roberts, for whom one of the most celebrated Prairie Houses was built in River Forest in 1908, was not an architect; she was bookkeeper and general factotum at The Studio..."[17] Manson's information was incomplete and inaccurate, as shown in the reference letter Wright wrote for Roberts in 1921, as noted below.
"[21] Isabel Roberts also produced some original designs for the leaded art glass windows in the Prairie houses.
Their business is listed under the heading "Architects" as "Ryan and Roberts" in the 1926 and in the 1927 Orlando City Directories, at 240 S. Orange St. and the Kenilworth Terrace address.
One of only 10 architectural firms listed in 1926, the others including: Frank L. Bodine, Fred E. Field, David Hyer, Murry S. King, George E. Krug, Howard M. Reynolds, Frederick H. Trimble and Percy P. Turner.
Letters of recommendation from John Van Bergen, Hermann V. von Holst and Frank Lloyd Wright which accompanied her application make it unmistakably clear that these men who had been her colleagues in Chicago considered Roberts to be an architect.
Nonetheless, throughout the 1920s, the architectural firm of Ryan and Roberts created landmark buildings in Central Florida, some of which still stand, today:[36] Additional residential and commercial structures by Ryan and Roberts continue to be identified as current owners become more aware of the significance of the contributions these women made to the field of architecture.
