Francis Barry Byrne Collection

This collection includes published and unpublished writings, photographs, architectural drawings and biographical information. Byrne apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright in his Oak Park studio for seven years and in 1913 agreed to manage Walter Burley Griffin's office while Griffin and his wife, Marion Mahony, were in Australia developing the plan for the new capital city of Canberra. Although steeped in the Prairie School design idiom, Byrne's exposure to modernist European architects such as Mies, Mendelsohn, Loos, and Poelzig produced an individualized, streamlined form of the Prairie School style with bolder masses, unadorned surfaces, and clean-edged openings. Byrne was notable as a designer of residences, churches, and civic buildings; as an architecture critic and theorist he wrote extensively on the design of religious architecture in response to the Catholic Church's liturgical reform movement. View finding aid.View all Francis Barry Byrne images. Collection access:Collections may be accessed in the Franke Reading Room of the Research Center at The Art Institute of Chicago, by appointment only. For further information, consult the FAQ. Finding aids by subjectBrowse all finding aidsBrowse images and mediaOral histories Contact the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives:archives@artic.edu