Rodney Wright

1931 - 2016

ATHENS - Rodney Wright, FAIA, 85, passed away at home in Athens, Ohio, on June 24, 2016. Mr. Wright was born to George Edward and Lena May Cahoon Wright, June 2, 1931, on a farm in Valparaiso, Indiana. He was the youngest of 19 children.

Rodney was a punster and loved humor. He also had an unending passion for color, reading, classical music, travel, flowers, cooking, fine wine, French roast coffee and frappuccino's; he believed that most of these intertwined with the principal driving force in his life - architecture.

Wright left home at age 16 and moved to Michigan City, Ind., where he finished high school. After high school, he worked a few odd jobs, then enlisted and joined the Intelligence Section of the U.S. Army for the Korean War.

While based in Berlin, Germany, he met Ingeborg Haley, whom he married in November 1953. The couple settled in Oak Park, Ill., while Rodney undertook apprenticeship - with architects such as Harry Weese and Ed Burch - instead of formal education; "Frank Lloyd Wright told me I could get it myself."

In 1957, Wright became a licensed architect and a father. By 1959, the couple had moved to Libertyville, Ill., where Rodney designed the first of, ultimately, seven residences for himself, and had their second child. The following year, Wright began private practice.

The couple divorced and Rodney married Sydney Goelitz, a city planner. The Wright's moved and set up an architectural practice in Lake Bluff, Ill. After an office fire, they moved to Chicago and began a new practice in downtown.

The tumultuous drape of 1968 in Chicago exacerbated disenfranchisement - especially in Chicago's Uptown district. Wright's response, architecturally, was to create a more benevolent versus narcissistic approach to Chicago's urban renewal challenges. Though unbuilt, the culmination of such an approach was Wright's Hank Williams Village design. By 1969, Inland Architect dubbed Mr. Wright the "Poor People's Architect." And in 1970, Wright was one of four architects on the cover of Inland Architect's issue "The New-Breed Architects." The following year, Wright was to move his office to Uptown.

By 1973, Wright made a decision to design only climatically-responsive projects and, as a result, he is considered a pioneer in the design of solar and super-insulated buildings. Wright won a design fellowship in 1974 from the National Endowment for the Arts for the study of solar buildings throughout the U.S. In 1976, Wright was keynote speaker at the First Solar Symposium, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The firm, Rodney Wright and Associates, was awarded in 1979 what was arguably their most prestigious commission - to design a new solar town in Soldiers Grove, Wis., which became known as "America's First Solar Village."

The following year, the firm opened a second office in Osseo, Wis., changed the firm name to The Hawkweed Group, and published a book, the "Hawkweed Passive Solar House Book."

In 1981, Wright was elected to the American Institute of Architects, College of Fellows. The following year, Wrights' Osseo office building was featured in Progressive Architecture. By 1983, Soldiers Grove was complete and the Wright's appeared on the Jane Pauley Show. Two years later, the project was featured in U.S. News & World Report. Wright was also invited, in 1987, to present at the European Conference on Architecture in Munich, Germany.

The late 1980s and '90s work was dominated by the design of more than 50 children's centers - all ecologically-based environments for clients, such as Johnson Wax, Promega and Jansport.

In 2013, the American Planning Association published "Planning Chicago," a book which included Wright's work in Uptown.

In the same year, Rodney - widowed since 2012 - met Carole. He then designed, and built - largely by himself between 2013-15 - his seventh, and final, residence in Athens, Ohio.

Rodney is survived by four siblings, Alice age 97, Reginald age 92, Juanita age 88, and Burton age 87; a son, Weston, (wife Janice) Wright; daughter, Julie-An Wright; two grandchildren, Joshua (wife Keri) Lintz and Ian Wright; two great-granddaughters, Aspen and Jules Lintz; stepchildren, Louise, Ann and Tom Goelitz; stepgrandchildren, Sarah and David Goelitz; and partner, Carole Alder.